Just as one example, In Stockholm a number of wealthy individuals have been caused large crime. No one knows any thing about the perpetrator. The truth is that the one who has made the crime, seems to be very well informed. Most likely they have conducted e-mail scanning and after they have gained a clear picture of there victims, they have conducted the crime. The police force, who just have learnt to use a muse, has no clue and stand in front of this crimes as a living question mark.

The goal for tap into e-mail and gain access to information about you might have different explanations, here is a few thoughts:

• Preparation of burglary, Background information to prepare and plan a theft or burglary. By tap into your e-mail, they might know when you will be away or when you plan to go on holiday.

• Blackmail, to conduct blackmail based on information from e-mail, there maybe you just have looked for a new work, this can be used against you or be a ground for blackmail, or just things which happens within the family or a mystery affair.

• Sell information, the information in all of its forms has always a value. The right information to the right buyer always has a price tag.

Some business intelligence is legal some business intelligence are not legal. Where to draw the border difference among and within each company and their rules for ethics. This view difference also between countries and between the difference in cultures.

All companies should have the fundamental rule that any other company would do what ever it takes to gain access to the right information at the right time. The value to gain access to such information can only be appraisals in the view from the competitor and there need or benefits of such information.

Information can most commonly be ordered from criminals.

Each country has its own rules and practices on how to handle policies for TAP or monitor information and listen in on conversations. In Sweden, any taping made by a governmental body, need approvals from curt, but such decision is confidential. In cases taping has been used to prove a crime, in such cases the curt can make such decision after that the factual taping has been conducted.

During 1998 it there was 1,000 officially registered cases or curt approvals for taping. Only 1 (one) case was dismissed due to the fact that the application was filled in wrong. Most likely the true figure is 10 or 100, times bigger.

Since all the decisions in curt is confidential, no one knows if and how the case has been properly conducted.

The basis for taping is to secure evidence and identify crime.

Just in Sweden, there is four (4) official bodies who conduct tapping, the police force, Säpo = secret service, Tullkrim = the custom and the Military. Most likely there is also an exchange of information in between international organisations and these Swedish organisations.

Each and every telephone number in Sweden has its own contact specialist within the public operator Telia, Governmental owned. Each number has one extra extension to be used for taping on request from one governmental body.

Who has access to this, is not an information available for the public.

In UK, the government is starting to scan and tap all e-mail traffic from the fall of 2000. They have described that all e-mails will pass through a few special computers to find, investigate and protect for crime.

Others country within the European Community are following this debate and this integration with large interest. You can read more about it, if you follow this link:

The fact is, the government and individuals within these organisations has and can access also the e-mail, there is no guaranties what so ever that it is not used and there is not any clear rules on how, when or whom you can tap in to. In Sweden there is to day well known that SÄPO, the secret service has registered people's opinion and taped telephone conversations without prior decision from the curt.

In several cases there is also publicly known that the police are working together wit the criminals to be able to buy back theft gods. If this is the case, how difficult would it be for a criminal to buy an officials, when they normally just have small salaries. Or if the criminals have some information about those officials, who could put him or her in "hot water", than blackmail to get information wouldn't be so far away?

Organised and non-organised mapping and tapping are well known that embassies are conducting. The official explanation is to protect and safeguard for terrorists and safeguard for crime or to avoid threats to such country. But in reality and most likely, a lot of such taping aren't any thing else than industrial espionage.

The most famous and the largest system known as of today is the US based system Echelon, administrated by NSA (National Security Agency). In popular languish its called Data-FBI, and by its own definitions clarify its purpose.

The Echelon system can tap in and gather information from any telephone, fax, telex or e-mail system in the world and thy do it to a large extend. There has been told that this agency has around 40,000 people working with such tasks. Even if most of its activities is highly classified one of the stories who came to public knowledge was the transcript of conversations made by Princess Diana.

Just recently it has been brought up several cases, their Echelon has been accused for industrial espionage. One of the reports talks about that a price bid came to be known for Boing so Airbus loosed an order on $1 billion. Boing received the contract and USA/NSA denies that the system was involved.

If you would like to read more about NSA and Echelon, you then can visit this site: xxxx.

The European Commission has also criticised US and there is a number of reports available about this topic.

Is just this a political game or fictions, nobody knows. The only once who might have the right answer is that small group who might control it, some voices is saying that NSA are directly linked into the US industry and also partly financed that way other voices says that NSA in practice is in the control for the democracy.

Even if US today has the most advanced system other countries also has huge resources, and who knows what they do, Japan is known to be able of taping in to memory's of facsimile machines and Russia has also sophisticated systems to tap in to electronic e-mail system etc.

In a general you cant know if you are under special surveillance or not, maybe you just have received a mail from wrong person?

The exact technique to tap into others e-mails aren't to be learnt here, but for you to understand some of the different possibilities, we here will describe some potential ways for you. These descriptions are done with the aim to get you to understand how open your e-mails are and how vulnerable you are.

Most of the e-mails you are sending are "official" due to the fact that each e-mail specifically carries the information on from which server this was send with the domain name and the correct IP number, address and who this server belonging to.

Most common is also that you use your full name, nicely your family name as well as your first given name, so there isn't so difficult to see from who a specific e-mail comes from.

Then if you request information through the directory service you most likely would find the telephone number and the street address to such sender.

If an employee, working at an operator or ISP Internet Service Provider, leeks out or sells information, user data, passwords or actually copies of e-mails, that’s a insider crime.

Insider can do this by them self or in organised ways or as a mission from someone who pays them to do so.

Every day there are a large number of safety backups made, who has access to them, nobody knows.

The one who has access to the right equipment can easily monitor all traffic passing through the network cables. There is also available equipment so that all traffic easily can be copied.

In the past, the military used equipment so they just could clime up to the telephone pole and attach their equipment to both monitor traffic and make calls.

Today, the cables are most likely buried in the ground. But unfortunate the system such in Sweden give out free of charge any information on the exact position of cables in the street or at a property. The reason is that they do not want people to cut cables so, companies like Telia even on a request, goes out to such property and will mark out the exact position.

All the servers on the net have special gateways designed for services. In a large number of cases this gateways or "back doors" aren't even secured with a password or in some cases only safeguarded with such password as "admin".

Each time you will log on and should pull down your e-mail, you then fully open are sending your identity and password across the net. This can be compared with that a manager of a supermarket calls out the code to the safety box there they keep the money.

"Broad Band" Is, as you probably know the latest "gadget" within the high-tech industry. It is also market as highly secured and much better then standard communication. There is two simple ways to tap in to broad band networks. The simplest is just to curve the cable and it will leek out the information or just to cut it, put in a small device who make a copy and then put it back.

All traffic connected via air is possible to bug, as long as you have the right equipment. Today, it is more common to tie networks together in the cities via so called radio or city links. Quite often, such traffic has some type of encryption protection, but not so advanced and the key might be in the wrong hands.

The term web e-mail is defined as a public web based service. Web based e-mail services like Hotmail allowed during the fall of 1999 users to gain access to a mailbox even without passwords, from certain web pages.

The password are unsecured stored in the computer you access the mail from. It is in an office environment easy for others to just use your private log in details.

Some of the web based e-mail system such as Hotmail also provides the convenient service that you can route other mail boxes in to your e.g. Hotmail account, then all your personal passwords are stored in such database.

To gain access to someone else's computer can be done either physical or via a network.

Many new networks are now days build in house complexes there the residents are given access to a "in house" network as well as Internet. In most cases, with our without there knowledge it is possible to access your neighbour computer. One example, Stjärn TV in Stockholm (local cable network operator), gave their viewers Internet access and network access with no security at all, to start with.

There exist viruses who works like the principle of for example "Happy99" and "I LOVE YOU", who gain and distribute valuable information about your contacts. But different from this once who create damages, there is also the one flying around who dos not make damages, they just exist and fulfil their tasks.

There are other samples of programs like Netbus and Backdoor. They will allow strangers to gain access or fully control your computer.

To safeguard your self you must use encryption. The down side of using encryption's, when you need to communicate with others is that they need to have exactly the same equipment or software.

The one who sends the information will encrypt the information and the one who receives the information needs to decrypt the information.

If you think that encryption is an overkill for your purposes and needs, then you at least can safeguard you by sending the e-mail as an "anonymous" mail, which means that you do not use your own name at all.

("Anonymous" e-mail is when you register your self on a web based e-mail system like Hotmail, and using information, which can be tracked back to you as individual.)

If you would be targeting for a theft, that might then safeguard you at this stage and the thief may chose another target.

Is the far most known algorithm for encryption's, the choice of name is not far away from NSA, the three founders of RSA are also former NSA employee. RSA is the largest used algorithm RSA- algorithm.

Within the society of crypto-people in the world, there is a saying that the RSA-algorithm can be opened by simple PC software. NSA, and others has made it clear that they have such access. RSA denies that, but what is quite strange is that RSA introduced new algorithms shortly after such information came out.

The mathematics behind the RSA-algorithm is that the one who has the sum of two large prim-numbers (extreme large numbers) cant figure out the first key.

there P and Q is two prim-numbers.

The one who has N can't calculate P or Q (maybe?).

Roomers state that a prim-number based on 4096 bits can be calculated with less then 2 million calculations, by starting at the far end, the last digit, and then with 40 different associated numbers and assumptions build up the prim number with the technique of doing the last digit first, the second one etc..

If this would be true, then such encryption key could be solved within seconds.

Even if there is just roomers, it should be considered as possibilities. The connection between RSA and NSA and other aspects might be useful and valuable for you to look at other available systems.

One of the most reputed experts within the field of crypt technologies, Bruce Schneier, is according to sayings, having a close relation with NSA. If this is correct then you ought to be careful with other algorithms like Blowfish and Twofish. If this is just bad rumours or if there is any truth in it, that's for others to judge.

One little reflection, you might ask your self is how it can be that RSA, Blowfish, and Twofish algorithm are free to any one. With exception from RSA, their algorithm is free from August of this year. The question would be, way are trying to get it out free, for what purpose, has it a connection back to NSA?

Up to just recently, there has been not been allowed to export crypt program from US. From December of 1999 it is allowed as long as the product is approved.

http://www.hushmail.com

The company, was first in the world to launch a software for making web based e-mail encrypted. The downside is that it has a few large gap. The mail aren't secure nor encrypted between there server and your computer and you cant send any other included information. Then it is also slow and the receiver of such mail needs also to be a user at Hushmail.

The positive side of the service is that it is free.

http://www.pgp.com

This is today maybe the most frequent used software in the market. Its free for private user and has a an user fee less then $50 per corporate users.

The software is available in a large numbers of versions and it is produced in the US. The constructor Zimmerman, was sued by the US Government and after 3 years then the Government called back their summon. How the case ended and how the settlement was worded is a national secrecy.

Shortly after that the case vas settled, Zimmerman sold his program PGP to companies like Norton.

Since the program exist in a variety of versions, it is difficult for the user to coupe up with what version you might have. One serious question is therefore needed, is there any backdoors available?

If you have a good version of PGP then there is stated that it is very safe. In the cases of breaking the key, then this is due to usage errors or a manipulated version. A correct version, correct used will give high security.

The most common comments from users are that the software is difficult to use.

This is the latest global launch of new software for encryption of e-mail and the software which will give you total privacy!

The software is built on earlier experiences for sending encrypted telex traffic.

The software is only distributed via Internet, and you receive it directly and can start to use it simply after a few minutes.

The full package of SafeIT Secure Office 2003 cost $250.00 and gives you three different program and security modules, or you select and buy the SafeIT program module suitable for your needs.

The full SafeIT™ Security Office 2003 package include, the following components, and each of those can be purchased individually:

• SafeIT E-Mail Encryption 2003.
• SafeIT File Encryption System.
• SafeIT File Shredding System.

The software is truly user-friendly and is working automatically in the background when you use your normal e-mail program. If you read their Quick-guide, then you learn how to use it within two minutes.

The level of safety is very high in compared with any other available encryption software, and with the use of a secure connection and 2,048 bits asymmetric start and the use of Diffie-Hellman key system. The next step in the process goes in to a 480 bit symmetric key and the property key of SafeIT's algorithm. The key, by itself, is changed fully automatically. This solution is unique and SafeIT is the only one who has it on the market.

In general terms the level of security is very high and the user friendliness make it to stand out from any comparatively of other systems.

It is most likely that this technique and its solution will become a de-facto standard across the globe to secure e-mail.

In fact, the software is very fast and its actually speeds up your sending our receiving of secure e-mail, which in all other cases of encryption is the opposite.

Certificate

Other security programs

There are also other security and encryption solutions available in the market. Some program may encrypt a specific file, which you thereafter can attach to your e-mail, and by giving the key / password to the receiver he or she can encrypt such attachment.

Some of these products you can find on these links:

http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10000.htm?tag=st.cn10105-ron.sb.1000

http://online.data-encryption.com/index.asp

Summary by Lars O. Känngård