What is AES, and how is it involved in the Hushmail solution?
Hush uses industry standard algorithms as specified by the OpenPGP standard (RFC2440) to ensure the security, privacy and authenticity of your email. AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) is a type of 128-bit symmetric block cipher. When combined mathematically with a Hush passphrase, the AES algorithm encrypts the private keys of Hush users. This occurs before the key is stored on Hushmail’s very secure key server. The only thing that can decrypt the private key is a Hush passphrase combined with the AES algorithm.
