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Encrypting my e-mail attachment ?

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7 replies

by reddy.chatla

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How can I password protect my e-mail, if I am sending my mail through the unix machine..
Thanks

7 replies

by cpfeiffe

I'm not sure I understand your question fully, but it sounds like you want to prevent other users on a Unix server from seeing your email. If that is correct you should change the mode on your mail file - /var/mail/$UID to 600 (rw-------) and make sure your UID owns it. This will allow only you to read/write to this file. The one exception is that root will also have access. Forget about blocking root. Root owns everything and has the power to change anything you set up anyway. If you don't trust root then you don't trust your SysAdmin. It is no different than in NT. The SMTP server admin has all access rights to look at anyone's mail file that he/she wants to. It can't be avoided. That level of acess is needed to accomplish certain administrative tasks.

by reddy.chatla

thanks for the reply.
OK, to make my question a bit clear., I should send the mail in encrypted format.,
and the receiver, should be able to decrypt the msg only after typing in a pre-agreed password

by bowieb

The easiest way I can think of offhand is to use a program to encrypt your mail before you send it. I'm sure there is a unix implementation of PGP that you could use. You could also use the 'crypt' function to encrypt your attachment before you send it.

by reddy.chatla

I am aware of PGP implemention on linux., where can I find some info on PGP for HP-UX 10.0., and also, I dont want to enforce the receiver of the mail, to have a some sort of software installed on his machine ( I understand, PGP requires some installation required).

Thanks

by bowieb

Anything you do to encrypt your email will require the recipient to have the same program to decrypt the mail. You also need to consider what platform the recipient is using. If you are sending mail to another HP-UX or Unix system, then you could use crypt as I mentioned above. It is fairly standard on most Unix implementations. If your recipient is going to be using Windows, Macintosh, or something else, then you will have to find a program such as PGP that is available for different platforms.

by reddy.chatla

The receipient of the mail is using lotus notes., but I want to make this machine independent. I am looking for product from PGP and guess, that should solve my woes. thanks anyway

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