Imagine you are working on a proposal for a project your company is bidding on, and you want to share the draft of the document with a colleague for some feedback, or you need to send some financial files to a subcontractor. Enter LockDox (free), a service from WatchDox designed to make it easier for individuals and the smallest businesses to securely send confidential files.
Yes, you can just use email or any of the several file-sharing services out there, but LockDox allows you to apply basic access-control rules to the files and track who viewed the file, and when they viewed it. Perhaps you want a colleague to be able to view the file for a certain period of time, or maybe you want to make sure a contractor cannot download the file you sent. With LockDox, it's possible to revoke the recipient's access to the file even after it has been sent.
There is no software to download or any complex setup to perform. You only need a Web browser and an account on the LockDox site to send and view files. It doesn't even matter if recipients don't have the appropriate client software (such as Microsoft Word) installed, since all files are displayed within the browser window.
Creating an account is straightforward—just the first name, last name, email address, and a password—although you have to confirm the email address before LockDox will send or open any files. The recipient also has to create an account on the site in order to view the files. I personally prefer services that don't require users to create an account. For example, Hightail, formerly known as YouSendIt, just provides a link to the file. But I understand that method won't work with LockDox because of the way access control is implemented.
Mail Interface
Clicking on the bright yellow Share New File button opens up the file-sharing dialog: a simple mail form with fields for Send to and Message. You can send to multiple recipients at once (just separate the email addresses with a comma), but there doesn't seem to be any kind of an address book or any way to save frequently used email addresses. The address has to be manually typed each time, which seems tedious in these type-ahead times.
The bottom of the mail form has two areas, one for uploading the files to send, and the other to select access control rules. It is possible to just drag and drop the file into the document area, or you can browse through the directory structure to find the file you want to send. In the access control section, you can set the file as view-only or view-and-download, add watermarks to the file, and define an expiration date. The watermark option (more on this below) is available only if you select the view-only mode. Finally, you can set the files to never expire or to expire in a month, a week, or a day. I wish there was a little bit more flexibility in defining the expiration period, though. For example, I'd like to be able to say that the file expires at 3 p.m. on a certain day, as opposed to the default, midnight.
Watermark is my favorite feature in LockDox. The system superimposes the email address of the recipient and the date the file was sent on top of the file's contents. This way, if the recipient takes a screenshot of the file and leaks the contents, you will know exactly which file was exposed.
Inbox and Sent Interfaces
There are two tabs in the My Files section of the site. Inbox shows all the files you have received, and Sent lists all the files you have sent others.
Next: LockDox Web Interface
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