What this is, and why it exists
Ordinary e-mail was never built to prove anything. This adds the proof, without asking you to move.
The problem, stated plainly
E-mail was designed in the 1970s to move text between trusted machines. Nothing in it
proves who wrote a message. The name in the From line is typed by whoever sent it,
the same way a return address on an envelope is written by hand. Modern checks like SPF and
DKIM help a little, but they only say something about the domain the mail came
from — never about the person.
That gap is where the expensive frauds live:
- An invoice arrives that looks exactly like the ones you always get from a supplier,
except the bank account number is different.
- A message from your director asks you to pay something urgently and quietly.
- A message really is from the address it claims — because someone took over that
mailbox last week.
None of these are caught by a spam filter, because none of them are spam. They are
ordinary messages that are lying about who wrote them or what they said.
What this adds
1. Who really sent it
Not "the domain checks out" but "this person proved they can read that mailbox, and the
message in front of you is what they wrote". Anyone can claim any address. Only somebody who
can actually open its mail can prove it, and this makes them do that once.
2. Whether it was altered
When a message is sent, a fingerprint of its text and subject is signed. When it is read,
that fingerprint is checked against the message actually on screen. If a single character
changed on the way — an account number, a link — the reader is told before they act.
3. Mail your provider cannot read
If both sides use ProtectMyMail, the message body can be sealed so that only the recipient
can open it. It still travels through your normal mail account. Your provider carries a
locked box and never gets the key.
What stays the same
Everything else. You keep your address, your provider, your mail program, your folders and
your habits. There is no new inbox to check, no new address to give people, and nothing
changes for the people who write to you without it.
The short version. This does not replace your e-mail. It sits on top of
it and answers two questions your mail program cannot: is this really from them,
and is this really what they wrote.
Who this is for
Anyone who receives messages where being wrong is expensive: payments, contracts, access
to systems, medical or legal correspondence. It is most useful between two parties who write
to each other regularly — a company and its accountant, a lawyer and a client, a board and
its members — because both sides installing it is what turns a warning into certainty.
Next: how it works.
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