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Microsoft: All your data are belong to us.
superboyac:
My question is not with security. I've accepted the fact that email is insecure. I just want a company to say "we are not allowed to poke around without your consent". Not, "if we have to, we will poke around all we want, and remove stuff and do whatever we want." I have no problem with the technology itself, even if it sucks.
40hz:
I just want a company to say "we are not allowed to poke around without your consent". Not, "if we have to, we will poke around all we want, and remove stuff and do whatever we want."
-superboyac (March 27, 2014, 05:49 PM)
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The problem is, between the existing state of the law, and the "understandings" between industry and government - "your consent" doesn't factor into the equation any more.
Done deal. It's over. :'(
About the only alternative is to encrypt befor sending - BUT - how secure is the encryption alogrithm - or the OS it's running on - or the app you composed your original message in? They all can (and many do) have backdoors, engineered weaknesses, and related sneaky gremlins lurking within their code. That's the problem with closed and proprietary code. You just can't ever be sure - even if (by now) we're all pretty damn sure, if ya know what I mean. :-\
Jibz:
I think if it's "free", or the company obviously has a commercial interest in your data not only in selling you the service, then you can be pretty sure they will take a peek.
If you want something where this is less likely, perhaps a commercial provider which is not also a multi-billion dollar conglomerate might work.
I've been using fastmail for a couple of years, and since the break with Opera, I don't see them having much interest in the data.
Vurbal:
I just want a company to say "we are not allowed to poke around without your consent". Not, "if we have to, we will poke around all we want, and remove stuff and do whatever we want."
-superboyac (March 27, 2014, 05:49 PM)
--- End quote ---
The problem is, between the existing state of the law, and the "understandings" between industry and government - "your consent" doesn't factor into the equation any more.
Done deal. It's over. :'(
About the only alternative is to encrypt befor sending - BUT - how secure is the encryption alogrithm - or the OS it's running on - or the app you composed your original message in? They all can (and many do) have backdoors, engineered weaknesses, and related sneaky gremlins lurking within their code. That's the problem with closed and proprietary code. You just can't ever be sure - even if (by now) we're all pretty damn sure, if ya know what I mean. :-\
-40hz (March 27, 2014, 06:09 PM)
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Exactly what I've been telling people for a long time now - especially business users. Any information you entrust with a third party for transit or especially storage is, inherently, not private. At best it may be private from the world at large but you should assume some government, or maybe several, can get access to it without notice - even after the fact.
Furthermore any encryption, even if it isn't built with intentional vulnerabilities and even if nobody every works out an exploit, can be cracked by brute force given enough time and computing power. The best you can hope for is to make it difficult enough that it's not worth the time and effort. Unfortunately you can never be 100% sure how much time and effort will be required, what resources a potential attacker has at their disposal, or how badly they want to learn your secrets.
dr_andus:
News just in...
Microsoft: Let's be clear, WE won't read your email – but the cops will
Today Microsoft's general counsel Brad Smith has announced Microsoft has changed its policy again. From now on, Redmond staff won't probe the email inboxes of its customers, but will outsource the job to law enforcement.
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