Lately I've been thinking about how we share sensitive information online. Most of the time it's through email, which offers limited security, but not enough to feel comfortable sharing personal information that someone can piece together to exploit.

And then there's tax season, where every year it seems like there's never a reliable, secure way to share private files over the internet. Sure, you can send a password-protected PDF, but you still must send the recipient the password somehow. If that somehow is email, and that person's email has been compromised, then it kind of defeats the purpose.

But then I discovered Wormhole, a slick new app that makes sharing encrypted files blazing fast. It encrypts the files before they leave the browser, generates a sharable link, and that link expires after 24 hours. I'm finding uses cases for work too. For example, in venture it's common for companies to share their data rooms with investors. These data rooms have all sorts of sensitive information in them - IP, roadmaps, bank information, phone numbers, addresses, etc. I've used Wormhole during out last two diligence efforts to share files with the legal teams, and it was smooth. If there's something sensitive that the firm doesn't want to store and share on their normal cloud storage, Wormhole works for that too. 

So why hasn't Google put a big ole' "Encrypt" button next to the send button in Gmail? If I had to guess, I would say it has something to do with 1) Google wanting unlimited access to their data and 2) most things don't need to be encrypted. Google isn't the only one who could implement this. Any data storage provider, like Dropbox, could too. They want to own the data you store on their platform. It's probably in the user agreement somewhere. 

Next time you want to send a file that remains private, try Wormhole. I doubt you'll be disappointed.