The other day I got a letter that was sent FedEx to me. The person sending the letter wanted to make sure that I got it, the whole signature/you really got it thing. But by sending a simple letter the impact on the environment is huge compared to sending a secure encrypted email. What is worse is all the data corporations and governments stored on DVD now they do not trust that media and are printing all the documents and putting the paper in the filing cabinets. How many pounds of paper could be reduced on by using encrypted/compressed data storage devices? Plus the physcial security, heat and lights for the building that stores all the paper vs storing a hard drive, tape backup or DVDR.

Imagine if maybe “security” will help to reduce our corporate environmental impact. That would be just weird. If we could get people to just start sending encrypted/digitally signed email for simple documents, and use the digital signature as an generally accepted signature it would be a good first step.

When you give your boss the budget for secure email, tell them it is for protecting your email and for going green, then watch their reaction.