In order to defend against that, it is possible to encrypt the whole email message instead of only encrypting the transfer. The standard PGP (“pretty good privacy”) allows it. Other than the name may suggest, this system is actually really safe instead of being “pretty good”. And thanks to OpenPGP it is also open-source and freely available.

Please feel free to skip the following paragraph if you don’t like things to be too technical. For our email encryption, PGP uses asymmetric key algorithms. The recipient (person A) of a message has a private key. It is needed to decrypt a message. The sender (person B) needs the public key of person A for the encryption of the message. Person A, the recipient, needs to transmit this public key to person B before encryption can happen. After that, person B will be able to encrypt and send a message with the public key of person A. As long as person A keeps its private key safely on its PC, only person A will be able to read its messages.
In order to send a message from person A to person B, person A needs the public key of person B.
If there are any doubts about a person really being who the person claims to be, a so called “handshake” can be performed. In practice, this means the exchange of security words away from keyboard. The security words can be transmitted on the phone or in real live. This makes the email conversation not only secure, but also reliable.

Honestly, this sounded complicated. And it actually used to be complicated for a long time. Thanks to a project called PEP (“Pretty Easy Privacy”) it got really easy now. PEP can be installed as an add-on for some email client programs and will take care of everything regarding encryption. This includes generating, attaching and importing of public keys and also generating a private key and decrypting incoming encrypted messages. If the conversational partners are using OpenPGP without PEP, it is still possible to communicate encrypted. Add-Ons with PEP like Enigmail are freely available for email clients like Thunderbird. There are also commercial extensions, for example for Outlook.

The following lines are supposed to show how you can encrypt your email conversations -completely free- with Thunderbird and the Add-On Enigmail with PEP. The following pictures have been made on a GNU/Linux-based operating system with Thunderbird 60.7.0 (64-bit). The operation can be different with other operating systems and software versions.

Step 1: Open Menu (1) in Thunderbird and click on Add-Ons twice (2).

Step 2: Search for the Add-On “Enigmail”.

Step 3: Install Enigmail (self-explaining)

Enigmail automatically creates a private and a public key in the background. There is nothing to do for you. The picture just illustrates that a new key has been created.

Step 4: Importing the first key

We receive an email from someone who is also using PGP-based encryption. Enigmail automatically recognizes that a public key is attached to the email. If we want to answer or send a regular email to this participant, it will be automatically encrypted.

Step 5: Sending the first encrypted email and eventually performing a handshake

PEP shows, that this message is secure. This means, that right now we are sending this message encrypted. Our own public key will be automatically attached. Therefore the recipient will be able to encrypt its answer message.
Eventually we also want to secure the trust between us and the recipient of this email by performing a handshake. This is not mandatory, though.

By clicking on the yellow-marked area “Secure” the handshake can be arranged. PEP will give self-explaining instructions about this. If you want to perform a handshake, it has to be re-done for each participant you are communicating with.

Done. We have just massively increased the security of our email conversations.

Hints:

• Even if the email itself is encrypted, the transmission should still be secured with SSL. Only by encrypting the transmission it can be assured that meta data and passwords are also transferred encrypted.
• If our interlocutor does not use any type of PGP/PEP/OpenPGP-encryption, we won’t be able to communicate encrypted with that person. It always takes two! Enigmail with PEP will always show you if a message will actually be sent encrypted.
• Whenever we receive an encrypted message, it can only be decrypted with our private key. Therefore it makes sense to have backup of our key that is stored secure and privately, fe. on an encrypted USB flash drive.
• Reading encrypted messages is generally only possible with an email client program like Thunderbird. Reading encrypted messages on the web, fe. at GMail or Hotmail is only possible with a few providers with browser add-ons. Not every provider allows reading encrypted messages and some do only with limitations.

Please be aware, that all of this informations and/or tutorials come without any type of warranty.

What happens to the hard disk in case of a fire or a flood? If the home- or company-computer gets stolen, there is an additional risk besides the loss of data. Data can be dangerously misused by the thief. Especially the home user is almost unable to ensure for all those hazards. It is a big task to ensure redundancy alongside security against fire, water and theft.
This is why more and more people are looking for storage in the internet. The private data will be transferred using a (mostly secured) connection to the hard disk of a computer in a data center. Such a data center is not just always monitored by a security staff, but also has strong protection against fire, flood and power failure. The data may also be saved to more than one hard disk, so that it won’t get lost in case of a failure of a single disk. All of this is generally speaking possible for less than one Euro per month.

It is also remarkable that more pre-defined users are able to access the same data. That way, two or more people would be able to work at the same project even if they are in totally different places of the world. Or just in the neighbor town.
This is why online storage is especially interesting for clubs and companies. It is possible that, for example, all the board members of a club can access the club’s members list.
The definition of more users to have access to the online storage usually leads to add-on fees.

The acquisition of online storage is also attractive in combination with converged devices. That way the private surveillance camera can regularly upload a picture of the house. The home owner will then be able to control the status of his house right from the beach at its holiday destination.
Especially when dealing with sensible data, the choice of the provider becomes very significant. There are big differences when it gets to the security of transfer and storage. The software offered by the provider might also be a big key point. Especially the big players force the customer to use their own software, which might not be compatible with the home envoirement or lead to significant limitations.

Not every provider is able to ensure that your own data is really kept secret. A unintentional publication of data can lead to ugly consequences. Pitiable destinies caused by this issue are all over the news.
It is also important, that data still belongs to its creator from a legal perspective even if it is stored at a computer far away.
Deleted data needs to be erased safely, so it won’t get into the wrong hands.
Limitations by the provider regarding data transfer, used protocols or the size of single files can lead to add-on fees or just limit the usability.
After all, it has to be considered, that the internet connection is always utilized when transferring data. Even if someone has a fast internet connection, this person could still notice delays. A lot of internet connections receive data faster then they send it to the internet. When in a volume-based pricing models (mostly used for mobile or satellite connections), transferring a lot of data could lead to additional fees. Generally all of this has to be taken into consideration, but it won’t lead to any big issues.
With all this things considered, a reasonable solution can be found with the German provider STRATO. They will fulfill almost all of the previously discussed criteria. Limitations with the usable protocols should be considered. For example the usage of FTP can lead to additional fees.
Kielburger IT-Consulting also offers its own solutions for online storage. Those will be individually planned and realized.

Go to STRATO (Please choose “STRATO” in the “Internet&Festnetz” menu)