By: iPadfanzz Editor on June 18, 2013
With all the talks of government snooping over your emails, collecting your Internet data and listening to your phonecalls, lots of people are now feeling the need to protect themselves from such attacks. Making your computing life more private is important. It is because there’s every chance in the world that the NSA and other government agencies may want to read your email.
It is true that a vast majority of mails that we generate are of no internet even to our close ones, leave alone the government. Still, these recent events do provide a perfect excuse for running through the steps for encrypting your email. Besides capturing your email content and attachments, a miscreant could hijack your entire email account if you failed to secure it properly.
First Step:
To secure your email, you need to encrypt three things: the connection from your email provider; your actual email messages; and your stored, cached, or archived email messages. While sending or receiving email messages, it is important to encrypt the connection from your email provider to your computer or other device. This can pose problems if you use a public network (the Wi-Fi hotspot in a restaurant). Encrypting your messages before sending them makes them unreadable so that they can have a safe journey from one point to another. There is equal vulnerability when you leave your saved or backed-up email messages on your computer or mobile device, even if you've password-protected your email program and your Windows account or mobile device.
Second Step:
To secure the connection between your email provider and your computer or other device, you need to set up Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption--the same protection scheme that you depend on when checking your bank account or making online purchases.
Before checking your email, make sure that SSL/TLS encryption is active. You can check it as the website address (URL) will begin with https instead of http. Depending on your browser, you’ll also see a green lock appearing before the website address of your email.
If you don't see an 'https' address and other indicators after logging into your Web-based email program, type an s at the end of the 'http' and press Enter. If your email provider supports SSL/TLS, that instruction will usually prompt it to encrypt your current connection.
However, unlike a website, it is hard to verify or to set up the encryption in program like Microsoft Outlook or to an email app on your smartphone or tablet.
To do so in your mail app, go to settings menu, and there will be options including POP/SMTP, IMAP/SMTP, HTTP or Exchange account. Now look for an option to activate encryption; it's usually in the advanced settings near where you can specify the port numbers for incoming and outgoing connections.
In Outlook, go to advance settings to encrypt the service.
Third Step:
Moreover, you can also download encryption software or client add-ons. You can also use a Web-based encryption email service like Sendinc or JumbleMe, but doing so forces you to trust a third-party company. Most forms of message encryption, including S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) and OpenPGP, require you to install a security certificate on your computer and to give your contacts a string of characters called your public key before they can send you an encrypted message. Likewise, the intended recipients of your encrypted message must install a security certificate on their computer and give you their public key in advance.
For a mobile device it's best to use an operating system that provides full device encryption by setting a PIN or password to protect your email and other data. BlackBerry and iOS (iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch) devices have offered this type of encryption for years; Android supports it only in version 3.0 and later.
With all the talks of government snooping over your emails, collecting your Internet data and listening to your phonecalls, lots of people are now feeling the need to protect themselves from such attacks. Making your computing life more private is important. It is because there’s every chance in the world that the NSA and other government agencies may want to read your email.
It is true that a vast majority of mails that we generate are of no internet even to our close ones, leave alone the government. Still, these recent events do provide a perfect excuse for running through the steps for encrypting your email. Besides capturing your email content and attachments, a miscreant could hijack your entire email account if you failed to secure it properly.
First Step:
To secure your email, you need to encrypt three things: the connection from your email provider; your actual email messages; and your stored, cached, or archived email messages. While sending or receiving email messages, it is important to encrypt the connection from your email provider to your computer or other device. This can pose problems if you use a public network (the Wi-Fi hotspot in a restaurant). Encrypting your messages before sending them makes them unreadable so that they can have a safe journey from one point to another. There is equal vulnerability when you leave your saved or backed-up email messages on your computer or mobile device, even if you've password-protected your email program and your Windows account or mobile device.
Second Step:
To secure the connection between your email provider and your computer or other device, you need to set up Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption--the same protection scheme that you depend on when checking your bank account or making online purchases.
Before checking your email, make sure that SSL/TLS encryption is active. You can check it as the website address (URL) will begin with https instead of http. Depending on your browser, you’ll also see a green lock appearing before the website address of your email.
If you don't see an 'https' address and other indicators after logging into your Web-based email program, type an s at the end of the 'http' and press Enter. If your email provider supports SSL/TLS, that instruction will usually prompt it to encrypt your current connection.
However, unlike a website, it is hard to verify or to set up the encryption in program like Microsoft Outlook or to an email app on your smartphone or tablet.
To do so in your mail app, go to settings menu, and there will be options including POP/SMTP, IMAP/SMTP, HTTP or Exchange account. Now look for an option to activate encryption; it's usually in the advanced settings near where you can specify the port numbers for incoming and outgoing connections.
In Outlook, go to advance settings to encrypt the service.
Third Step:
Moreover, you can also download encryption software or client add-ons. You can also use a Web-based encryption email service like Sendinc or JumbleMe, but doing so forces you to trust a third-party company. Most forms of message encryption, including S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) and OpenPGP, require you to install a security certificate on your computer and to give your contacts a string of characters called your public key before they can send you an encrypted message. Likewise, the intended recipients of your encrypted message must install a security certificate on their computer and give you their public key in advance.
For a mobile device it's best to use an operating system that provides full device encryption by setting a PIN or password to protect your email and other data. BlackBerry and iOS (iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch) devices have offered this type of encryption for years; Android supports it only in version 3.0 and later.
