Has anyone got an email account with hushmail.com?
What do you think of it?
It's not free of charge, but they claim they are the most secure email service out there.
Everyday as google grows larger and larger I'm more and more uncomfortable using their email services.
Would you recommend hushmail or perhaps any other provider.

thanks

What exactly do you want to be secure from? (seriously)

For the ultra paranoid, they shouldn't accept anything less than a webmail provider that doesn't require javascript and doesn't block TOR exit nodes. Last I heard, mail.ru fit the bill if you can stand reading russian. From there, simply use PGP for privacy and non-repudiation.

I know that there is a moderator here that has a hushmail account. I will not reply on his/her behalf. Last time I communicated with him/her is a few month back, so it might have changed.

Curious to know what the OP means by "secure"... Does hushmail have a strong security posture? Do they use strong certificates? Do they refuse to divulge customer data to Law Enforcement agencies without appropriate legal documents? with?

Trust is not something you should outsource. That's why I recommend taking your privacy into your own hands with PGP, then the transporter and their policies doesn't really matter.

I've been using FastMail for years. I still do and I do not intend to change that.

The best e-mail service I've ever found on the internet.

It's actually not entirely security I had in mind writing it. I should have phrased it differently. What I am mostly concerned
about is privacy. It really drives me mad when I access my gmail at work and then try to google something - I still stay logged in in google.

Furthermore, I'm not really comfortable using something that is controlled by such a mammoth organisation as google. I realised that I am quite dependent on them (gmail/google search engine/google docs/google maps, etc) I know I shouldn't use
the same email and search engine (I started using http://www.ixquick.com/)

This is probably the reason why I would like to try something new. As most of LQ members are more experienced and have a better grasp of such things, I'd like to hear your opinions about it. Can you do without google? Is it worth to use the services of some smaller companies that would be more dedicated to keeping your privacy? There must be some benefits of using (paid) services of some companies. Otherwise they wouldn't exist, would they? Everyone would be using gmail/hotmail, etc. Or, perhaps, there are no tangible advantages of using eg. hushmail and they just use marketing slogans to attract gullible people (eg. like me)? Reading hushmail FAQs they SEEM to be serious about users' privacy:

THAT can't be said of gmail

Yes, you're right - I've just noticed.

Generally, I'd like to listen to your opinions about it. Basically, is it worth to pay for services like hushmail? If so, what are the benefits (=well, most probably security/privacy, but is it worth it)?

edit: PGP - I started reading about it a few days ago. There's also a thread about it on LQ - it's still as clear as mud to me

thanks all

Here's the deal with Google.

They want to present you with ads to make money. They track your web activities to build a "shopper profile" so they can target the most appropriate ads to you. This allows google to make more money off you from it's advertisers. That is how they are able to offer such BAMF services for "free". It's not *really* free, as you're paying with your "privacy".

Companies that charge you money for their service are doing so to stay in business. It's not free because you're , well, paying them money.

Does the Google startup have ties to NSA? Sure. Is there some evil backdoor social network data mining going on? Probably.

The bottom line is that whether you use gmail, hushmail, yahoo, etc, you're voiding your right to privacy with every click. You're telling the world what you're interested in and you're being tracked.

Now, if you are truly interested in maintaining your privacy, the best you can do is segmentation. Isolate your personas online. Entirely different logins on your computer for each persona. Each persona using anonymizing and privacy tools like TOR, PGP, TrueCrypt, etc.

But you have to remember, every click you make on the web is a broadcast of some aspect of your personal life - voiding all your rights to privacy in that regard. The only thing truly private - for now - is what you keep in your brain and never speak, write down, or stare at.

For me, I'm ok with Google following me around. Their free services are unbelievable and a joy to play with. I just keep thing separate when they need to be so that associations and correlations are harder to make.

I am ONE of the moderators who use hushmail. And you don't have to pay for its 'normal' features. If you want remote (POP) access, you do need to pay, but it's not that expensive.

I use the free service. It offers free encryption of outgoing emails & two-way encryption between hush customers, with a variety of options; and there's free PGP signing: you get your own signed key, so those receiving you emails can check their origin/validity against the hushmail key service. Also, there's (IIRC) 2mb of storage by default.

For a free email provider, it's the best I've ever used. That's not to say it's perfect, but I can't complain much. The web interface is good, and there are lots of configuration options.

Sasha

UPDATE - you'll need to (if you're interested) check the exact specs of the POP situation. I don't know if you can access hushmail via remote client or not (and I don't, so I can't be sure without trying to set it up) but it DOES apparently (I'm looking at my web interface) allow you to access your OTHER POP accounts, via your hush account.

There's also email aliases (free) if you want to have a temporary email address, without giving away your REAL address.


Sasha

Thanks guys,
I guess you are right in saying that we should forget about our privacy the moment we access the internet. Well, I think I'll give hushmail a try. I'll start with a free account and see if I like it.

Yeah, pretty much that's about the size of it.

If you want to go all out (to some extent), browse with TOR, and encrypt all your emails.

Sasha

It's not just about the internet. It's the same IRL... The second you act on something you want to keep private, where it interacts with another person or any system that can record, you are divulging your "secret". Once that happens, the secret is "out of the box" where that information can spread as far as it's interesting|beneficial|curious|spectacular|dramatic|etc to others and it's completely out of your control from there on.

We all are owners of our own privacy and we have to learn the hows and whens to protect it at all times - online or off.

Google IS the NSA. They read the content of your mail. They helped China set up it's filtering system. I'm not okay with Google and it gets removed on every pc I come it contact with.