My Thoughts - TED Talks - "Think your email's private? Think again"

Personal privacy has become a huge concern in recent years. More and more, users relinquish control of their personal information, whether it be by accepting Terms of Service that allow for wide-reaching use of user data, or simply by sharing it on social media.

I watched a Ted Talk by Andy Yen titled “Think your email's private? Think again.” In his talk Andy compares sending an e-mail to sending a postcard, viewable by all intermediaries before reaching its intended destination. He discusses past attempts to resolve this issue, and the inherent flaws that kept them from being more widely adopted, more specifically, the learning curve involved in such tools as PGP. Because of its complexity, it is squarely out of the reach of the majority of users, save the technical savvy.

Due to the massive amount of revenue generated by advertising on the Internet, he argues that it is not in a company’s best interests to hold privacy in high regard, as the more that advertisers know about consumers, the better that they can leverage their products. It then follows, he believes, that in order for users to finally begin to reclaim ownership of their data, they must first make privacy a main priority.

One of the solutions that he, and the minds behind his startup, ProtonMail, envisioned, is an email client that handles all back-end encryption and decryption, coupled with an easy to use interface. By utilizing private/public key pairs, users can ensure that only the intended recipient can read the correspondence, and having the user take control of their private key, which would be generated on their computer. By removing the private key from the email server, there is an added level of security that ensures that those with access to the server are still unable to read the contents. This would allow for a secure sender/receiver relationship, while reducing the barrier to entry for most users.

Andy, a scientist working at CERN, like the rest of his team, does an absolutely phenomenal job of engaging the listener, as his obvious knowledge and passion convey a sense of sincerity and earnestness. He manages to give a brief overview of how we have come to this point, as well as paying respect to previous attempts to address this problem, as well as having designed a solid product for all the right reasons.