Options For Securely Sharing Files 1
In this Tax season, I find myself needing to share sensitive documents with relatively unsophisticated people and organizations. How should I share my files with them?
The Options
There are a few options to get those sensitive files to a provider. I will attempt to list the options, then describe the problems with each. Sadly, there aren’t any good solutions unless the service provider already has a solution setup. In my experience, be it an accountant, lawyer, doctor or shipping company, they do not.
- Encrypted Email with PGP or OpenPG or GnuPG
- Encrypted files, probably ZIPped attached to emails with a shared password
- Encrypted shared file service – perhaps Dropbox or sftp
- SSL Encrypted web portal with non-trivial userids and passwords
Sadly, there is no universal standard for sharing files, securely.
