Computer Security &Amp; Personal Email Certificates

Submitted by: E. Lopez

Nowadays, people like knows that everything is being taken care of via email: family messages, love letters, party rental confirmations, wedding invitations, school notifications, new account confirmations, weekly gossips among friend, the “occasional” PPS sideshow, and a gazillion more reasons that right now scape my imagination. Emailing have become a new verb in our colloquial language, and also a way of life for many Internet addicts around the world just like me–and now I caught your attention, just like you. 😉

Do you know how to send a email properly?

Emailing is fun, makes a lot of users’ life easier, and it definitely the way to approach your boss when you need a salary raise (well, don’t copy me on that yet). But I consider that a good 50% of the users out there don’t even get close to know how to use the service properly. I still get emails with endless email lists of emails from people that have forwarded and email from somebody who forwarded it after forwarding a forwarded email previously forwarded by a forw… STOP! That is example “numero uno” of emailers not knowing how to properly compose an email.

Another example is the still-unknown fact (why?) that you can hide email addresses using the BCC field to avoid the previous problem mentioned. Just put that huge list in the BCC filed instead of the TO field. In other words we have cooperated to the increasing SPAM community by not following the simple, yet unknown-by-many emailing rules. Yes, these guys just take these lists and they simply use them! However, like I sometimes say in some of my posts, “this part of another story.”

Get Protection with an Email Certificate

For those who don’t know, there is a better, securer way to send emails: get a personal, secured email certificate (or for short “PEC”). Instead of the unsecured way to send emails many are used to, you could sign up for a free PEC to digitally sign your emails, and also encrypt your messages with the same tool. Cool, huh? All of this for free! Personally, I use a Comodo Secure Email Certificate, but there are other reputable companies offering them such as Thawte that will do the job just as good. Initially, I tried to sign up for a certificate with Thawte, but I keep getting an annoying error message. A while after I decided to go with Comodo, and it has been like that ever since. However, be your own judge when acquiring a PEC.

Down Side of Certificates

I have been an avid user of these certificates for quite a while, and it is just the way to go. Nevertheless, and like many things in life, they have a down side. Unfortunately, they cannot be used with web-based email addresses such as Yahoo!, Gmail, or Hotmail (awwwww…). Also, if you are to send an encrypted message, the other party would require to obtain a certificate as well in order to successfully protect the message. Since the majority of people haven’t obtained one yet, this process is simply not done too often.

In my opinion, there’s more about emailing than you think and most people don’t know this. SPAMERS take advantage of this ignorance to attack the most vulnerable with their “evil email campaigns” that undoubtedly annoy everybody–and Yahoo!, Gmail, Hotmail, and other email providers simply cannot keep up with. However, even though the anti-SPAM industry has been doing a plausible job, this war has to be fought by all of us.

Be light years ahead of the majority by applying some of these simple, yet effective ways to protect your emailing experience. If you have any questions, doubts, or need help setting up your email certificate, contact us.

About the Author: E. Lopez is the president and founder of kRemtronicz, a

San Diego web design

,

San Diego SEO

, and computer repair service company. kRemtronicz strives for 100% customer satisfaction; not only by offering professional services, but also by integrating our client’s ideas and suggestions. All our services are about our clients and their overall satisfaction.

Source:

isnare.com

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