Free
Encrypted Email - About Encryption
Following
is a brief overview of the security provided by
your PerfectlyPrivate account.
Email
is no longer just a way to send memos at work
or birthday wishes to Mom. Email is increasingly
how people do business, bank, make consumer choices,
read the news, and communicate with the world.
Many of us assume that the information we transmit
is as secure as a letter or as private as a conversation
between two people.
All electronic messages are sent through a vast
system of routers and servers. Some transmissions
travel as far as the satellites that orbit the
Earth. At points along this path, messages can
be stored, digital signatures logged, and the
contents of private conversations and business
transactions can be retrieved read, and used.
For the first time, a product is available that
is both easy to use and that provides state-of-the-art
security. PerfectlyPrivate provides similar functionality
as found with other Web-based email service, but
with the added protection of privacy, security
and very powerful 1,024-bit encryption. Not to
mention an easy to remember email address!
How
Normal, Unsecure Email Works
When you create and send a normal email text message
(or attachment), your message must first be sent
from your computer to your ISP's computer (often
called a mail server).
Once
this is completed, your message typically goes
into a "mail queue" for handling. Your message
may sit in this queue for as little as a few seconds
or as long as several hours (depending on the
amount of mail the system has to process and/or
whether or not the server your message is trying
to reach is "online" and receiving mail at the
moment.)
Assuming
all works as it should, your message is generally
sent fairly quickly. However, you may not realize
that it may actually be sent across a fairly large
number of 3rd party servers. This is the "route"
which establishes the link between you and your
message's final destination. Typically, your message
may have to travel across between 10 and as many
as 30 other servers before reaching its final
resting point.
Unfortunately,
during this time (i.e. "along the way"), your
message is largely readable by the outside world
(assuming someone is trying to read your message
that is). Even once at its final destination,
typically, your email message is sorted (until
you download it) in a simple text file which can
be read by anyone who may have high level access
to the server it resides on. We've all heard of
cases where email has been read by company officials
and/or found by the FBI days, weeks or even years
later. Let's face it, email is not secure.
Until
now...
What
Makes PerfectlyPrivate Secure Web Mail Better
Unlike standard email which must be sent from
one server to another server across the Internet,
our secure Web email features a number of "security"
features not found with normal email. First, as
long as you are sending email to someone else
who is also using a PerfectlyPrivate or Hushmail
account, your email message never has to travel
over multiple unsecured servers to reach its final
destination.
Perhaps
more importantly, after your email has been sent
and is waiting to be read, it's stored in a totally
secure and encrypted format on the mail server.
This means that even if someone were to break
in and locate your email, the message would be
impossible to decode. All mail remains encoded
and secure until such time as the final recipient
logs in to read their mail. Once they log out,
the mail remains encoded!
Ah,
but what about when you are sending the message
to or from the PerfectlyPrivate server using your
browser? Well, this is were SSL, or Secure Socket
Layer, comes into play. SSL is a secure layer
provided by Web servers and your browser to ensure
data is sent safely. It's the same technology
and method used to encrypt credit card transactions
over the Internet.
When
you log into PerfectlyPrivate, your browser and
our email server are both put into a secure transfer
(SSL) mode. This way, while you are entering your
message to be sent and/or reading your email,
all data being sent to and from your computer
is totally secure and encoded. In fact, short
of someone looking over your shoulder, there is
almost no possible way to decode or intercept
what is written in your message. And the best
part is, while your message waits on our servers,
it's encoded even more securely. In fact, the
only time it's decoded is when you or the person
the message is intended for logs in.
And
as pointed out in some of our technical information,
even if your message(s) were subpoenaed, it wouldn't
make much difference, since the mail is stored
in encoded form and we don't have the secure keys
to decode the information.
The
bottom line is this: as long as you are sending
to another PerfectlyPrivate or Hushmail user -
your email is sent securely, stored securely,
and can only be read by the person holding the
password to the account your email is sent to.
If you aren't reading it and the person you sent
it to isn't viewing it, it's encoded, period.
|
