In one embodiment of the present invention, a first user—the creator—uses a web browser to encrypt some information. The web browser provides to the creator a URL which contains the key used for encryption, such as in the form of an anchor embedded within a URL. The web browser also provides a hash of the cryptographic key and the encrypted information to a web server. The creator transmits the URL to a second user—the viewer—who provides the URL to a web browser, thereby causing the web browser to navigate to a decryption web page maintained by the web server, but without transmitting the cryptographic key to the web server. The viewer's web browser hashes the cryptographic key and sends the hash to the web server, which uses the hash to identify and return the encrypted information to the viewer's web browser, which in turn uses the encryption key to decrypt the message and display the decrypted message to the viewer.