Please note there are limited free seats available in FlowCrypt. Please limit it to one person per local body and as-needed for Grand Lodge volunteers to communicate with the Executive or Initiation Secretary.

Why Encrypt?

In the course of your duties you may find the need to transmit personally identifying information regarding members, such as when interacting with the Grand Treasurer General regarding member status or the Initiation Secretary regarding initiation history or sponsorship history. Member privacy is one of our greatest priorities and transmission is closely prescribed in the U.S.G.L. Information Security Policy, excerpted here:

"All transmission of confidential information must use a secure channel. Typically this involves either sending the information in a PGP-encrypted email or separately encrypting the information before attaching it to an email. Be careful how and where you store such information after receiving and decrypting it."

Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is an encryption system used for both sending encrypted emails and encrypting sensitive files. PGP uses both symmetric encryption and public-key encryption systems which allows users who have never met to send encrypted messages to each other without exchanging private encryption keys.

Adding Encryption to Your Internal Email

There are several pgp-based encryption extensions in the Google Chrome store. Sampling found FlowCrypt to be well-reviewed, well-integrated with the Inbox, and easy to set up and use.

"With FlowCrypt, encrypting and decrypting happens on your device. This means that you will have to install FlowCrypt on each device you want to send and receive encrypted messages from."

Go to flowcrypt.com  and click Get Chrome Extension.

On Chrome Web Store, click Add to Chrome.

Click the  puzzle icon in the top right corner of your browser then the  FlowCrypt icon.

This screen will show up. Click Continue with Gmail.

A new window will pop up. Choose your internal email.

Click allow on this screen. You will be given two choices...

If this is the first time you are using encryption on this account, click New Encryption Key.

Else if you have used other OpenPGP encryption software in the past, import your previous private key, see Use My Own Private Key.

Setting Up a New Encryption Key

Warning:

Remember to note the passphrase down! Every day, users email that they forgot their passphrase and can no longer read their encrypted email. Those encrypted emails are forever lost. Don’t be that person. Note your passphrase down.

On the setup screen, click New Encryption Key.

On the setup screen, click New Encryption Key.

Click Create and Save, you are done!    

Set up FlowCrypt with Imported Private Key 

For users who have used OpenPGP through software from another vendor, already received several encrypted messages through this other software, and would like to import their keys into FlowCrypt to be able to read previous encrypted messages.

On the setup screen, click on Use my own Private Key.

Import your private key by loading it from a file or pasting armored key directly. 

Loading from a file is preferred, because copy-pasting and formatting errors are a common source of problems.

Sharing Your Public Key 

Please download your public key and upload it the the USGL - Public Key Depository Shared Drive for those not using FlowCrypt.