Secure Email Project

Secure Your E-mail

• I actually liked this project. It was a little difficult due to the fact that the step-by-step instructions were for PC users, but I was grateful for the conversion of commands listed in the discussion by the professor. It was really neat to send encrypted messages, use keys and secure the e-mail from everyone else. Sort of spy-ish!
• It's very useful in a business to keep records confidential. Secure information so it is not leaked. In searching for an article I came across a press release about a company in Brazil that decided to use secure e-mail for exchanging documents within the Board because information had been leaked that could have affected their stock value.

However, the article that I chose was about Germany. The article posted on The Wall Street Journal on Nov. 17, 2010 and on Big News Now, which summarizes it, because WSJ online is a subscription service, says that Germany moved their national postage mail to secure email. A person still has to pay for each letter being delivered through secure email by Deutche Post, but they can pay a flat rate of $87 per year. Germans are climbing on board with about 1 million already signed up. About 100 companies have signed up for the service as well. I assume that secure mail has the feature of encryption and digitally signed e-mails, but it did not say so in Big News Now. It could have in the WSJ.

I think that this is fascinating with a whole country moving to email for regular mail. It uses less trees, is probably more secure for people and it is moving the country/ businesses forward in this "digital age."