The first and last places – devices – are easy to understand. Today, there are four basic places where most people’s email can be compromised: Amazingly, email sent using those wide-open methods still (mostly) works. Email was all transferred completely in the open – everything was readable by anyone who could watch network traffic or access accounts (originally not even passwords were encrypted). It was developed when the Internet was a much smaller place to standardize simple store-and-forward messaging between people using different kinds of computers. Is email security hopeless? Are we looking at the end of the Internet’s killer app? Why isn’t email secure?Įmail isn’t secure because it was never meant to be the center of our digital lives. Lack of email security is also having some surprising collateral damage, like the announced shutdown of the respected software and law blog GrokLaw.

There have been many efforts to make email more secure, but the recent shutdown of highly-touted secure email services like Lavabit (reportedly used by NSA leaker Edward Snowden) and Silent Circle in the wake of government surveillance programs highlight the difficulties. Email is the original “killer app.”īut email was not designed with any privacy or security in mind. More importantly, being “on the Internet” means having an email address (or dozens of them) they’re our IDs, how we sign up for things, how we receive notices, and sometimes even communicate with each other. It’s built into almost everything, from phones and tablets to traditional computers to gaming devices – heck, even connected home appliances and cars can do email. Fitbit Versa 3Įmail is the most ubiquitous method of communication on the Internet – maybe even on the planet.

Outlook your connection is not private