If you're worried that people might be reading your email, use PGP to encrypt it so that only its intended recipient can read it.

The mathematics behind public-key cryptography are quite complex, but using PGP is much easier. It integrates with Windows, and allows you to easily encrypt and decrypt files.

It also works seamlessly with most email clients, letting you encrypt and decrypt messages on the fly. You type in a 'pass phrase' which the computer uses to generate a pair of keys. You use public keys to encrypt a message, and private keys to decrypt them.

Alternatively (or in addition) you can 'sign' a message with your key to prove that it came from you. The recipient can check the signature against a public database.

Don't worry if this all sounds confusing, as the program takes care of it all. You just click a button and type in your pass phrase.

PGP went commercial from v9 onwards and this is a time-limited demo.

Note: you need to enter a serial code which will work until October 31st 2006. Get your beta serial code by heading to this page and scrolling down for information.