personal or secure email for business

[inward/outward]

I am setting up shop and getting things in order to begin accepting orders.

I want to assure my clients that their email communications with me are secure, etc.... I don't use outlook or any other application for email, therefore, I need something via email hosting (i.e. yahoo, gmail, s-mail, etc...).

What are your suggestions?

I am thinking of getting a custom email account through Yahoo small business that is unlimited in size and I can create my own email address (which means it won't have yahoo.com after the @ symbol).

Anyone doing this, or have any other suggestions, please?

Thanks
IO

[cosworth]

My email is sales at jasonhollister.com

If you use jasonhollister at hotmail.com you look like a dork.

Web hosting costs $3 a month. Use secure domain email. It's easy, cheap and well... smart.

[Gary_Evans]

My email is sales at jasonhollister.com

If you use jasonhollister at hotmail.com you look like a dork.

Web hosting costs $3 a month. Use secure domain email. It's easy, cheap and well... smart.

What sir said :)

[brianlance]

I want to assure my clients that their email communications with me are secure...



What do you mean by secure? Email is inherently insecure.

[inward/outward]

What do you mean by secure? Email is inherently insecure.


Please expand on your meaning.

[brianlance]

Please expand on your meaning.

I asked you first. ;)

In most cases, email is sent across the internet and stored as plain text. Anyone with the right tools can eavesdrop on the email conversation. These plain text email messages can also be stored indefinitely on the various servers it bounces around on its way to your mailbox. Also, most of the time, the communication between your computer and the email server is not secure (in addition to messages being sent plain text, so are user names and passwords!).

There are things that can be done to make email more secure. Using https, or secure IMAP/POP authentication helps with the connection between your computer and the server, but does nothing for the transmission between servers. This is where something like PGP encryption comes in. However it is too technical for most non-technical people to setup and use.

[inward/outward]

Well, I decided to go with Yahoo small business. It is $34 a year, you get a personal email address, customized email formatting, filters, and if you are used to yahoo email, it is much the same.

[hastur]

There are things that can be done to make email more secure. Using https, or secure IMAP/POP authentication helps with the connection between your computer and the server, but does nothing for the transmission between servers. This is where something like PGP encryption comes in. However it is too technical for most non-technical people to setup and use.


There certainly are many ways of protecting your e-mail from unauthorized viewing. The first question you need to answer is "What are the capabilities of the people I'm worried about?" If you're worried about the kid down the street, you will require a different solution than if you're worried about SBC or a government. Are you protecting pictures that will be sent via e-mail?, contracts? times, dates and locations that would be interesting to an undesirable person? Maybe you need a solution that doesn't depend on e-mail.

Some thoughts

Rob

[djeuch]

Unless you can guarantee that providers are only communicating through SSL (TLS) - which is rare - email is the most insecure way of doing any transactions. The protocol used (SMTP) is so ridiculously easy, anyone can pretend to be anyone, and all the data contained within an email conversation (network wise) is unencrypted.

Now, having said that, I do have a personal certificate for my email address, and a signed certificate for my domain name too. On my domain I run a small wiki page, and when you go to log in, it flips over to https (SSL) protocol, which is very secure.

Honestly, email is great for casual, non-critical communications, but I wouldn't email anything important.

Example: my accountant has the option of receiving a copy of my return via email. Hell no - that's got my entire family's social security numbers - I don't want those sent between every computer between his network and mine!

Now, there's a term I love - its called "security through obscurity"... basically, there's SO much email traffic, is your one message going to be intercepted and read by someone who will use it to cause damage? Unlikely, but I'm not willing to take that risk.

[DJShuttering]

If you go to "godaddy . com" you can secure a domain for $10 a year and it gives you a free email addy.

For example, if you got the domain "photos4u" you could make your email:

inwardoutward@photos4u.com

or even

info@photos4u.com