During this month O!polis e-mail service went “online”. In my point of view, it is the most promising service for protecting important e-mail messaging from “third party” eyes. If you want to get some deep understanding on the technological stuff you can check this Press Release
Just a quote from it , which shows the problems of e-mail messaging , that exists now
Email systems are based on a store-and-forward model in which Email computer server systems accept, forward, deliver and store messages on behalf of users. Originally, Email was transmitted directly from one user’s device to another’s; nowadays this is rarely the case. In such an environment, Email privacy can be compromised because:
• Email messages are generally not encrypted;
• Email messages have to go through intermediate computers before reaching their destination, meaning it is relatively easy to intercept and read messages; and
• Many Internet Service Providers (ISP) store copies of Email messages on their mail servers before they are delivered. The backups of these can remain for up to several months on their server, despite deletion from the mailbox.
So as we see our emails are naked in any public e-mail message service, and they could be easily accessed from a third party force which can have or have access to intermediary servers , where the emails are passing before to arrive to the final destination.
Writing this post about Opol!s, I just decided to make a small test. I want to see how many intermediary servers exists between me and yahoo.com web-site first server which will answer to the ping. Here are the results between me and mail.yahoo.com
Traceroute mail.yahoo.com (69.147.112.160)
Hop
IP Address
Hostname
Average RTT1
1
192.168.1.8
192.168.1.8
1.23 ms
2
4.78.152.97
ge-6-3-187.car1.Philadelphia1.Level3.net
11.39 ms
3
4.69.133.162
ae-7-7.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net
15.05 ms
4
4.69.134.150
ae-72-72.csw2.Washington1.Level3.net
19.77 ms
5
4.68.17.131
ae-31-89.car1.Washington1.Level3.net
14.77 ms
6
4.79.228.2
4.79.228.2
33.15 ms
7
216.115.108.61
ae2-p150.msr2.re1.yahoo.com
32.00 ms
8
68.142.238.67
te-9-2.bas-a1.re3.yahoo.com
31.75 ms
9
Time-out
Funny that minimum 4-5 big servers are in Washington, and they can reach any given mail sent by yahoo, before even it will reach to it adressee.
Another traceroute for information between me and pochta.ru. This is another russian free email provider
Traceroute pochta.ru (82.204.219.251)
Hop
IP Address
Hostname
Average RTT1
1
192.168.1.8
192.168.1.8
1.29 ms
2
4.78.152.97
ge-6-3-187.car1.Philadelphia1.Level3.net
11.52 ms
3
4.69.133.162
ae-7-7.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net
14.40 ms
4
4.69.137.61
ae-44-44.ebr2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net
103.68 ms
5
4.69.132.137
ae-2-2.ebr1.Dusseldorf1.Level3.net
106.08 ms
6
4.69.142.169
ae-1-7.bar1.Copenhagen1.Level3.net
119.85 ms
7
4.69.140.197
ae-1-5.bar1.Stockholm1.Level3.net
134.79 ms
8
213.242.110.34
213.242.110.34
131.77 ms
9
195.34.59.97
may-cr01-po1.spb.stream-internet.net
142.58 ms
10
195.34.59.29
oct-cr02-po3.msk.stream-internet.net
214.88 ms
11
195.34.53.222
shep-l3sw-1-te6-4.msk.stream-internet.net
152.63 ms
12
212.188.1.73
shep-l3sw-1-te6-4.msk.stream-internet.net
149.69 ms
13
212.188.1.70
shep-l3sw-3-po1.msk.stream-internet.net
152.12 ms
14
82.204.219.219
css.pochta.ru
154.40 ms
I extremally don;t like, that information flow at first goes to Filadelphia, then to Washington,then Frankfurt, D?sseldorf, Copenhagen,Stockholm, and then just pass to Russian servers…
What you think how many security services filter our messages in that case? :(
It was a quite rhetoric question… But imagine you are an inventor , or a lawyer, or a governmental worker, or some other profession owner, and need to communicate in a manner, when you can with 99% kick off the third person from your e-mail messaging .
I am sure if you are lawyer, you wouldn’t like if somebody will reaad a message regarding to a will of your client , which regards to 300mln Euros, if you are an inventor, you wouldn’t mind, that the concept of innovation, which you discuss with your scientific partner, or a friend of yours will be accessible to others. Or let’s say if you are an investor, you would not like if your competitor finance group hackers, by putting some sniffer in the intermediate server could read your forecasts, or investment project documentation, which you share with your partner. It would be very big mistake , if you would want so!
So what we should do? Answer comes to itself. Use O!polis. After a quite simple sign-up process and downloading a small client which natively run in Windows and Mac , you would be ready to go. Your messages between you and another O!polis user would be in a way protected , that you will like .
Some quote from the web-site of O!polis.
Opolis is directly addressing these concerns – among many others – by shifting “Power to the Sender“, in particuar to the originator of a message. Hence, Opolis considers all messages and attachments as strictly confidential and hands the ultimative authority over all messages to the sender. In implementing this, the philosophy of Opolis is based on three principles: “I Protect”, “I Decide” and “I Control”.
“I Protect“: Secure Transmission and Storage of Opolis E-Mails
Opolis E-Mails are immediatly encrypted when sent and can only be decrypted and read by the authorised recipient. Hence, Opolis E-Mails cannot be read by anyone else whilst these are transmitted or safely stored on the Opolis server system. Opolis uses Public-Private Key technology for encryption and the services of iTrust as a registry of public keys for Opolis Users. Opolis also ensures that neither message content nor information in relation to the message flow can be manipulated or falsified
“I Decide“: What a Recipient can do with my Opolis E-Mail
Due to its unique architecture, Opolis offers its Users the I Decide feature: The Sender of an Opolis E-Mail decides simply by a mouse-click whether the Recipient is allowed to copy, forward, respond to or print the message.
Opolis E-Mails can also be retrieved (i.e. pulled back) as long as the Recipient has not already opened the message. Further, the Sender of an Opolis E-Mail can also set a certain maturity for a message (i.e. from when till when a message can be read).
“I Control“: Monitoring an Opolis E-Mail once Sent.
The Sender of an Opolis E-Mail can constantly and live monitor its status once sent.
Hence, the Sender can – among others – just by mouse click see when an Opolis E-Mail was safely received by the Recipient, when the Recipient has actually opened the Opolis E-Mail or – if allowed to do so – to whom the Opolis E-Mail has been forwarded. This feature also extends to all attachments of an Opolis E-Mail
What to say more? From start of the project I am so fascinated,that registered and I am using it and I am sure , despite some comments in response of my russian post in famouse Habrahabr.ru, that all this functions are already realised in Lotus Notes, I am sure in the future it will be very very popular especially in EU, and will become such a common communication tool for buisness people like Skype. If you don’t use O!polis, just think over and go on.
