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Not to sound too paranoid… but if you think that email message you just sent is safe and secure, think again. Email is notoriously insecure. That’s just the nature of the beast.

Not that there have been no solutions for secure and private email communications. But they’ve usually been on the PITA end of practical for the layperson (as in, heck, if it’s that much trouble to comprehend let alone to implement the few occasions you need it, just print out the darn thing, stick it in an envelope, put a stamp on it and drop it in a mailbox).

But I don’t like spending 41 cents either if I don’t have to.

Well, here’s something new, free and easy that may fit the bill. Nothing Wordpreneur-ish about it… just sharing it with you for what it’s worth.

MyMessageSafe is a free Web service that lets you communicate securely with anyone with an email address. Although the site states that you can use it to “send secure messages,” that can be misleading since you do not email anything securely. Its security and privacy is procedural — but it works.

Here’s how you do it:

1. You set up an account for your email address (free and easy).
2. You enter a message and a recipient email address.
3. The service notifies the recipient that s/he’s got a pending message, and she needs to login to the service to retrieve it (again, new accounts are free and easy to get).

That’s all there is to it.

As you can see, the messages don’t really get emailed (just the nofications). Which means there’s little different between this and, say, a private online discussion board with email notification. You can’t transmit attachments (at least, I didn’t see that capability the minute or so I spent zipping through and testing the site), and the fact that you and the recipient both need yet-one-more-online-account-to-keep-track-of can be a hindrance.

It does have at least one feature I found particularly attractive, however: A flag tells you whether a message you’ve sent has been retrieved or not.

For what it does, it is easy and takes very little energy and effort to learn. And it’s free. So it’s worth at least a bookmark for when you may need it, assuming it’s still around when that time comes.

Go to MyMessageSafe »

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