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I remember an IT guy telling me that the extent of privacy when sending an email is roughly equivalent to talking loudly on a public streetcorner. Hyperbole I h

by J3L2404 16y ago

I remember an IT guy telling me that the extent of privacy when sending an email is roughly equivalent to talking loudly on a public streetcorner. Hyperbole I hope, but everyone assumes that email is private - Hypothetically maybe, but realistically I doubt it. The only thing truly private is the inside of your head. Tin foil hat aside, the problem the OP misunderestimates is the boundaries of marketing. Every ad agency would love to have realtime data of your BP and heartrate when viewing their commercial, and if they could, without your knowledge, they certainly would. Of course no one would sign an opt-in clause.

mahmud 16y ago
Hyperbole I hope You can stop hoping. The great majority of email is sent in plain text (SMTP) and as the datagrams are routed from machine to another, they're open to interception, and in fact, are routinely logged. SSL/TLS are cryptographic extension that attempt to secure messages in a socket communication, and by extension, application layer protocols such as SMTP.
- J3L2404 16y ago
  Is it really that easy to hack emails without getting caught? Judging by the Sarah Palin hacker, the risk if caught seems pretty high.
  - sbarre 16y ago
    It's not even about hacking emails. Some people have legitimate access to the information and abuse this by simple snooping or eavesdropping. Back in the early 2000s a friend of mine worked for a large consultancy in Canada and often had to work on equipment in the Bell/Sympatico (largest ISP in Canada at the time) data centers. While he was there, he said the network techs would routinely snoop the traffic of the customers at the router level to see what web pages they were looking at, and grep'ed mailboxes on the servers looking for funny/dirty pictures or private information (credentials for porn sites were a big one)... I'm sure this isn't a common thing, but you can bet it happens..
  - cgranade 16y ago
    If done by an individual, sure. For large organizations with political power, I suspect it's a whole 'nother ball game.

by J3L2404 16y ago

mahmud 16y ago

Hyperbole I hope You can stop hoping. The great majority of email is sent in plain text (SMTP) and as the datagrams are routed from machine to another, they're open to interception, and in fact, are routinely logged. SSL/TLS are cryptographic extension that attempt to secure messages in a socket communication, and by extension, application layer protocols such as SMTP.

J3L2404 16y ago
Is it really that easy to hack emails without getting caught? Judging by the Sarah Palin hacker, the risk if caught seems pretty high.
- sbarre 16y ago
  It's not even about hacking emails. Some people have legitimate access to the information and abuse this by simple snooping or eavesdropping. Back in the early 2000s a friend of mine worked for a large consultancy in Canada and often had to work on equipment in the Bell/Sympatico (largest ISP in Canada at the time) data centers. While he was there, he said the network techs would routinely snoop the traffic of the customers at the router level to see what web pages they were looking at, and grep'ed mailboxes on the servers looking for funny/dirty pictures or private information (credentials for porn sites were a big one)... I'm sure this isn't a common thing, but you can bet it happens..
- cgranade 16y ago
  If done by an individual, sure. For large organizations with political power, I suspect it's a whole 'nother ball game.