email security

[reddog]

hello - I have been using a hotmail account since University for personal data including financial information.

I have come to the conclusion that I may need something a little more secure for my financial information as I have no idea what would happen if something went wrong with this free service (I have no idea what the ULA is!!)

Anyone got any suggestions for a secure email system (I don't want to use a local email server), or would say creating a new gmail account that I just use for select services be ok?

[stek]

hello - I have been using a hotmail account since University for personal data including financial information.

I have come to the conclusion that I may need something a little more secure for my financial information as I have no idea what would happen if something went wrong with this free service (I have no idea what the ULA is!!)

Anyone got any suggestions for a secure email system (I don't want to use a local email server), or would say creating a new gmail account that I just use for select services be ok?

PGP

[reddog]

thanks, I think you may have misunderstood my question. I am not particularly looking to encrypt email, I am more concerned about email that has been sent to me (financial details etc.)

hotmail and gmail have all of the features I need, but I am storing valuable data in a free service, if something went wrong (lost data or hacked account), would I have any recourse against these free services?

Also I don't want a DIY email server solution as I don't want the responsibility to potentially screw things up.

[wim121]

You've just answered your own question. You either set up your own mail server or use a free one.

You can pay to get an email address, but they are hosted by the same companies as free ones so there is no benefit.

[reddog]

I take your point, it just a gut feeling, but keeping financial info in a cr@ppy hotmail, yahoo or gmail account which gets spammed like crazy just doesn't feel right.

Any opinions if it would be more secure for me to set up a new hotmail or gmail account exclusively for important data?

I also came across this:

Hushmail – Free Email with Privacy

anyone used this service?

[wim121]

Funnily enough I have. I used hushmail while setting up a vpn service, masking my details using various aliases. It has the advantage of being encrypted and I never got spam on that mail address.

However I never get spam on my work account which is a hotmail one. Most of the time you only get spammed, when your details get sold on. That's why I have one email for everything on the internet, one for memberships and site logins, one for work only, etc etc.

Hushmail were ok, a rather basic page with little options. Just FYI, if you do use them, remember to log in on a regular basis otherwise your account gets deleted (rather disappointed mine did as it was a funny one).

[Mr.Whippy]

hotmail and gmail have all of the features I need, but I am storing valuable data in a free service, if something went wrong (lost data or hacked account), would I have any recourse against these free services?

I use gmail for personal account as well as Google apps for my a few of my own business domains. I don't think Google are going anywhere for a while, but if you really wanted to be safe you can use IMAP/POP3 to download the mails to your own client/machine as a backup.

I also use the Google Authenticator on my iPhone which gives me 2 factor authentication so it's very unlikely to get compromised.

btw, I get no spam on my accounts, Googles filter is very good imo.

[Vanilla]

thanks, I think you may have misunderstood my question. I am not particularly looking to encrypt email, I am more concerned about email that has been sent to me (financial details etc.)

hotmail and gmail have all of the features I need, but I am storing valuable data in a free service, if something went wrong (lost data or hacked account), would I have any recourse against these free services?

Also I don't want a DIY email server solution as I don't want the responsibility to potentially screw things up.

Depends upon what "financial details" have been sent to you and why you are storing this supposedly valuable data in an free online service, surely it would make sense to save the e-mail locally and delete the original? Do you not have your own domain name registered?

[davetza]

hello - I have been using a hotmail account since University for personal data including financial information.

I have come to the conclusion that I may need something a little more secure for my financial information as I have no idea what would happen if something went wrong with this free service (I have no idea what the ULA is!!)

Anyone got any suggestions for a secure email system (I don't want to use a local email server), or would say creating a new gmail account that I just use for select services be ok?

As always Google is your Friend Back up your Google Apps data

[Platypus]

Why not use the Business version of Google Apps? IIRC it's more available and more reliable. And I'd suppose that being a paid-for service, they're less likely to pull the rug out from under your feet for no apparent reason (one hears stories on the net of Google doing this to people).

Linky: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/smbs.html