Paul LaFlamme, president of Centrend, reminds you to think before you click send
Think Before You Click Send
I'm impressed when companies go paperless. What a great thing! Kill fewer trees, make things searchable, make it easier to pass information via email. Hey, wait a minute. Pass things through email? Alright, but what if the email content is not something I'd want to post on the bulletin board at the Public Library or in the Cafeteria at work?Okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit here, but not much. My point is email is NOT private. It's not even close to private. Neither are the attachments that you send to colleagues via email. Jon Callas, Chief Technology Officer of PGP Corporation, the world leader in providing "Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)" solutions explains it: "Email is like a postcard that can be read by anyone. That's why people who care about security (and privacy) are turning to encryption to protect confidential data in transit - even across the unsecured internet."
I won't go into too much technical detail here as to how the system works, but the concept is as follows:
To encrypt and decrypt messages, there are two parts to the encryption process; a public key and a private key. The public key is meant to be shared with the world. Senders that wish to send encrypted mail to someone gets a copy of the individual's public key and encrypts the email to it. You can freely give out your public key via your website, send it through email, or rely on PGP's free public key servers to lookup your intended recipients address and download their key. PGP Corporation's software will automatically search the server and download the key, streamlining the process.
The private key stays with the individual and together with their passphrase, decrypts information that was encrypted to the recipients "public key." The magic to this solution is there is no passphrase sharing. Noone except the recipient needs the private key or passphrase to read the incoming message.
You can learn all about PGP encryption and why companies use it by reading the executive brief at: http://www.pgp.com/newsroom/executivebriefs/index.html - enprimer_mypgphttp://www.pgp.com/newsroom/executivebriefs/index.html#enprimer_mypgp
If you need some help getting PGP going for you or your organization, we'd be glad to help you get started. In the meantime, please - THINK before you click send!!
About the Author
Paul LaFlamme is President and CEO of Centrend, Inc. a computer consulting firm that services customers’ Information Technology needs throughout Central Massachusetts. Educated at Worcester’s Clark University and with a MBA from Tulane’s Freeman School of Business, he prides himself in his company’s ability to save customers time and money by delivering technology results within a CEO’s timeframe.
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