Is someone monitoring your computer, emails or chat logs? Perhaps even your mobile text messages as well? If you have a secret message that you need to send to someone very often, how are you going to do that without installing any complicated PGP encryption software?

Here’s an idea. How about using a free web service that don’t even require registration to help you keep your messages secure from outsiders reading your messages?

Lockbin is a free service for sending private email messages.
Send Secure Messages

To send secure messages, you need to go through 5 steps.
1. Agree to usage agreement
2. Enter security code
3. Type your private message
4. Type “security word”. It is for the recipient to decode the secure message.
5. Enter your name, email and your friend’s name and email.

The encrypted secure message will NOT be sent to the recipient email address. Your friend will only get a notification saying that you’ve received a secure message which will need a special “Secret Word” to decode the message. Your friend will need to visit a link provided in the email.

To decode and read secure messages, there are 4 steps.
1. Agree to usage agreement
2. Enter security code
3. Enter Secret Word
4. Messages is decrypted if the correct secret word is entered

Lockbin’s cryptographic algorithm uses a Secret Word to encrypt messages. You invent the Secret Word and deliver it to the recipient using a phone, text message, instant message, smoke signals, homing pigeon, or as a last resort… another email.

When the encrypted message is received, it is destroyed from Lockbin’s database, and decrypted in the recipient’s browser, provided that they entered the Secret Word correctly. I tried to retrieve the same message again, it says “An error occured – Try again“.

How secure is this Lockbin’s secure message? It uses SSL, so the HTTP traffic is encrypted. If someone has your email password, they can’t view the secure message because they don’t have the secret word. Screenshot loggers might be able to capture the secure message but it is seldom being used because constant capturing of screenshots takes up a lot of disk space. Lockbin is not perfect but it’s definitely useful.

[ Visit Lockbin ]

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,