Encrypted Mail message in a NSF

You will need two things in order to decrypt the messages: A Notes client and the key used to encrypt the messages.

There are two possibilities.

1) The entire database has been encrypted.  Local databases are encrypted using the user's ID file.  You will need to log into Notes using the id file that was used to create the local replica.

2) Only some emails are encrypted.  In this case the sender encrypted the message using a secret key.  To decrypt these message, you will need the sender to forward the secret key to you.  Then you will have to accept the secret key (which will be stored in your ID file so that you always have it) in order to view the message.  To get the sender's secret key, have the user goto File > Security > User Security > Notes Data > Documents, select the secret key that he used to encrypt the email and click the "Mail Secret Key" button.  Once you receive the email containing the key, save it to your hard drive, then goto File > Security > User Security > Notes Data > Documents and click Other Actions > Import Secret Key, browse for the key file and import it.

Bill, AFAIK, the sender encrypts (as fgrushevsky says) the message using the public key of the recipient. That's how public/private key encryption works. The sender cannot help you therefore, you need the recipient to help you decrypt the message.

Thanks, sjef.  I left out the most obvious case.

So there are now three scenarios:

1) The entire database has been encrypted (Explained above).

2) Only some emails are encrypted using a secret key (Explained above).

3) Only some emails are encrypted using the recipient's public key.  This is very similar to case #1.  You will need to log into Notes using the recipient's ID.

Bottom Line:  Log in using the recipient's id.  If there are still encrypted emails, then they were probably encrypted using a secret key.

Thank you all for the very useful responses and making it easy to understand.

Now, what if I don't have the id file of the intended recipient? Is there some way that I can disable the encryption or is there some way I can get the data without the encryption keys??

Thanks again!!

Without the users ID file ( private keys ) or the encryption keys, there is no way to access the data. Notes is a very secure environment.


I hope this helps !