Sending emails securely
Posted on In QASending emails securely is needed for certain situations, such as sending my bank account to my wife, giving my account password to my close friend for a while. How to send it? Regarding the recent US PRISM program, it is an important issue.
Seeing your solution, a few of my own popped up. Here are my thoughts:
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Encrypt the text file having your sensitive information and send it to the other party. This raises the question of the encryption algorithm being strong enough. A simple example could be with ‘SecurePad’ plugin for Notepad++ editor. Or if you’re totally paranoid, better use some AES/Rijndael to encrypt along with a HMAC signature to verify the integrity.
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http://s-mail.com/ – from the US!
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http://www.hushmail.com/ – Canada
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http://www.countermail.com/ – Sweden (Paid)
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http://www.neomailbox.com/ – Switzerland (Paid)
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Bitmessage – https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Main_Page
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Adium and Pidgin have OTR facilities
Great list. I would add another one: https://www.riseup.net/en . It is non-commercial service but looks good.
From Ladar Levison http://lavabit.com/ :
This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would strongly recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.
hushmail only provides paid account now AFAIK.
The countermail and neomailbox from Sweden and Switzerland look good and possibly good choices.
A useful website: https://www.sendinc.com/
The emails will automatically be destroyed after certain (7 for free accounts) days, and your recipients will no longer be able to access the message.
However, you must trust that company if you use it.