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KodiacZiller
Premium Member
join:2008-09-04
73368

1 edit

KodiacZiller to Frydays

Premium Member

to Frydays

Re: top 5 safest and most secure email providers ?

said by Frydays:

so secure not even the fbi can read my stuff
That is not the e-mail provider's job. That is your job. You need to encrypt your e-mails using PGP if you want to "stop the FBI from reading" your messages. Your contacts will all have to use PGP too, of course. I use an open-source version of PGP called GnuPG and encrypt my e-mails occasionally (depending on the contact).

As far as the e-mail provider, it doesn't much matter. Gmail is as good as any as far as I am concerned. Their spam filters are top notch.

caffeinator
Coming soon to a cup near you..
Premium Member
join:2005-01-16
00000

1 edit

1 recommendation

caffeinator

Premium Member

+1

I've heard hushmail is pretty good, but these days, most ANY provider is susceptible to a warrant or a nat'l security type letter. Just look at the recent takedowns...

Maybe OP needs to go live in Finland?

Frydays
join:2005-10-21
South Padre Island, TX

Frydays

Member

ok some of you read what i said an went somewhere else with it ok heres what i need from a email provider

1.good almost perfect spam filter
2. ability to block emails from ever 1 on the net or something close to it
3. cheap if i have to pay

good security so i can get the receips from stuff i buy online an bank stuff u know secure enough that no 1 can get in an steal my credit card numbers or personal info

chrisretusn
Retired
Premium Member
join:2007-08-13
Philippines

chrisretusn

Premium Member

said by Frydays:

good security so i can get the receips from stuff i buy online an bank stuff u know secure enough that no 1 can get in an steal my credit card numbers or personal info
Never send credit card information via email. Receipts that are sent out after an on-line purchase do not contain complete CC number only partial. If there are sending you receipts with full information then stop doing business with them.

caffeinator
Coming soon to a cup near you..
Premium Member
join:2005-01-16
00000

3 edits

caffeinator to Frydays

Premium Member

to Frydays
said by Frydays:

ok some of you read what i said an went somewhere else with it ok heres what i need from a email provider

1.good almost perfect spam filter
2. ability to block emails from ever 1 on the net or something close to it
3. cheap if i have to pay

good security so i can get the receips from stuff i buy online an bank stuff u know secure enough that no 1 can get in an steal my credit card numbers or personal info
I have my own domain with a very good host located in a top-tier datacenter. I create my own accounts, and use my own choice of mail scripts on my own server. All SSL, no .JS allowed.

I also have custom SpamAssassin rules, use DomainKeys, SPF Records, and the host uses Enterprise-Level Filtering Hardware.

It's good enough for normal email. If I need be I can send encrypted as well using my own 256 bit AES (1024 bit RSA/SHA) SSL cert. I don't need much more.

I could use GnuPGP....but considering I don't know anyone who'd know how to receive that sort of mail...it's kinda useless.

I haven't even used an email client on a computer since about 2007. No worries here.
DrGunn
join:2010-07-16
San Diego, CA

DrGunn to Frydays

Member

to Frydays
Just use Gmail. Seriously. It's free, the spamfilter can't be beat, and they use » for all connections.

chrisretusn
Retired
Premium Member
join:2007-08-13
Philippines

chrisretusn

Premium Member

said by DrGunn:

Just use Gmail. Seriously. It's free, the spamfilter can't be beat, and they use » for all connections.
https only make the connection between you can Gmail secure.
Bashy
join:2009-05-20
Arlington, VA

Bashy to Frydays

Member

to Frydays
Frydays, as caffeinator said, try hushmail www.hushmail.com. Been using Hushmail for years. As to your points, here is what my experience with them has been:

1)I have never gotten a piece of spam. Ever.
2)You can block anyone, (never had to because no-one ever spammed me).
3)$39.99/yr for a 1 gigabyte email box, (I have never gotten past 1 half of a gigabyte, I just erase stuff I don't want to keep).

But the best thing in my opinion is this simple feature: if someone hacks into your account, they will get absolutely nothing. Your emails will look like a bunch of random numbers and letters. That is what encryption does. Hushmail encrypts your stuff on their servers so no one can get any of your emails. When you log into your account and supply the correct user name and password, it 'decrypts' your emails back into English. So you can keep your receipts right in your email box without any worry. If you never give your password to anyone, your emails stay private and un-hackable, simple as that.

Hushmail does have one more 'spy' feature that I have never used, but it's worth mentioning. You can encrypt individual emails. That means that you can call someone or communicate with them in some way other than email and give them a password that will allow that person, and only that person with the password, to open that email. If anyone else tries to open it, the email will look like random letters and numbers. The only reason I mention it at all is because Hushmail asks you every damn time you send an email if you want to encrypt it.

I got Hushmail for the same reasons as you mentioned in your post. I don't care about all the super spy stuff they offer, I just want to know that the hackers can't get my emails with my receipts in it. Yahoo, Gmail, they get hacked sometimes and the people that get compromised, well, their emails can be read, not a good thing. They can't get ever get your emails if you use Hushmail. All of this is only works if you never give your email password to anyone, but you knew that already, right. ;D

The best thing is you can try Hushmail for free. Go there and sign up for a free email account and you can see if you like it or not, (the free email box is like 25 MB, quite teeny). When I decided to join, I wanted to make my password kind of secure, so I used a long password. You should use a long password too. Just combine 2 or 3 passwords you know and make a 16, 17, 24-character password, whatever, you'll get used to it fast.

Last thing. Hushmail is no good if your PC has a virus or a rootkit on it. Me, I have Deep Freeze on my PC to prevent that, but that is another story

»www.faronics.com/en/Prod ··· ate.aspx

Smokey Bear
veritas odium parit
Premium Member
join:2008-03-15
Annie's Pub

Smokey Bear

Premium Member

said by Bashy:

Last thing. Hushmail is no good if your PC has a virus or a rootkit on it.
+ no good when you need POP and/or IMAP. Free hushmail customers are excluded from POP/IMAP.

anon8990
@shawcable.net

anon8990 to Bashy

Anon

to Bashy
You forgot to mention that they also have a backdoor built-in

chrisretusn
Retired
Premium Member
join:2007-08-13
Philippines

chrisretusn

Premium Member

said by anon8990 :

You forgot to mention that they also have a backdoor built-in
Can you back that up with references?

rcdailey
Dragoonfly
Premium Member
join:2005-03-29
Rialto, CA

1 edit

rcdailey

Premium Member

said by chrisretusn:

said by anon8990 :

You forgot to mention that they also have a backdoor built-in
Can you back that up with references?
Here's a story from three years ago:

»www.wired.com/threatleve ··· iouspost

Whole lot of hyphens in that link, I see.

Another story from a couple of years ago:

»www.theregister.co.uk/20 ··· rumours/

I don't know that it's fair to say this is a back door. It's more like saying that the concierge will cooperate with the cops.

chrisretusn
Retired
Premium Member
join:2007-08-13
Philippines

chrisretusn

Premium Member

said by rcdailey:

I don't know that it's fair to say this is a back door. It's more like saying that the concierge will cooperate with the cops.
Agree, a court order is not exactly a back door. Any service can be subject to court orders.

Thanks for the links.

anon8990
@shawcable.net

anon8990

Anon

that's not the point. The point is that your info is not "secure" with hushmail like they say it is! If it is secure, there's no info to give to the cops!

chrisretusn
Retired
Premium Member
join:2007-08-13
Philippines

1 edit

chrisretusn

Premium Member

said by anon8990 :

that's not the point. The point is that your info is not "secure" with hushmail like they say it is! If it is secure, there's no info to give to the cops!
You did not make that point in your post.
said by anon8990 :

You forgot to mention that they also have a backdoor built-in
You stated they have a back door, I asked for some verification of that. You provided nothing to backup that statement.

Hushmail does not promise to keep you from the cops. It does not promise that your data is 100% secure. Perhaps they did so in the past as implied in the articles referenced in rcdailey See Profile's post: »Re: top 5 safest and most secure email providers ? but I see no similar promises today.
quote:
The Limitations of Hushmail

Hushmail is the most secure webmail service on the Internet, but it is not a 100% solution for all of your security needs. There are some things that Hushmail cannot do.

Hushmail does not put you above the law

We are committed to the privacy of our users, and will absolutely not release user data without an order that is legally enforceable under the laws of British Columbia, Canada, which is the jurisdiction where our servers are located. In addition, we require that any such order refer specifically to the account for which data is required. However, if we do receive such an order, we are required to do everything in our power to comply with the law. Hushmail will not accept an order from any authority or investigative agency that is not enforceable under the laws of British Columbia, Canada. Other authorities must apply to the Canadian government through an appropriate Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty and request that the Canadian government obtain an order that is legally enforceable in British Columbia, Canada.

But I thought the data was always encrypted

When one Hushmail user sends an email to another Hushmail user, the body and attachments of that email are kept on our server in encrypted form, and under normal circumstances, we would have no access to that data. We can’t just pick an arbitrary encrypted email message off the server and read it. However, since Hushmail is a web-based service, the software that performs the encryption either resides on or is delivered by our servers. That means that there is no guarantee that we will not be compelled, under an order enforceable under the laws of British Columbia, Canada, to treat a user named in an order differently, and compromise that user’s privacy.
Source: »www.hushmail.com/about/t ··· ecurity/

Bottom line if you want secure email, encrypt it your self using PGP or GnuPG. Even that is not 100% secure under a court order.