Finally, the Mail users have something to rejoice about their online security and privacy as Yahoo has joined forces with rival Google to create a secure email system that will make it almost impossible for hackers or government officials to read users’ messages.
The joint tool will create a secure way to email between the two services with the content of the email protected by end-to-end encryption.
Last year, in wake of the Edward Snowden revelations exposing the practices of the NSA, Yahoo revealed that it had received between 12,000 and 13,000 requests from the US government for information.
Yahoo said the new system will be also built to ensure that the email providers themselves are unable to decrypt messages.
Alex Stamos, Yahoo’s chief information security officer, revealed the plans at the Black Hat hacker and security conference, and said the system will be ready by some point in 2015.
He also said that the joint encryption tool will be offered as an optional feature for users to turn on or off as they please. The two tech giants will create a tool based on PGP encryption that will encrypt data contained in messages, but not the sender/receiver’s emails or the subject line.
PGP encryption is a way of encrypting data, and it hasn’t been cracked yet. It relies on users having their own encryption key stored on laptops, tablets and smartphones instead of traditional webmail services, where tech companies hold passwords and usernames.
Further, there is no password-reset function, and it traditionally hasn’t been the easiest form of encryption to use. But Google and Yahoo hope to make it less painful in a widely-used consumer service.
All consumers would have to do is click a button to turn it on and off, meaning the companies won’t force anyone to use it. This form of encryption is so powerful that the email providers themselves won’t be able to decrypt the messages.
