Volume of encrypted email rising amid spying fears

Source: AP-Excite

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The volume of email cloaked in encryption technology is rapidly rising as Google, Yahoo, Facebook and other major Internet companies try to shield their users' online communications from government spies and other snoops.

Google and other companies are now automatically encrypting all email, but that doesn't ensure confidentiality unless the recipients' email provider also adopts the technology.

In an analysis released Tuesday, Google Inc. said that about 65 percent of the messages sent by its Gmail users are encrypted while delivered, meaning the recipient's email provider also supports the technology. That's up from 39 percent in December. Incoming communiques to Gmail are less secure. Only 50 percent of them encrypted while in transit, up from 27 percent in December.

Encryption reduces the chances that email can be read by interlopers. The technology transforms the text into coding that looks like gibberish until it arrives at its destination.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140603/google-protecting_email-169c579395.html