newbie questions

Hey y'all,

As you'll be able to tell, I'm pretty much computer illiterate. A friend of mine wants me to take communications private by moving on my private isp provider.

Problem is, I'm not sure what he even means by "PRIVATE ISP provider" or who "mine" would be. I'm guessing it would be the company who gets paid for internet access?

I know this question shows my immense ignorance, but hey, you'll never know till you ask, right? I've done a search on the words trying to understand what it is I need to do to go private, but I'm at a loss. Perhaps some techie here can explain to me what it is i need to do?

My friend and I normally communicate through yahoo, but yahoo is not a secure server since it is PUBLIC 3rd party record keeper. Do i simply need to communicate with him via a private mail server like "hushmail" or some other private email company, or do i need to create a network, or what? The goal is privacy of communications.

I access internet via cable/wireless.

can anyone lead me in the right direction? i hope it's much simpler than I'm making it.

peace,

phoenix

 

I'd start by asking your friend exactly what they had in mind from a technology point of view.

 

Get your self a domain and Hosting service and use your own email and own server.

As an example you can get a domain for $15 a year and a Hosting service for $8.95. That is $24 for the year ($2 a month).

http://www.dixiesys.com/

 

I don't know either, and I suspect no one else does. You have an ISP, which is the company you pay for Internet access, and that's all there is to it.

Apparently, you and he have some very sensitive matters to communicate about. If you can do this via email, I think I'd see whether your ISP provides POP mail - most of them do - and I'd start using it and downloading email to your computer rather than using a web-based email service such as Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Google's Gmail, etc.

Once POP mail is setup in your Outlook Express or whatever email client you prefer to use (Thunderbird is another popular one), you could get a Security Certificate for your email. I once did this, using thawte.com as the source of Personal E-mail Certificates. I installed it in Outlook Express.

Do you have a router connected to your cable modem? Since you're using wireless for your Internet connection, you should setup WPA security for it.

 

I think this is also a good suggestion. I'd look at the personal email service from GoDaddy.com, at https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/email.asp?ci=8893