This is one of the more frequent questions I've been asked
recently. It really comes down to a question of risk
analysis. I'm a proponent of trying to use the web as much as
possible as a tool for the Great Commision, but realize security can be
a real concern. I'm not an expert on the security needs of
mission fields, but here's a rundown of the risks taken by using email,
the web and this website (or any Community Server site).
Most
people think email
is more secure than it is. Having said that, there are
few communications it isn't secure enough for. Most email
is sent unencrypted over the internet which means it can be read by
anyone who gets their hands on it. Intercepting email
is both easier and harder to do than you would expect. At the
moment, I'm not a good person to comment much on it, but let me know if
you would like me to look into it further. Whoever provides your
email service (Yahoo, Google, Comcast, Verizon, etc.) stores the
emails at least temporarily. I believe Google even analyzes the
content of
their gmail accounts to serve ads better to the users.
It can be
even more difficult to control who can access information that's posted
on websites. The basic technologies the web is built on don't
allow you to decide who can or can't view web pages, but there are
techniques that can be used to control that. Web pages are also
normally sent unencrypted over the internet and can be intercepted
similarly to emails, but that is also unlikely in most situations.
Fortunately,
the Community Server software we use on NWMCmission.org allows us to
control a good deal. First of all, we can make any sharing medium
(blog, forum, photo gallery, etc) private, restricting it to registered
users (currently ~150, but steadily growing). The largest benefit
this gives is preventing any information posted in these blogs and
forums from being discovered through search engines. We can even
take this a step further and only allow certain registered users to
view a bog or forum. The only problem is someone has to maintain
these permissions and it can become time consuming.
We
can also add names to the "bad words" list to prevent them from
appearing even when we discuss them in public areas of the
website. For example, one missionary's name will always appear as
A*** B***. This list also needs to be maintained and it's only
reasonable to add so many names. If there is a name you believe
should be added to this list, please contact me.
Although these methods reduce the benefits of the web, I think
they can allow us to use it well as long as we apply them wisely to
each situation.