Best service for confidential e-newsletter?

December 1, 2018 11:14 AM

I'm headed to Yemen on Monday for the next 6 months, and I'd like to send out a newsletter and photos to my friends, family, and colleagues (around 25-50 people). What is the easiest and most secure way to do this?

Despite being an otherwise active Facebook user, I'll be severely limited in what I'm allowed to post, for security reasons. (I work in humanitarian aid) Sending out an early 2000's style email newsletter seems like a good alternative.

What I'm looking for:

-I'd like to be able to upload my own PDF, but if I need to use plaintext, I'll make due.
-I want to make sure my newsletter doesn't get sent to people's Spam folder
- it's essential for it to be slightly difficult to forward, maybe a link that can only be opened from that person's email (I'm not worried about the Yemeni/Saudi/USA govt. reading what I'm writing, I just don't want what I write to be easily forwardable to a journalist, who may quote me out for context, for example.)
-The platform/service shouldn't be too heavy, as my internet will be slow
-Ideally free, but I'd be willing to pay $5 or so a month.

Any suggestions for email services would be super appreciated, thanks!

posted by hasna to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Google documents will allow you to require sign in to view (they'll need a Google account) and has settings to prevent saving/printing/copying. You'd have to add each person's Google account as an authorized viewer and then you can send the link to the document to your people via whatever email and forwarding it won't matter without their Google login credentials.
posted by noloveforned at 12:55 PM on December 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

I myself am not all that familiar with dropbox, but I'm given to understand that you can grant others access to your files there. Might that work?
posted by vignettist at 3:51 PM on December 1, 2018

So I have relatives with new babies who use TinyBeans to distribute pictures. The website requires log-in; all emails must be approved before getting updates; and there’s lots of warnings about not forwarding the emails. I’m not sure how it would work with writing, but that’s an off-beat suggestion...
posted by quadrilaterals at 9:02 AM on December 2, 2018