There are two notable stories from the news this past month which should make us reconsider leaving our email messages on someone's server. If you've been reading this blog for a while then you likely know that we are totally against leaving ANY messages on someone else's server for any longer than necessary. If you find you really have a good reason to leave message on someone's server (hopefully encrypted with TrulyMail), then we would love to hear it.
Before we talk about alternatives to leaving messages on someone's server, let's talk about the notable stories mentioned earlier.
The first is a case where a man (Mr. Walker) accessed his wife's email account and found evidence that she was unfaithful. Many people debate the details and what is right and wrong. In the end, Mr. Walker is facing felony hacking charges and five years in prison. While plenty of people are busy casting judgment (both for and against Mr. Walker), we are here to discuss something that nobody is talking about.
The wife (now ex-wife) left all her messages on Google's server. Once someone had access to her account (it only takes a password, after all), that person could read everything she ever wrote to anyone. In this case, it was her husband who accessed her email. A much bigger problem is for those people who speak out against the Chinese government, live in China, use Gmail, and had their email accounts hacked (but that is the topic of an earlier post).
Email accounts certainly can be accessed by people whom we wish not to have access. There are plenty of ways to hack an email account on most email servers. The question is, knowing this, why would you ever leave any messages (especially unencrypted messages) on someone's server?
Does it seem that the woman in question was sloppy and ended up paying the price (the price was her secrets being revealed)? We think so. Will she leave her emails on someone's server in the future? Probably not. However, like most people, she didn't think about the risks she was taking until she had already suffered some pain.
The second story is about Microsoft and their Live email services (formerly called Hotmail). This past weekend (first weekend of 2011), about 17,000 users of the Live email service found their accounts empty of emails – even those who had decades of emails stored on Microsoft's servers had lost everything. Of course, Microsoft got right on the problem and fixed it but during the downtime, those users had no way of getting their email, period.
Now, let's go back to why some users like to store email on someone else's server. The primary reason is so that user can access their email from anywhere in the world. If they are on vacation, if they are at work, at a friends home, etc., they can always get to their messages. Of course, as Microsoft has shown this is not something you can rely on 100%. If Microsoft loses your emails, then they can no longer give them to you (again, to be clear, the problem has reportedly been fixed by Microsoft).
So, if we want to access our emails from anywhere in the world, what should we do?
Clearly, leaving our messages on someone else's servers, while possible, creates at least two major risks (risk of someone accessing your account/reading your messages and risk of the person/company who manages the server(s) losing your messages). If we want to avoid these risks, what else can we do?
The best solution is to use TrulyMail Portable. TrulyMail Portable gives you all the features of TrulyMail Standard but can be run from a USB drive. You can buy a very inexpensive USB stick, put TrulyMail Portable on it, and keep all your messages in your pocket. If you go on vacation, your messages are with you. At work? Still there. At a friend's home? Still there.
With TrulyMail Portable, you have the convenience and security of having only a single copy of your messages (unless you want to keep a backup somewhere) and being able to access them from wherever you are.
In the two stories mentioned above, using TrulyMail Portable would have solved the problems of everyone. Fewer people would have suffered, if only they understood the risks they were really taking by keeping messages on someone else's server.
So, do yourself a favor. If you, or a friend, wants to access email from multiple locations, try, or recommend, TrulyMail Portable. It's free and with the upcoming release of TrulyMail 3.0, it's just getting better and better. You can download TrulyMail Portable here: http://TrulyMail.com/DownloadTrulyMailPortable.
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