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In terms only of capabilities, that makes me wonder a lot about Gmail. I don't see anything there that they couldn't do if they wished to do it on a far grande
by Natsu 10y ago
In terms only of capabilities, that makes me wonder a lot about Gmail. I don't see anything there that they couldn't do if they wished to do it on a far grander scale.
Granted, I tend to think the people who run Gmail are more honest than that, but if someday the wrong people retired and others took over or what have you, I wonder just how suddenly that could change?
- Iv 10y agoWho knows? Maybe at one point people will realize the value of local mail storage and end to end cryptography.
- bluejekyll 10y agoDo you only use one device?
- mcculley 10y agoUsing multiple devices does not preclude one from using a server and end-to-end encryption.
- bluejekyll 10y agoThe reason I ask is about private key movement. I'm curious how you share that across devices. It's the biggest issue in e2e encryption imo. Just curious if you do anything novel there.
- mcculley 10y agoI don't do anything novel. I have my private key on three devices.
- Skuzzzy 10y agoHow do you get that private key on each of your devices, this is a real issue for a lot of less technical users.
- Natsu 10y agoUnless they're using an HSM, that would most likely be a matter of just copying a file. With an HSM, it would have to be marked as exportable (bad for security), or to happen via some proprietary HSM to HSM cloning method endorsed by the vendor. That said, I don't see that much HSM usage outside of the government or their contractors.
- wazanator 10y agoThere are so many factors involved that it becomes unreasonable quickly. Your main problem is going to be getting everyone to use it. If you converted 25% of the people using email today to an end to end encryption system it means that they can either only email anyone else in that 25% or anytime they send or receive an email from the other 75% it's not going to be encrypted the entire way.
- cocktailpeanuts 10y agoGmail doesn't need to sell data to anyone, they use it for rest of the google suites like google.com, adsense, youtube, doubleclick, and all the other properties they own. In fact it would be a stupid idea for them to sell any of that data directly to a 3rd party. Instead they package them in user friendly (marketer/advertiser friendly) ways to capitalize. Some of these are shady and I'm not a fan but overall I think this approach is fine. The problem happens when you sell user data to a 3rd party. Here's an example: Let's say you start an email newsletter about travel. You get millions of subscribers. Then you start putting ads on your email. Maybe sometimes even send sponsored messages. This is kind of annoying but not "unethical". On the other hand, the same company could take all the email list and sell it to bunch of travel agencies. Then all the million users who subscribed suddenly start receiving spam emails from these travel agencies. This is unethical because they literally "sold" your email address. Of course this is more of an extreme example, but the pattern is the same.
- shostack 10y ago> "Instead they package them in user friendly (marketer/advertiser friendly) ways to capitalize." Yes, it is called Gmail Sponsored Promotions or "GSPs." Depending on the audience they can apparently be quite effective. [1] [1] http://marketingland.com/gmail-sponsored-promotions-everything-need-know-succeed-direct-response-gsp-part-1-120938 http://marketingland.com/gmail-sponsored-promotions-everythi...