Worried that boss is reading your email in office ? Read some ways to prevent people from snooping your email. From IDG.

Whether you get your e-mail on a company network or through a Web mail service, your company has the legal right to monitor your incoming and outgoing messages.

But you can shut out corporate snoops by encrypting your messages.

For Web mail, a quick trick is to add an “s” after the “p” in the “http://” portion of the address bar; this will switch you to a secure, encrypted connection. For example, https://mail.aol.com or https://mail.google.com will connect you to each service in such a way that only you can read your incoming messages, and only the intended recipients can read your outgoing mail. Microsoft automatically encrypts messages in its Hotmail accounts, but the “https:” trick does not work for Yahoo Mail.

To encrypt e-mail messages in Outlook, you need a Digital ID certificate from VeriSign that costs $20 a year. To obtain a Digital ID in Outlook 2003, select Tool, Options, Security and click the Get Digital ID button.

Once obtained, the ID will automatically install itself in your Web browser or e-mail program. A Digital ID acts as an electronic substitute for a sealed envelope and handwritten signature. It lets you encrypt e-mail and attachments, protecting them from being read by online intruders. Only your intended recipient can decrypt them. Of course, you’ll have to share your password with your recipient to make this possible.