How do you send something reliably over the internet?

[The Backlash Cometh]

Let's say you live in a small town where abuse of power has never stopped anyone, and you're concerned that the powers that be might snoop in your email accounts. What would be the safest method to send something via email? I assume it would involve setting up a random account, like on gmail, and to send the information on somebody else's computer?

[ChromeFoundry]

1. 7z or ZIP with AES-256 encryption

http://www.7-zip.org/

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. I took a look,

What stops a third party who intercepts the file from opening it?

[ChromeFoundry]

5. Here is how the encryption works...

Original file(s) added to an archive.
A password containing letter in both upper and lower case, numbers and special characters is entered.
The file(s) are put through a compression algorithm and then through an encryption algorithm.
The output is a compressed and encrypted stream of binary data.
The recipient would need to know the exact password you used to open and decompress the files in the attached archive and store them locally.

The problem is getting then other person to remember to send their attachments in an encrypted format.

For someone to crack the password key to an AES-256 bit compressed archive, you would need a massively parallel network of computers and about 200 years to try and brute force every possible password. It's pretty safe.

[ManiacJoe]

2. You are being a bit too vague to get a good answer.

Email messages can be sent encrypted using various software, PGP for example. No extra accounts needed, but you do need to get the recipients to use the same software.

If you are looking to send files, the previous suggestion for encrypted ZIPs is a good one.

Who do you think is looking to read your email? What tech abilities do you think they have to so the snooping?

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. How about....

Small town cops who are too hospitable to community leaders, who include a crooked lawyer who represents the cable company? And is not too adverse to networking politically with campaign money?

On, and the small town cops are in the cybercop business. They check e-mails for child porn. Not sure how they're doing it, but I'm guessing that if it's an arrangement with the cable server people, there's nothing to stop them from peeking in anybody's emails for whatever reasons. Like I said in another post, abuse of power has never stopped anybody around here.

Is that specific enough?

[Occulus]

6. Encrypt using AES-256 encryption and you'll be as safe as possible.

There is no way they can crack it. They would need the FBI and possibly the NSA.

If you want to be extra safe, create a throwaway account on gmail or hotmail and send it using that. If you really want safety, do it from a linux live CD or USB key so it leaves no traces on your own hard drive.

You want a program that can encrypt individual files, not entire disks (unless you want to encrypt the whole disk). Pay attention to whatever instructions the program gives you.

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. Thanks. I'll look into it.