Re: Which is more secure Outlook or Hotmail?
Hotmail is a web-based email provider. Outlook is a mail client for
Exchange, POP3, and IMAP4 mail servers. They aren't directly comparable
(although you can also configure Outlook to read your Hotmail, as well).
Encrypting and signing mail requires the use of digital certificates. If you
want to sign your own email, you'll need your own certificate and private
key. Outlook will use your private key to encrypt a hash of your message,
then attach that hash as the signature to the email. The person who receives
your mail will need your certificate (with your public key) to verify your
signature. If you want to send encrypted mail to someone else, you'll need
their certificate. Outlook will use their public key to encrypt the email.
The other person will use their own private to decrypt it. This whole
process of signing and encrypting email follows an Internet standard called
S/MIME. Most email clients support this.
When you use the Hotmail web interface, there's no option to sign or encrypt
email. If you use Outlook to read and compose your Hotmail mail, then you
can use Outlook's built-in support for S/MIME.
The remaining question, then is where to get digital certificates?
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/EY010504841033.aspx is one
place that lists some choices for you.
--
Steve Riley
steve.riley@microsoft.com
http://blogs.technet.com/steriley
http://www.protectyourwindowsnetwork.com
"Dirk" <d> wrote in message news:O8iYxUx6HHA.5772@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Outlook which has certificates encryption and signing seems very private
> and
> secure. Are there any vulnerability points between me and recipient of my
> email when
> I use Outlook to encrypt and sign? How does Hotmail compare security and
> privacy-wise with Outlook?
>