New Delhi: Amid growing concerns over internet service providers mining user data and using as well as selling them to third parties to display ads, a researcher at IIT Guwahati has launched a “privacy-first” email provider start-up.
“The email hosting provider is packed with an array of advanced features, an intuitive user interface, impressive performance and global standard security, taking into account data privacy and encrypted storage for emails. Kudos to #IITGuwahati,” Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank said in a congratulatory tweet on Thursday.
The email hosting provider is packed with an array of advanced features, an intuitive user interface, impressive performance and global standard security, taking into account data privacy and encrypted storage for emails. Kudos to #IITGuwahati. https://t.co/2nWPmXHUQI
— Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank (@DrRPNishank) January 14, 2021
The email provider start-up named Letter was launched by Sunit Kumar Nandi, who is pursuing a PhD in Computer Science and Engineering at IIT-Guwahati.
The 26-year-old researcher said the platform offers email hosting which is encrypted per mailbox and organisation with ChaCha20-Poly1305 encryption using the user’s password as the passphrase for the encryption keys making it impossible to read conversations as an email services operator.
“Email needs to be treated on a priority since it is the backbone of all human communication on the internet. The start-up was created while keeping the ease of usage, email deliverability, data ownership and privacy protection as the prime focus, which most other operators often take for granted,” Nandi was quoted as saying by Education Times.