IIT Guwahati Scholar Launches Email Provider Start-Up With Privacy First Facility; Read Details Here

Sunit Kumar Nandi, PhD student from IIT Guwahati, launches an email provider start-up called “Letter” which secures the privacy of the user. By using password as passphrase for encryption, the email cannot be accessed by the third party.

Sunit Kumar Nandi from IIT Guwahati  says email is the backbone of all human communication on the internet and needs to be prioritised. Letter is developed while considering the ease of usage, email deliverability, data ownership and privacy protection. Unlike other email service providers, Letter does not breach the privacy of the users.

The platform offers email hosting which is encrypted per mailbox and organisation with ChaCha20-Poly1305 encryption using the user's password as the paraphrase for the encryption keys. This makes it very difficult to read conversations as an email service operator.

Also read: IIT Placement 2020: Phase 1 of Placement Drive concludes with high-paying job offers; check details here

Nandi is also a trainee teacher at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at NIT, Arunachal Pradesh. The idea to build Letter was conceived when Nandi operated Techno FAQ Digital Media in 2012 and wanted business email solutions for his startup. 

While Self-hosting Techno FAQ's business email he realized that email encryption is required to maintain customer's privacy and decided to explore the possibilities in this field. He gradually learnt how to offer email services and security while not giving up on features, great performance and fast deliverability of emails to the recipient's inbox.

Also read: IIT Guwahati Students’ Startup Develops Multilingual App for Farmers to Manage Crops: Read Details Here

Most of the email providers do not offer standard ways to access mailboxes and are compelling to use the app versions. While some have spam and email-deliverability as major issues. To overcome these hurdles, Letter offers the option to import and export the emails and control the usage of data at the same time.

It guarantees connection encryption for transacting emails with TLS 1.3 with 256-bit key strength with either AES-256-GCM or ChaCha20-Poly1305. Further, it adds a layer over and above email encryption that not only secure source emails but also the infrastructure from cyberattacks.

Also read: IIT Guwahati Researchers Develop Tech to Reduce Transmissibility of Earthquakes