Secured email messaging through Lockbin

Many email services today use SSL, the secured Service language to protect the privacy of your messages. But your emails are still not safe. There are lots of freely available programs on the Internet, which can sniff your message easily, specially at the Hi Fi spots.

Lockbin, is a special and free online web tool, which encrypts your message with a code words supplied by you and sends an email to the recipient along with a link to retrieve the message. However, the recipient can read the message only if he enters the code word, with which you had encrypted the message. Now it is upto you how you send the code word to the recipient, it can be through IN, chat, email or phone.

Simple service, but still useful.

HideLinks | Protect your visited links and surf secretly

If you work on a shared computer and are concerned about someone knowing your visited links, then HideLinks is an ideal solution for you. You just have to copy the link you want to hide and paste it on hidelink. It will give you an encrypted link, which is a lot shorter than your original link and which nobody knows except you.

So, what's new about it. There are tons of such services. But the best part here is that you can password protect it also. The HideLink will retrieve the original link only if the correct password is entered.

Krutos 2 | A free webtool to encrypt and secure your data

Kruptos is a robust 128 bit file encryption utility, which allows you to safeguard your important files on your hard disk or portable storage devices by utilizing its powerful file shredding capabilities and the ability to generate self decrypting files.

It runs on Windows 2000 or XP through MS .net framework. The best part is that it is free, simple to use and easy to install. No spyware, malware or malicious scripts. No method is deviced to break the password. If you loose your password, you loose your data. Simple, but effective. They claim it to be ideal for secure trasportation of files on potable storage devices, such portable hard drives, USB storage keys.

SiteAdvisor | Get pre-warning about malicious sites with this firefox add-on

Are you concern about the security of your systems. No we are not talking about the viruses, but the spywares and identity theft scripts.

Although there are many programs and scripts, which clean your systems, but most of them are post-facto. They operate, when you are infected.

One of the programs, which give you a pre-warning, i.e. warning before getting attacked by a malicious site, is SiteAdvisor. This plug-in performs a background check on the Web sites you visit and raises a flag, whenever you visit a dubious looking site. It also gives you a warning icon next to potentially dangerous results from popular search engines, along with an icon in your status bar that shows the risks and annoyances associated with the page you're viewing.

SiteAdvisor was founded in April 2005 by a group of MIT engineers who wanted to make the Web safer for their family and friends. The pro version of this McAfee service adds features such as e-mail and IM link checking for $20 per year.

The free version is available for download at PCWorld.

File Shredder | A free webtool to destroy your files completely from PC memory

Hitting "Del" key doesn't delete the files from your disk. It only deletes its directory information so that it is not listed and identified by the operating system. But do you know, there are several softwares available, which can easily retrieve this file, leading to possible misuse of it by some unscrupulous person.

Frightened, you need not. There are many programs available on the Internet, which does the shredding job for you. In fact they usually re-write the target file with a random string of data multiple times and thus make it unusable, even after retrieval.

File Shredder (Download here, 1.5 Mb) is one such program, and it is free. It use five different algorithms to shred the target file into binary pieces.

So next time you want to completely feel secured, use these softwares.

Using eSnailer to send physical mails may be risky

Despite the seemingly indispensability of emails, there is huge section of our population, which still cannot access it and are still dependent upon the paper form of communications.

A new servicee eSnailer seemingly promises to bridge that divide. It allows to send you a letter in the form of paper in an envelope to anyone. The sender has to just fill in the receipient' and sender's name & address and the message in a form provided on their website. And the beutiful part is that this is absolutely free.

But what is the catch.

Yeah, you guessed it right, there is surely a catch. In fact before sending, you are asked to sign up at least two of the available offers from their promoters. It was also bearable, but the saddest part is that eSnailer seems to be having an affiliation with the website MyInsiderDeals, which is rated "very spammy" by McAfee SiteAdvisor. [After signing up at MyInsiderDeals, the SiteAdvisor team received 240 e-mails per week.]

Another important point to be noted on their site is the lack of a privacy policy. This raises a doubt about the real motives of the site. I am not saying that this service is a scam, but this great idea could have done better if taken care of these points.

YouTube videos may be injurious to your PC health

I recently came across an article at Websense, which indicates the potential use of YouTube videos downloaded onto your PC for installing malware and viruses.

When you download and run an application file, cleverly disguised as a video file, your browser opens a video but in the background it also connects to its another webserver, which uploads a few Trojan Horses in to your machine with the primary objective of stealing your valuable information.

Websense has also upoladed a video about it on YouTube here.

Fingerprint recognition: New tools for cellphone security

TMCNet has reported that Qiao Xing Mobile, a Chinese manufacturer has introduced their most innovative handset to date, T100. The most important feature, besides ultra long standby, multimedia features such as streaming TV, is its fingerprint recognition feature.

"...we think people are going to start using their handsets to conduct such wireless transactions as electronic banking, securities trading and Internet shopping. The fingerprint recognition scanner on our new T100 model will specifically ensure that such confidential data that is stored on handsets remains secure," said CECT Chairman Wu Zhi Yang."

Fingerprint recognition in cellphones is not a new concept in advanced cellphones anymore. Many cellphones of manufacturers like Pantech, LG etc have been offering them for quite some time now.

Free Webtools: Safeguard your data with laptoplock

Technorati tags: Free webtools, security, laptoplock

Most of us, using laptops are concerned with the potential misuse of important data, in case the laptop gets stolen or lost.

With the help of Laptoplock, a simple yet effective free webtool, you can still access your lost laptop and delete / encrypt sensitive files so as to avoid their misuse.

For this you have to register your laptop with laptoplock, which installs a code in your machine. If your laptop gets stolen, you have to report it at the website. After that, whenever that laptop gets hooked onto the web, the laptop takes specific actions like encrypting / deleting your sensitive files, which you had marked beforehand.

Even if the laptop is not hooked to web, it could ask the user to verify their identity by asking for a password.

The service is presently free. The FAQ are available here.