New Email Encryption Tool

By Daniel Miessler on October 23rd, 2005: Tagged as General | Technology

This looks pretty interesting.

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Viewing 5 Comments

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    Why does it look interesting? DRM is a pretty screwed concept IMHO
    • ^
    • v
    Well, I can agree with that in many cases, but here we're talking about work email, i.e. content that doesn't belong to the user in the first place. This is a company protecting its own assets/content, and I don't see an infringement on the rights of people using the system.

    Did I miss something?
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    • v
    From an authority type of view, what happens when the SOX related emails can't be accessed when the SEC comes to call, or the IRS? What happens when a senior manager has left been hit by a bus and all his protected emails (including contract arrangements) can't be read because he used DRM on them and on-one knows his password?

    What about, in 2015, your corporate archives that were protected in 2005 by using DRM (which was never removed because, why would you if you put it on in the first place?) that you can no longer access? Unfortunately, that includes your only copy of the lease agreement and the terms of renewal because all your physical documents were destroyed in a fire in 2010.

    DRM is a solution looking for a problem. The big supporters are the media companies that want to clip your ticket again and again. Think about the syuff you'd be 'protecting' - is it worth the risk of not being able to get at it?
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    Hmm, I think the risk of people grabbing massive amounts of content and emailing it out in plaintext *is* dangerous enought to warrant the use of a solution.

    I think your thoughts on losing availablility of the data is very important, and I imagine there might be a solution for that, i.e. perhaps storing a copy with a special token that can open the content.

    But yeah, it's not worth sacrificing availability for a bit of confidentiality. If they do it wrong it could go real bad, but like I said -- the chances are very good that there's going to be a backdoor of some sort to protect availability.
    • ^
    • v
    Still requires receiver to install special software, which is the fatal flaw in email encryption adoption.

    In my small business I need to encrypt maybe 1 out of 20 email that I send. I don't have an IT dept. The benefit I want is to send the email from my computer, to the receiving computer, and I want the receiver to be able to open my message without installing special software. I spent weeks trying different solutions, and finally just began encrypting files in zip format. Then I found Messagelock (http://www.encryptomatic.com) which encrypts my Outlook email and attachments into a zip file. Anyone with Winzip installed can access the contents of my message, without special software.

    For anyone who's got a small shop but who needs to get a message from A to B securely, check out MessageLock. For me it provides 98% of the benefit that I need, with about 1/100th of the hassle of PGP.
 

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