German Email Companies Adopt Encryption To Block Out NSA

According to an RT report communicatons sent between two German email providers will now be encrypted to block out NSA surveillance.  A project dubbed “e-mail made in Germany” has been set up in response to information brought forward by Edward Snowden. The NSA currently intercepts about 500 million phone calls, texts and emails in Germany each month.

“Germans are deeply unsettled by the latest reports on the potential interception of communication data,” said Rene Obermann, head of Deutsche Telekom, the country’s largest email provider. “Now, they can bank on the fact that their personal data online is as secure as it possibly can be.”

Deutsche Telecom and United Internet have now decided to implement SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) which is an industry standard form of encryption that scrambles signals as they are sent through cables – often when the NSA will try and intercept such communications. The companies will employ the use of exclusively German cables and servers when communicating with each other.

This initiative helps to tackle the-day-to-day sniffing around on the communication lines but it still doesn’t prevent governments from getting information,” Stefan Frei, a research director at information security company NSS Labs, told Reuters.

Image courtesy of Welt.de