"Watching Out for Yourself On-line

Be careful what you write on-line!  The painful truth is that e-mail messages are not very secure and now the damage they can do is much greater.  With the new E-Sign legislation, the written word in cyberspace carries much more weight than it ever did before.  Your messages to friends or family can now be construed as intent to do something, a promise, or a threat.  Find out how to protect yourself and your privacy.

If you are sending personal, confidential, or sensitive e-mail, protect your messages by using privacy software to encrypt your e-mails.  The three that seem to be most popular are: PC Guardian, RSA Security, and Entrust Technologies.  Each of these web sites gives good information about what to consider when buying encryption software and RSA Security offers free download trial offers.  PC Guardian's software ranges from $20 (single user personal) to $500 (for the CD Rom version).  I could not find software for sale at Entrust, but they appear to be a global leader in PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) and have suppliers all over the world.

So how does encryption software work?  It's confusing!  The common feature to most software seems to be public/private keys.  Here's what happens:

• You create a public key and send it to anyone and everyone who may be sending you e-mail.  The bigger you make your public key, the more privacy but the longer it takes to transcribe the information.
• When someone is sending you mail, the public key you sent is used to encrypt the message.
• You also accumulate public keys from the people you correspond with and do the same when sending them mail.
• All public keys are specific to a certain e-mail user and they have a private key that only the creator of the public key can use.
• When a person sends you a message using your public key (that you sent to them), only you will be able to translate the funny looking symbols into intelligible words.  To do this, you use the private key (mentioned above) that unlocks information sent with your public key.

Sounds a little complicated, doesn't it?  Don't worry; there are instructions that come with the software.  Another option is digital certificates that function in the same way as the keys.

For up to the minute information on privacy issues in technology, check out the Electronic Privacy Information Center's website at www.epic.org.  There are great links to other agencies that are working to protect your privacy on the web as well as the latest news, policies, privacy tools and other great resources.

If you would like to learn more about securing your website, check out the WomanOwned.com article in the technology section.