Based in Switzerland, today ProtonMail is the world’s most popular secure email service, with millions of users worldwide.
If you have been following the news, you realize that the US Justice Department has been fighting for your data. The NSA collects detailed information on specific people, such as the actual audio of phone calls and the entire content of email accounts. NSA analysts can submit a request to obtain these types of more detailed information about specific people.
“For 40 years, the assumption has been that individuals have no expectation of privacy in any information we voluntarily share with third parties—from phone records to bank statements to how and where we buy and sell goods,” Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law said.
“Virtually any activity on the phone generates” the data, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said, “including incoming calls, texts, or e-mails and countless other data connections that a phone automatically makes when checking for news, weather, or social media updates.”
The arguments ended with this ruling: The Supreme Court said the government generally needs a warrant if it wants to track an individual’s location through cell phone records over an extended period.
Revelations have come to light about Justice Department desires to indiscriminately parse mobile phone data and NSA citizen surveillance. This has left people wondering how can they better secure their email. One obvious conclusion is to use servers beyond USA borders. It requires more than this.
In 2014, ProtonMail became the world’s first email service to protect data with end-to-end encryption. ClinicalPosters supports bilateral encrypted email with ProtonMail members. It is also possible to send encrypted expiring messages to any (non-member) email address.
ProtonMail uses Zero-Access Encryption, which means the hosting company can't read or decrypt its users’ messages. End-to-end encryption means messages are encrypted on the sender’s device (before they leave the computer or mobile phone). They can only be decrypted by the recipient’s device.
Legible contents cannot be intercepted. Workers at the hosting service are not able to snoop through your files while passing the time during a late night shift. Even if email servers are seized by government officials, the data is unreadable. The only way content can be exposed is if the sender or recipient shares the information.
How to Access Your Encrypted Mail
ProtonMail handles the process elegantly. Their servers only store encrypted messages. This eliminates copies of plain text messages that could be read by a third party. With an account, you can access mail by logging into the ProtonMail website or with their app on your mobile device.
1. Without a ProtonMail account, a generic message is delivered into the recipient’s mailbox with a unique link to open the encrypted message. This message contains the subject and unique password hint if provided. The password is generally either shared verbally or via a separate email. The hint can be used to describe something unique to the recipient as a decryption password.
2. Upon clicking the link, the recipient is asked to enter the decryption password selected by the sender of the message.
Decrypt Message
3. After the optional period elapses, the recipient is shown the expiration message.
Expired Message
To get your free or enhanced business encrypted email account, visit ProtonMail.
