Chapter 14
Using Secure Email Services

We’ve already seen in Chap­ters 1 through 13 how to use RMail ser­vices. But how do you start? The answer is sim­ple. You start with a but­ton.

RMail Plug-ins

There are email pro­gram plug-ins for Microsoft Office 365, Out­look, and Google Gmail. The plug-ins add a but­ton to such a pro­gram, and by click­ing (tap­ping) on the red but­ton you pop up a deli­cious menu of RMail Ser­vices. Using a plug-in is as easy as down­load­ing the plug-in from the RMail web­site and installing it in your email pro­gram via the stan­dard plug-in instal­la­tion pro­ce­dure.

What does a plug-in for RMail Ser­vices look like? Typ­i­cal­ly, it’s just an extra but­ton that enables you to send email using one of the RMail ser­vices. The but­ton takes you to a menu where you can elect to use Reg­is­tered Email, Mes­sage-Lev­el encryp­tion, E-sign, or Large­Mail trans­fer. Some instal­la­tions, how­ev­er, may give you mul­ti­ple but­tons, one for each func­tion.

What about tablets? Apple iPads require the RMail app to be installed in order to be able to con­ve­nient­ly use RMail ser­vices.

RMail Button in Email Programs

In addi­tion to the plug-ins, most major ISPs offer their own email pro­gram to cus­tomers, and many include the RMail but­ton. Final­ly, some enter­prise busi­ness soft­ware, such as Sales­force and IBM Notes, has an RMail but­ton built in.

And, of course, you can always use the RMail Inbox email pro­gram or RMail Web pro­grams. You sim­ply use your brows­er (in any com­put­ing device) with a book­mark to call up the RMail email pro­gram.

RMail Inbox

As explained in Chap­ter 6, RMail Inbox is a com­plete and free secure email ser­vice. Your email ser­vice provider is RMail. You have an RMail email address, such as JeffHudson@​RMail.​com. You use the RMail Inbox email pro­gram to send, receive, and man­age your email.

You access the RMail Inbox email pro­gram, via a book­mark in your brows­er. The URL (web address) is Inbox​.RMail​.com. That will take you to the RMail Inbox login.

RMail Web

As explained in Chap­ter 7, RMail Web is a one-way email ser­vice. You use it with your nor­mal email sys­tem and your nor­mal email address. You use it just to send email mes­sages using one or more of the RMail ser­vices. You don’t use it to send nor­mal mes­sages and you can’t receive email with it. It works in your brows­er, and you use a book­mark to access it con­ve­nient­ly.

The Difference

You need to dis­tin­guish between RMail Inbox and RMail Web:

• RMail Inbox requires that you have an RMail email account and email address such as DestinyRogers@​RMail.​com. You use the RMail Inbox email pro­gram via your brows­er to send and receive email.
• RMail Web requires that you have an email account and email address at anoth­er email ser­vice provider, such as JudyLipton@​XYZ.​com. You use the RMail Web email pro­gram via your brows­er to send email using RMail ser­vices. You use your nor­mal email pro­gram to send nor­mal email. And you can’t receive email using the RMail Web email pro­gram.

Convincing Others to Use RMail Inbox

A very clever way to estab­lish sol­id email secu­ri­ty is for both you and your fre­quent recip­i­ents is for you both to use RMail Inbox email ser­vice. That means you both use the same email serv­er (the RMail email serv­er), and you both have auto­mat­ic encrypt­ed trans­mis­sion between your email pro­grams and the serv­er.

Thus, it is incum­bent on you to con­vince your rou­tine email recip­i­ents to adopt RMail Inbox email ser­vice. If they do so, not only will RMail Inbox pro­tect them, but RMail Inbox will also pro­tect every­one with whom they com­mu­ni­cate via email who is also using RMail Inbox email ser­vice. Since RMail email ser­vice is free, this not only makes a lot of sense, but it’s also eas­i­er to per­suade.

This approach will not work very well, of course, as every­one likes to do their own thing (i.e., use their choice of email ser­vices). Nev­er­the­less, this approach is of par­tic­u­lar inter­est to pro­fes­sion­als who have a small num­ber of clients and must com­ply with reg­u­la­tions such as HIPAA. But make no mis­take, all pro­fes­sion­als, busi­ness peo­ple, and orga­ni­za­tions have a com­pelling need, if not a legal require­ment, to keep their email com­mu­ni­ca­tion secure. Thus requir­ing, or at least ask­ing, recip­i­ents of your rou­tine secure mail to adopt RMail Inbox is nei­ther out­ra­geous nor bad eti­quette. It just makes good sense.

How to Choose an Email Name

One way to get a good email name is to get there first; that is, choose your name as soon as pos­si­ble after the ini­ti­a­tion of the email ser­vice. If you’re real­ly ear­ly, you may get a name like Robert or Sarah (i.e., Robert@​RMail.​com, Sarah@​RMail.​com). You have to be an ear­ly user to accom­plish this, and it’s unlike­ly you can get it lat­er. But you may be able to get some­thing like your first and last name togeth­er. For instance, you may be able to get Robert­Stan­hope or Sarah­Green­well.

Grab It While You Can  Let’s be real­is­tic. RMail is only three years old and is not run-away pop­u­lar yet. What’s the advan­tage to you? The advan­tage is sim­ply that if you sign up now for RMail, you’re more like­ly to get the email address that you want, and it doesn’t cost any­thing. But you can’t have Sinclair@​RMail.​com, because I’ve already got that one.

When a lot of peo­ple have accounts on an email ser­vice, the pick­ings start to get pret­ty slim, with such email address­es as Robert0518. This might give you the unique name you need on an email ser­vice, but it shows a lack of imag­i­na­tion. Try some­thing else, any­thing else.

If you can string three words togeth­er that makes sense, you may be able snag your­self a good name. For instance, Robert­In­Pitts­burgh, Robert­FromPitts­burgh, or, how about Robert­TheEngi­neer, Robert­TheP­er­son­al­Train­er, or SarahTheIn­sur­ance­Con­sul­tant.

Adding a peri­od (.) or hyphen (-) can give you a use­ful and attain­able name.

Robert.Stanhope

Robert-Stan­hope

Sarah.Greenwell

RobertOf­Pitts­burgh

Add @RMail.com to all of these.

Using a bizarre nick­name is not advis­able. You’re like­ly to out­grow the nick­name at some point in the future, and chang­ing your email address can turn out to be a very big project. When email was only per­son­al and you sent mes­sages to only your friends, fam­i­ly, and bud­dies, nick­names were fun for a lot of peo­ple.

But today peo­ple use email for almost every­thing: per­son­al affairs, busi­ness, health­care, edu­ca­tion, apply­ing for jobs, com­mu­ni­cat­ing with strangers, and even gov­ern­men­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Do you real­ly want a name such as Furi­ous­Fuzzball or Hap­pySong­ster? To wres­tle your way out of such a mis­take, you will have to change your email name on all your online accounts, for all impor­tant recip­i­ents going back sev­er­al years, and for all your friends, fam­i­ly, and bud­dies. A huge project.

Keep in mind, how­ev­er, that there’s noth­ing wrong with using your nick­name as an email name for your sec­ond email account. Use your sec­ond account for your per­son­al com­mu­ni­ca­tions and your pri­ma­ry account for every­thing else. And your pri­ma­ry account should be sen­si­ble, easy to remem­ber, and indi­cate who you are.

Don’t use under­score ( _ ) as a word sep­a­ra­tor for names. The under­score is used by the data­base folks exten­sive­ly; those famil­iar with data­base tech­nol­o­gy will imme­di­ate­ly think data­base when they see an under­score. Bet­ter to use a peri­od or hyphen.

Char­ac­ters are not case sen­si­tive for email names. Con­se­quent­ly, you can add cap­i­tal­iza­tion where nec­es­sary for clar­i­ty, such as in let­ter­heads, on busi­ness cards, inside cor­re­spon­dence, inside text, and so forth. Yet, when you need to type your email address fast and effi­cient­ly, you can use all low­er­case. Patrick.​North@​RMail.​com works exact­ly the same as patrick.​north@​rmail.​com.

If you get a sec­ond, third, fourth, or fifth email address, tie it to its pur­pose. Thus, if it’s for per­son­al use, you might want to use your nick­name. For busi­ness use, you might want to use a name that will remind peo­ple who you are. And for oth­er uses you may want to use a name that iden­ti­fies who you are. Thus user­names for Pat might be:

Patrick-​StateFarm-​Stillwater@​RMail.​com

PatFootballMaven@​RMail.​com

PatNorthFamily@​RMail.​com

Short names are con­ve­nient because some­times peo­ple have to type out your email address, and you often have to do that your­self. But don’t be afraid of long names for busi­ness. You want peo­ple to iden­ti­fy you and also remem­ber what you do. Thus, an email address such as Robert​.Stan​hope​.Civ​il​.Engi​neer@RMail.com is a good busi­ness name.

If you haven’t fig­ured this out before, when you sign up for RMail, break with the past. Choose a sen­si­ble name that serves your pur­pose. Just like Gmail, Hot­mail, and Yahoo Mail, this new ser­vice RMail is going to be around for a long time. Choose a name that will serve you well now and also in the future.

There is anoth­er point of view, how­ev­er, regard­ing the use of mul­ti­ple email accounts and mul­ti­ple email names for spe­cial pur­pos­es. (See Chap­ter 19.)

The End

Using a secure email ser­vice, whether it be RMail Inbox or anoth­er ser­vice, is a good first step toward mak­ing sure your email is hack­proof. Remem­ber, email is the cor­ner­stone of your cyber­se­cu­ri­ty.