Tutanota

Tutanota is an end-to-end encrypted email software and freemium hosted secure email service.[3][4] Its motto is "einfach.sicher.mailen" in German, meaning "easy.secure.mailing".

Tutanota
Type of site
Webmail
Available inMultilingual
Headquarters
 Germany
Employees14[1]
URLtutanota.com
CommercialYes
RegistrationRequired
UsersOver 2 million
Launched2011
Current statusOnline
client
Stable release
3.80.4[2] / 12 January 2021 (12 January 2021)
Repository
Written inJavaScript
LicenseGNU GPL v3
Websitetutanota.com, tutanota.de

Its business model excludes earning money through advertisement. Instead, it relies solely on donations and Premium subscriptions.[5]

As of March 2017, Tutanota's owners claimed to have over 2 million users of the product.[6]

History

Tutanota is derived from Latin and contains the words "tuta" and "nota" which means "secure message".[7] Tutao GmbH was founded in 2011 in Hannover, Germany.[8][9]

The goal of the developers for Tutanota is to fight for email privacy. Their vision gained even more importance, when Edward Snowden revealed NSA's mass surveillance programs like XKeyscore in July 2013.[10]

Since 2014, the software has been open-sourced and can be reviewed by outsiders on GitHub.[11][12]

In August 2018, Tutanota became the first email service provider to release their app on F-Droid, removing all dependence on proprietary code. This was part of a full remake of the app, which removed dependence on GCM for notifications by replacing it with SSE. The new app also enabled search, 2FA and got a new reworked user interface.[13][14][15]

In November 2020, the Cologne court ordered monitoring of a single Tutanota account that had been used for an extortion attempt. The monitoring function should only apply to future unencrypted emails this account receives and it will not affect emails previously received.[16]

Encryption

Tutanota offers end-to-end encryption for emails sent from one Tutanota user to another. Tutanota also encrypts all emails and contacts stored in their servers,[17] "except for email addresses of users as well as senders and recipients of emails"[18] and "date of an email sent or received".[19] Emails sent non-encrypted, are encrypted only between the Tutanona user and Tutanota servers, and then sent unencrypted to destination user.[19]

Tutanota uses a standardized, hybrid method consisting of a symmetrical and an asymmetrical algorithm - AES with a length of 128 bit and RSA with 2048 bit.[20][21] To external recipients who do not use Tutanota a notification is sent with a link to a temporary Tutanota account. After entering a previously exchanged password, the recipient can read the message and reply end-to-end encrypted.[22]

Account deletion

Tutanota deletes free accounts that have not been logged into for 6 months.

Censorship

Tutanota has been blocked in Egypt since October 2019, and blocked in Russia since February 2020 for unknown reasons (although believed to be tied to recent actions against services operating outside of the country, especially those that involve encrypted communications).[23]

See also

References
  1. "Huge community support enabled us to employ our 14th team member: Welcome Jonas!". Tutanota. 18 November 2020. Retrieved 28 December 2020.
  2. "Release 3.80.4". 12 January 2021. Retrieved 17 January 2021.
  3. "'NSA-proof' Encrypted Email Service Tutanota Launches". infosecurity-magazine.com. Reed Exhibitions Ltd. 3 July 2014. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
  4. Natasha, Lomas (18 March 2015). "Tutanota, An Open Source Encrypted Gmail Alternative, Heads Out Of Beta". techcrunch.com. TechCrunch. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
  5. "Celebrating One Year of Tutanota Premium - Thank You for Your Support!". Tutanota. 25 July 2016. Retrieved 14 March 2017.
  6. "Reviews of Secure Mail Service Tutanota". Tutanota. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
  7. "What does the name "Tutanota" stand for?". Archived from the original on 2016-07-30. Retrieved 2016-08-06.
  8. "5 of the Best Secure Email Services for Better Privacy". maketecheasier. 23 October 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  9. "Tutao GmbH". Company Register. Bundesanzeiger Verlag. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
  10. "Encrypted Email: The Privacy Alternative to Gmail". StickyPassword. 20 October 2015. Archived from the original on 13 March 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  11. "Secure Mail Service Tutanota Celebrates One Year Open Source". Tutanota. 2 September 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  12. "Tutao GmbH". GitHub. Retrieved 2020-07-17.
  13. Ivan (3 September 2018). "How Tutanota replaced Google's FCM with their own notification system". F-Droid. Retrieved 28 November 2018.
  14. "Tutanota Becomes the Go-to Open Source Email Service with an App on F-Droid". Tutanota. 14 August 2018. Retrieved 28 November 2018.
  15. "FAQ - App Developers". Retrieved 28 November 2018.
  16. "German secure email provider Tutanota forced to monitor an account, after regional court ruling". msn.com. 8 December 2020. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
  17. "Secure mail for everybody!". Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  18. "Privacy Statement of Tutao GmbH". Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  19. "Encrypted email, free & easy". Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  20. "What encryption algorithms does Tutanota use?". Retrieved 17 August 2017.
  21. "Security details about the encrypted email service Tutanota". Retrieved 4 December 2020.
  22. "How do I send an encrypted email to an external recipient?". Retrieved 16 April 2016.
  23. Spadafora, Anthony 18. "Tutanota secure email service blocked in Russia". TechRadar. Retrieved 2020-02-22.
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