Thread: Encrypted Email Options

Encrypted Email Options

There's really only one way to ensure that your emails are kept confidential....encrypt them. The two most popular forms of email encryption are OpenPGP and S/MIME. Encryption scrambles your email into something unintelligible that only someone who has the correct digital "key" can read.

If you are located outside of the US (in a safe country) like some of our sources then using Gmail is not as risky as it would be for John Smith in BFE, Montana. The feds have shown over and over that they can easily access U.S. based non-encrypted email providers like Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail and Gmail.

So far, with the exception of Keptprivate, encrypted email providers located within the U.S. have successfully hidden behind their inability to crack their own encryption inorder to avoid cooperation with the Feds, but Congress may soon require social networks, VoIP, and Webmail providers to build in back doors that the FBI could tap for electronic surveillance purposes: http://www.informationweek.com/news/...ment/240000653

The honest answer is that nothing is truly 100% secure. However, if you are a betting man, you can roll the dice on any provider located as far from the U.S. as possible. I like the below listed choices (especially s-mail because they are located in Russia):

countermail - server is in Sweden and you pay for use
mutemail- server is Bahamas and you pay for use
s-mail- server is in Russia and service is free
guardmail - server appears to be in Germany (but not positive) and service is free
ssl.mailvault - server is in Germany and service is free
anonymouspeech - server is in Panama and you pay for use



WARNING: cyber-rights.net and hushmail.com are two other free options located in Canada, but they MAY be working with the Feds.
Hushmail DID cooperate with the feds during ORD and should not be trusted.

Also, as of 12/2012, there have been multiple reports of safe-mail (server is in Israel) email accounts being hacked.



This list is not all inclusive, so feel free to add an encrypted email provider to this thread if you have another safe option.