Privacy in email communication: we should use encryption by default
My accountant is now using the stupid “encrypted email” system Outlook has where it sends you a link to their server, which then emails you a password to login to read the email. It’s so bloody clunky and annoying.<p>It’s particularly stupid as I then don’t have a copy of the email myself, and they have disabled text selection on the webpage so I can’t even copy and paste it (easily)!<p>I suppose it ensures that if the recipient isn’t using TLS with SMTP then it’s not sent unencrypted over the wire, but I suspect the vast majority of email servers are using TLS now. If someone hacks my email they have access to it anyway. I wish the system was intelligent enough to turn itself off if the recipient server has TLS, then I could almost support it as a concept.<p>But if someone is watching your unencrypted connection to your mail server they can just follow the link and then watch the password being sent. So meh, stupid pointless thing.