While on vacation, you may wish to send a postcard to a friend or family member. Remember, of course, that the contents of the postcard can be ready by anyone that touches it, including your mail delivery person, delivery company or anyone in between.

But if you were sending a personal letter to a family member, to inform them where your spare key is located to get into your house, you would be more inclined to seal it in an envelope so it cannot be read by everyone.

Sending an email is no different then sending a postcard. An email can be read by anyone that wants to do so. Why would you want to send an email containing personal or private information so it can be read by anyone?

Fortunately there are 2 simple and free methods of sending emails that are encrypted, and difficult to decipher even by corporate hackers or government agencies. These 2 methods listed here include a PGP Key and an Email Certificate.

A PGP Key is a method of encrypting the contents of your email, so that only the person with your respective key can read the email contents.

There are two (2) parts to a PGP Key: the Private Key and the Public Key. The Private Key is held by you, the sender of the email, and allows you to read email which is sent to you according to your Key. The Public Key is given out by you to anyone and everyone you so desire, and allows any individual to encrypt emails according to your Key. With a Public Key an individual cannot read your encrypted emails, but only encrypt and send them to you.

There are several sources available for programs to allow you to create Public and Private PGP Keys, along with automating the service of encrypting and decypting emails. We recommend programs provided by PGP Corporation, but a simple search on the internet will also result in various free and commercial programs available to download.

Extreme care must be taken when using a PGP Key to send and receive encrypted emails. If you lose your PGP Key password, then all encrypted emails will be unreadable.

Your first email to us should include your Public Key, preferably compressed by a ZIP program.

Our Public PGP Key is located on both our Contact Us pages and our Personnel Page.

An Email Certificate allows you to digitally sign and encrypt your emails, so all contents and attachments contained within your email can only be read by you. There are two (2) parts to your Email Certificate, the public part and the private part. The public part of your Email Certificate allows individuals to encrypt emails to send to you. The private part of your Email Certificate allows only you to read (decrypt) the encrypted emails that were sent to you.

Most commonly available Email Programs, including the free Outlook Express for Windows PC's, and Outlook, allow entering Email Certificate keys into the program, for sending and receiving encrypted emails based on your Email Certificate.

There are several companies available which will generate your Personal Email Certificate for you. We recommend Thawte, which will provide a Personal Email Certificate at no cost.

Extreme care must be taken when using an Email Certificate to send and receive encrypted emails. If you lose your Email Certificate password, then all encrypted emails will be unreadable.

Your first email to us should include your Public Email Certificate, preferably compressed by a ZIP program.

Our Public Email Certificates are located on both our Contact Us pages and our Personnel Page.