Information Liberation: Your Guide to the International Web by Jim Rion

Author:Jim Rion
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Reference
Published: 2012-05-04T16:00:00+00:00

Email Encryption

You should always realize, when you send any information over the Internet there is a chance someone could intercept it. Commercial websites almost universally use some form of TLS or SSL encryption

to protect malicious interception of your personal data, but this is not usually the case for emails. Thus, if you are sending sensitive or even mildly personal data through your email, it’s up to you to protect it. Luckily, there are several ways you can do that.

One of the oldest applications of public source, freely available encryption software is PGP, or Pretty Good Privacy, Encryption. Established by Philip Zimmerman in 2002, but using work began in 1991, the PGP Corporation is now part of Symantec. Unfortunately, this means it’s now a paid service, but it offers an extremely robust and deeply comprehensive encryption suite that not only offers email protection, but can encrypt all your files and indeed your whole hard drive. It’s not cheap, but it is secure.

Free services do exist, and they offer specific security solutions for private users of all kinds. For Gmail users, there are a couple of useful applications. One, encipher.it, has been profiled on MakeUseOf here, and another that seems promising is a Greasemonkey script called, simply, Gmail Encrypt. Of course, there are solutions that aren’t specific to one email service, and you can find a good look at a few of them here.

One important thing to remember about email encryption, though, is that it adds one more layer of effort to your email access. Both the sender and receiver must have the same encryption keys, otherwise your emails and files will just be gibberish, so you will have to coordinate closely at both ends.

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