riseup - secure email service

RiseUp - secure email service

RiseUp is a collective dedicated to providing private and secure email and hosting services for individuals and organisations committed to political and social

justice.

Homepage

https://mail.riseup.net

Computer Requirements

An Internet connection

RiseUp works best when used with the Firefox Web browser

License

Freeware

Required Reading

How-to Booklet chapter 7. Keeping your Internet Communication Private

Level: 1: Beginner, 2:Average, 3: Intermediate, 4: Experienced, 5: Advanced

Time required to start using this tool: 20 minutes

What you will get in return:

A community-driven, advertisement-free email account

The ability to access your email over the Internet or with an email program

The ability to conduct private email communications over an encrypted connection

The ability to change your email address, set your email box size, and invite others to join RiseUp

1.1 Things you should know about this tool before you start

RiseUp is a collective dedicated to providing private and secure hosting, listing and mail services for individuals and organisations committed to political and

social justice. Since their services are free, your email account is much smaller than at other, advertisement-driven and non-secure providers. Also, a new

account can only be registered by those who have received an invite code from existing members, or participants of the Digital Security Project. More on this

below.

RiseUp operates exclusively over the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) providing a secure connection between your computer and their server. This security is

maintained when reading your email in a client program, over secure POP, IMAP and SMTP connections (these refer to special protocols used by a mail

program to download your email. Please refer to the Thunderbird guide for more details).

RiseUp is compatible with Mozilla Thunderbird. To find out how to set up Mozilla Thunderbird to read your registered RiseUp email, please refer to the

Thunderbird Hands-on guide.

How to Create an Account

RiseUp offers you three different methods for registering a webmail account. Each method requires a different investment of effort and time.

1) Individuals and/or organisations are invited to join by two existing RiseUp account members. This method requires that they each send you an invite code.

To see how such codes are generated, please refer to Section 4.3 The Invites Page

2). Directly request an account from the RiseUp team themselves. This method requires the largest amount of patience and time. Bear in mind that RiseUp

generally runs on donations and the enthusiasm and goodwill of its volunteers.

3). Participants in the Digital Security Project can receive the invitation codes from their hard copy version of the NGO in a Box - Security edition.

After you have received your invite codes, perform the following steps to register your free RiseUp account as follows:

Step 1. Type https://mail.riseup.net into your web browser to activate the RiseUp site as follows:

Figure 1: The Riseup eMail Home page

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Note: Notice the https:// in the address bar. This indicates that you are now communicating through a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) connection. A green textmessage notifying you that Your connection is encrypted is displayed above the login text fields. For more information about this, please refer to the How-to

Booklet chapter 7. Keeping your Internet Communication Private or to https://help.riseup.net/security.

Step 2. Click: to activate the Request account page as follows:

Figure 2: The RiseUp Request a mail account page

Step 3. Click: to display the RiseUp Social Contract, Privacy Policy and Terms of Service page.

Important: You must check the following options to proceed any further in creating your RiseUp account:

Check: the I accept riseup.net's social contract. option

Check: the I accept riseup.net's privacy policy. option

Check: the I accept riseup.net's terms of service. option

Step 4. Click: to begin creating your RiseUp account by filling out the following on-line forms: Account information, Password, Mutual aid andActivation.

2.1 The Account information form

Step 5: Enter a desired user name for your account. This will become your login and your email address (for example, type 'tthetester' as the desired name if

you wish your email address to be [email protected]). Do not use spaces, commas or full stops in the user name.

Figure 4: A completed Account information form



Click: once you have chosen a unique user name. If a similar user name already exists, you will be asked to create a different one.

2.2 The Password form

You are asked to create a security question and answer, and a good password to protect login to your account on this form. The security question will be asked

if you forget your password. Unfortunately it also creates a vulnerability. Your adversary may only have to guess the answer or to intercept the new password

being sent to you. It is best practice to remove the possibility of guessing the answer to your secret question. This can be done by spoiling the two fields as per

the example below.

Figure 5: A completed Password form

This also means that it will be next to impossible to reset your password. You will need to remember it! This is the most secure, if not the most convenient,

option.

The password for your RiseUp account is the most important factor in the security of your account. You must choose a strong password. For more information,

please refer to booklet chapter 3. How to Create and Maintain Good Passwords and to the manual on KeePass.

Step 7. Click:

2.3 The Mutual Aid form

RiseUp is completely dependent on the generosity and kindness of strangers in terms of donations and volunteers. Although their requests for financial support

are legitimate and necessary, RiseUp also encourages users to invest their money in their local social justice projects. It is entirely up to you to decide whether

or not you or your organisation could make a contribution here.

Note: Your decision will not affect your account registration process in any way. You can still continue to create your free RiseUp account.

Figure 6: A Mutual aid form

Step 8. Click:

2.4 The Activation form

You are required to enter your invite codes in the Activation form.

Step 9. Type the Invite codes into their respective text fields.



Figure 7: A completed Activation form

Step 10. Click: to finish creating your RiseUp account as follows:

Figure 8: An example of a completed form

Step 11. Click: to return to Figure 2.

Congratulations! You have successfully created your RiseUp email account and will be returned to Figure 2: The RiseUp Request a mail account page.

How to Log into Your Account

To log into your RiseUp account, perform the following steps:

Step 1. Open the RiseUp home page in SSL mode https://mail.riseup.net/.

Figure 9: The RiseUp mail login page

The RiseUp mail page is divided into the login section on the left, and the News on the right. You are presented with two different webmail systems and can

choose either. IMP webmail is more suited to non-English interfaces.



Step 2: Type your information into the User and Password text fields in either the Squirrelmail or IMP webmail section. Do not include the '@riseup.net' bit for

the User field.

Optional step. Select your language of choice from the Language drop-down list in the IMP Webmail if necessary.

Step 3: Click: to display your account as follows:

Figure 10: An example of RiseUp Squirrelmail Account

Optional step. If you are primarily writing and receiving email in a non-Latin character set, then you may wish to specify this for the webmail account. Select

from the top menu. The SquirrelMail options window appears.

Figure 11: The SquirrelMail Options

Step 4: Display Preferences

In the following screen, locate the Language drop-down menu and select the character set for your email messages.



This option will help with determining the correct encoding for the email messages you send and receive.

3.1 How to Use the Virtual Keyboard

If you are using a computer in public setting (an Internet café, community centre or library for instance), you can enter your password by using the VirtualKeyboard. It offers your system another layer of protection from key-logger programs. Key-logger programs are designed to monitor a user's physical key

strokes to figure out passwords, user names and other vital information. Virtual keyboards bypass this vulnerability allowing the user to input a password using

the mouse.

To use the RiseUp Virtual Keyboard, perform the following steps:

Step 1. Open the RiseUp home page in SSL mode https://mail.riseup.net/.

Step 2: Type your information into the User: text field.

Step 3. Click: to activate the RiseUp Virtual Keyboard as follows:

Figure 11: The RiseUp Virtual Keyboard

Step 4. Click your mouse on the different keys that make up your password.

How to Change Your Account Settings

RiseUp lets you modify different settings for your account. You can specify the size of your email box, change your account name and address, add aliases

and much more. You can also create invite codes to help your friends and colleagues register their own RiseUp account.

Step 1. Open the RiseUp account settings page: https://user.riseup.net/



Figure 12: The user.riseup.net page

Step 2. Type your account login details into the Username and Password fields.

Step 3. Click: to activate the following screen:

Figure 13: The riseup.net user control page

4.1 The My Settings tab

The My Settings page displays all the information that you originally entered in Section 2.1 The Account information form.




Figure 14: The Settings page

On this screen you can change your user name. This will also change your email address. The new user name should also be unique. Here you can also

change any other account details such as the alternative email, password and so on.

Step 1. Type in your new information, then click: to display this message:

Figure 15: Successfully updated your changes

4.2 The Email settings page



The Email settings page lets you modify or view information related to email storage. You can even set the 'quota' or amount of space reserved for your

webmail account on a RiseUp server.


Figure 16: The Email settings page

Step 2. Enter an appropriate number into the Quota text field. Note that your account is limited in size to a maximum of 47 megabytes. This is considered

enough for important email communication. Should you wish to be using an email account to send and receive a number of large attachments, RiseUp may not

be the optimal choice for you.

You can also create aliases for your account on this page. An alias is like a nickname for your account. Whilst the main account will remain as before, people

are able to send email to your alias address as well.

Figure 16: Aliases

For example: [email protected] account now has two aliases. Email sent to [email protected] and [email protected] will be forwarded to

the main account. This maybe a useful practice in order to keep your real account address private.

4.3 The Invites page

The Invites page lets you generate invite codes that are used to invite your friends and colleagues to join RiseUp. Remember that each new account needs an

invite code from two different users. You can generate as many invite codes as you wish.




Figure 18: The Invites page

Step 2. Click: to generate invite codes as follows:

Figure 19: An example of generated invite codes

Step 3. Click:

Pass this invite code to the person wishing to register an account with RiseUp.

To exit the User panel:

Step 4. Click:

FAQ and Review

Muhindo and Salima are delighted at how relatively easy RiseUp is to use, and impressed by its commitment to progressive social values. However, there

remain a couple of nagging questions. Fortunately, their father Assani can help them find answers to them.

Q: In what circumstances would I use IMP as opposed to Squirrelmail?

A: Good question! Basically, there is no real difference. If for some reason, one email service is down or has to undergo routine maintenance or servicing, youcan always continue working on the other without interruption. Also, the IMP service provides better support for languages other than English.

Q: As I was creating my account, I realised that I don't really have to give out any information about myself.

A: Indeed, you are not required to do so. Don't forget to change your password every 3 to 6 months.

Q: Now that I and Muhindo have a RiseUp account, how can we register one for you, Assani?

A: You both need to create an invite code each and send this to me. When registering, I will use your invite codes.

6.1 Questions to test yourself with after completing this chapter

What is the difference between reading your email over webmail or through an email program?1.

What is a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and how does it work?2.

What is a virtual keyboard and how does it work?3.

How can you add an alias to your email account?4.

How long is a newly created invite code valid for?5.



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