how does it work? what do I need to do? is there anything special on my end that i need?
Hello there,
On riseup, the encryption is a per account encryption system where every mail you receive or send is stored in an encrypted form using a secret key that is stored in a encrypted vault that only can be accessed with your password. There for, the key is only available for you and you only can read that emails, no matter if riseup sysadmin birds, or anyone else, have direct access to the storage, your email will keep been encrypted with that key that is only available for you. The project that make this possible is called Trees and you can check the details of it here: https://0xacab.org/riseuplabs/trees
So, you don't need anything special to use this storage encryption, once it is enabled for your account every NEW email will be encrypted (older emails will remain as they were, not individually encrypted, stored in an encrypted disk drive tho). If your account is kind of new, this encryption will be automatically enabled, otherwise you will need to enable it manually. You can check your case login on https://account.riseup.net and checking the value of the "Encrypted Storage" message.
Is important to remark that this is no replacement for PGP or any other kind of end to end encryption. If you need that, you should be using PGP.
On riseup, the encryption is a per account encryption system where every mail you receive or send is stored in an encrypted form using a secret key that is stored in a encrypted vault that only can be accessed with your password. There for, the key is only available for you and you only can read that emails, no matter if riseup sysadmin birds, or anyone else, have direct access to the storage, your email will keep been encrypted with that key that is only available for you. The project that make this possible is called Trees and you can check the details of it here: https://0xacab.org/riseuplabs/trees
So, you don't need anything special to use this storage encryption, once it is enabled for your account every NEW email will be encrypted (older emails will remain as they were, not individually encrypted, stored in an encrypted disk drive tho). If your account is kind of new, this encryption will be automatically enabled, otherwise you will need to enable it manually. You can check your case login on https://account.riseup.net and checking the value of the "Encrypted Storage" message.
Is important to remark that this is no replacement for PGP or any other kind of end to end encryption. If you need that, you should be using PGP.