Towards a more secure email future
The present email system on the Internet has several basic security deficiencies…
For one, it is impossible to be sure that the email you have received is indeed FROM the sender it says it is.
Furthermore, it is impossible to tell if that email has been altered along its way to you.
Plus, there is absolutely no assurance of privacy with standard email. Indeed, it is significantly less private or secure than sending a post card through the mail. At least a post card may have a signature you recognize. And at least with a post card, it is unlikely that there is an independent unsecured permanent record of its contents.
Not so with email.
And one of the major reasons that viruses are so easily spread by email is the fact that it is very easy to steal and forge or fake the sender addresses.
Well, there are quite a number of applications and systems for improving email security, but most require a number cumbersome of extra steps.
We have been testing a system that can seamlessly integrate with your email client. It is called Ciphire Mail. It can be found at ciphire.com
Presently this system is in Beta testing. So, only install it if you are comfortable with beta software.
Here is our MiniReview:
First of all, our test system is highly defended and protected. This may explain the problems we had with installation and use of Ciphire. But we seem to have solved most all these problems and now Ciphire appears to be working quite well. Time and more testing will tell.
We believe most of the problems we had were due to configuration settings in Zone Alarm. Once we got those sorted out, Ciphire now seems to be stable and consistent. At this point we can only recommend Ciphire Mail to those who are willing and able to troubleshoot configuration problems.
The great benefit of Ciphire Email is its seamless, user friendly integration. Once it is set up, it requires no additional steps by the user. We believe this system has great potential. Basically, it accomplishes the following:
1) It will digitally sign all your outgoing email.
If the recipient also uses Ciphire, verification is automatic. If the recipients does not use Ciphire Mail, they can verify both your signature and verify that the email has not been altered by going to ciphire.com/verify .
In this event, verification may require this extra step by a recipient who has not installed Ciphire, but we presume this would only be required for a small fraction of emails.
2) If the recipient also has installed Ciphire Mail, the email signature will automatically be verified. The email will also be automatically be encrypted for its entire journey through the Internet. It will then be automatically decrypted for the recipient.
This is very cool.
We greatly favor automated solutions for the very fact that most of us are pressed for time and have enough technology to have to learn. Unfortunately, but understandably, most folks are less likely to use anything that requires extra steps. (hey, we have enough trouble just trying to get our customers to update their antivirus program, therefore, automatic updates are a significant help).
Ciphire works with most email clients and is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux based systems. This in itself is quite impressive.
We found Ciphire technical support to be quite responsive and helpful.
