Between constant password breaches and the NSA looking in on everything you do, you've probably got privacy on the mind lately. If you're looking for a little personal privacy in your communications with friends and loved ones, or you just want to trust that the documents you email to your accountant or client aren't being intercepted and read, you'll need to encrypt those messages. Thankfully, it's easy to do. Here's how.
While government spying is on everyone's mind right now, it's really just the most recent security distraction to make headlines. Before everyone was angry at the NSA (and no, it's unlikely that PGP encryption will protect your emails from the NSA, although there are plenty of examples of law enforcement unable to break PGP encryption, and then trying to force them to hand over their keys), we were angry at corporate snooping, employers reading personal emails, identity thieves, and hackers. While encrypting your email may or may not protect you from a major government or someone with significant time and processing resources, it can definitely keep your data safe from people looking to hijack your accounts, reset passwords and then log in as you, steal financial data, or comb through your contacts looking for useful information about you for spear-phishing attacks.
In this post, we'll walk you through how to encrypt your email using desktop clients including Thunderbird and Postbox, and how to encrypt almost any webmail provider you use (Gmail, Outlook, Google Apps, Yahoo, etc). All you need is a few downloads and a little setup time. Of course, you'll also need friends who also use PGP, since you'll have to exchange public keys with them to make sure they can read your messages.
We've explained several times why your privacy is important, and even if you're not concerned with government spying (which doesn't even require a warrant) or corporate tracking (which you may have unwittingly opted into when you signed up for free email), there are several good reasons to make sure you secure and encrypt some of your sensitive communications.
We can hear you now. You may be wondering why you should bother. "Privacy is dead!" "They're collecting all your data anyway." "Using stuff like this makes you more likely to be targeted." While big government agencies and companies looking to sell you advertising are the first things that come to mind when most people think of internet privacy, they're by no means the only parties interested in your personal data, and you shouldn't behave like they are. It's the more mundane threats and issues that are likely to ruin your day.
Bank statements, contracts, confidentiality agreements or non-disclosure forms, job offers, financial records, medical histories, lab test results; these are all just a few types of information that should—and in many cases are legally required—to stay private. Beyond that, the argument that using security tools somehow invites scrutiny plays to people's fears and encourages them to do nothing. It's not the government or a big tech company that will take advantage of that fear and complacency either, it's the common identity thief, a spear-phisher looking for something they can use or sell, or someone sniffing packets on public Wi-Fi for the sake of curiosity.
Getting Started: How PGP Encryption Works, and What You'll Need
How to Encrypt Your Email and Keep Your Conversations Private
Encrypting your email may sound daunting, but it's actually quite simple. We're going to use something called PGP (Pretty Good Privacy, a name that's actually a tribute to the long-running NPR radio program, A Prairie Home Companion, and not a reference to how good the privacy is) to encrypt our messages. It'll make your messages look like garbled text to uninvited onlookers, like the coffee shop packet sniffer or library SSL cracker. It'll also obscure credit card numbers, addresses, photos, and anything else you may prefer be private if you don't already have a secure connection to your email provider.
Read more: http://lifehacker.com/how-to-encrypt-your-email-and-keep-your-conversations-p-1133495744
http://www.ashworthcollege.edu/career-diplomas/computer-networking