Screenshots

It pays to be paranoid. Some references below;

1. Install a firewall
http://www.zonelabs.com/

2. Encrypt your documents especially, if you are using laptop
http://www.truecrypt.org/

3. To hide your IP
(such software will not work if you're using a router or behind a local network)
http://www.hide-ip-soft.com/

4. To hide IP without software
(such sites enable you to access sites that your company blocks)
http://www.shysurfer.com/

5. Wipe your hardisk to prevent deleted document reconstruction
http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

Use Tor or Torpark is better than that hide your IP crap.

Also note hushmail is not failsafe.

If you really want control, setup your own e-mail server on the end of you streamyx line with a dynamic pointer to the MX record.

But frankly no e-mail is safe, unless it's PGP encrypted end to end it's plain text for all the servers and ISPs it passed through in the middle.

You are better off publishing your public PGP key and asking people to send you PGP encrypted and signed mails.

Hushmail really doesn't help.

JEFF OOI says: For basic users, Hushmail correspondence has two security measures: PGP signature and/or Encryption using a Q&A set privy to the corresponding parties.

I agree with ShaolinTiger. Tor is much more reliable. I heard some Chinese dissidents use it to cloak their IPs.