Keep Your E-Mails Secret

Trying to Keep Your E-Mails Secret When the C.I.A. Chief Couldn’t

 How to's ... a partial list:

• Anonymous Web browsing
• Choose the “off the record” feature on Google Talk
• Encrypt your messages
• Use a service like 10 Minute Mail allow users to open an e-mail address and send a message, and the address self-destructs 10 minutes later

It is hard to pull off one of these steps, let alone all of them all the time. It takes just one mistake — forgetting to use Tor, leaving your encryption keys where someone can find them, connecting to an airport Wi-Fi just once — to ruin you. “Robust tools for privacy and anonymity exist, but they are not integrated in a way that makes them easy to use,” Mr. Blaze warned. “We’ve all made the mistake of accidentally hitting ‘Reply All.’ Well, if you’re trying to hide your e-mails or account or I.P. address, there are a thousand other mistakes you can make.” In the end, Mr. Kaminsky noted, if the F.B.I. is after your e-mails, it will find a way to read them. In that case, any attempt to stand in its way may just lull you into a false sense of security.

Comment: I don't do any of these. My email is boring! Image source (PC Mag article on email)