10 ms·

Google's Backdoor Access System into Gmail Accounts

289 points by powertower 16y ago

edanm 16y ago
I'm guessing this is in response to this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2505857 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2505857
obtino 16y ago
You guys realise that this essay was published on January 23, 2010 right? I'm sure it's been posted here before.
- powertower 16y ago
  Doing a quick search I can't find any posts linking to this essay except in 1 comment.
- rryan 16y ago
  Not only that, but Schneier posted a follow-up later that month saying that there was no evidence for what he had claimed: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/02/more_details_on.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/02/more_details_o...
pragmatic 16y ago
Could anyone recommend a hosted email service that does not allow spying on users? Alternatively I wonder what Bruce Schneier recommends? Do you have to host your own email server?
- pragmatic 16y ago
  I currently use gmail. The only features I "need" are tags and searching.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- theDoug 16y ago
  It's not necessarily 'spying.' Many large service providers have such as system for logging in as a user to aid in troubleshooting. Yahoo's is known as AMT for example and lets customer service (or anyone with high enough access clearance) 'be' that user, to see first hand the issues the customer might be dealing with. For everyone who thinks they're an email pro, or never come across problems, there's thousands of users calling any support number they can to try to understand why their junk mail folder won't empty.
- hvs 16y ago
  Under U.S. laws, providers are often required to give information to the government if they have a warrant. If you want (more) security, host it yourself.
  - daniel1980fl 16y ago
    question: wouldnt your ISP capture all traffic and "log it" on the run, so if you have your own mailserver, government can still ask ISP to get them your traffic packets? -- AFAIK mail runs in plain text over the net, right?
  - SageRaven 16y ago
    True, however some providers make attempts to thwart this by making it impossible for even themselves to access mail by way of encryption. I haven't looked at it in a long while, but lavabit.com was one such company, and it's a pretty good raw POP/IMAP service (at last check the web interface and spam measures were somewhat lacking).
    - mike-cardwell 16y ago
      I like what lavabit has done, but at the end of the day, if they are forced to, they can modify their server side software to log your password when you log in, and then use that password to decrypt all of your email on the server side. It also doesn't secure the email on the client side. If your IMAP client stores the email on disk, then you need to make sure it is encrypting it in a secure fashion first. Lavabit should offer an extra layer of encryption whereby they allow you to upload a public pgp key which they encrypt all your incoming email with using PGP/MIME.
      - earl 16y ago
        I don't think even what you said is sufficient -- as long as they are within the jurisdiction of the US court system, I think a judge can order them to start saving copies of incoming mail before encrypting, etc. I think fundamentally you can't circumvent the law with technical measures. You need to change the law to require warrants.
- semanticist 16y ago
  If you use a hosted service, then unless it is specifically set up to prevent it (as with tarsnap for backups, which requires key management on the end-user's part), the people hosting it will have access to your data. If that's a major issue, then your only recourse is to host it yourself. Running a mail server isn't terribly hard, but it does mean that when the server dies you're on the hook for fixing it. If you're not a sysadmin, then the pragmatic choice is probably to accept that Google doesn't care about the details of your email and will only be spying on you in aggregate to determine what adverts to display.
- adnam 16y ago
  Yes: sdf.lonestar.org. Been running since 1987.
  - lawnchair_larry 16y ago
    Haha, and a top contender for the record of having the most independent backdoors at a given time. If you want privacy, the last place to host your email is on a shared shell box (especially a free one).
  - jbapple 16y ago
    I had a sdf.lonestar.org account. Once, when their mail servers appeared to me to be down for a day, I asked on the discussion forums if I was the only one experiencing problems. The site administrator posted a response right away on the forums. He told me to stop whining, then explained to everyone that I received too many emails per day. (I was receiving <100 emails per day, and I was nowhere near my disk quota) He then named the most common sender of the emails I received. He did all of this in a public forum. Not only would I not trust SDF not to leak the content of your emails to unauthorized parties, I would not trust SDF not to simply read your emails for shits and giggles, or leak their contents in order to teach you a lesson for asking rude, nosy questions like, "Hey, is anyone else having problems with the mail server?"
    - babumahesh 16y ago
      hi i am mahesh
- bhousel 16y ago
  You could pgp encrypt anything that you really don't to be read in transit. Short of that, you might as well assume that your emails are being read and stored by third parties. Even if you personally use the most secure email server in the world, it doesn't matter because everyone that you send email to or from is likely using hosted services like gmail, verizon, hotmail, etc.
  - 16s 16y ago
    One big point here is that PGP only works when both sender and receiver and doing it. Try sending Bank of America a PGP encrypted email about your account. See what happens. Edit: Re-reading my response... I don't mean this in a condescending way and I agree that PGP is a good way to handle email privacy. I only meant to point out that the majority of people don't use it.
    - mike-cardwell 16y ago
      Depends. All of my incoming email is encrypted with my public key as soon as it hits my mail server: https://grepular.com/Automatically_Encrypting_all_Incoming_Email https://grepular.com/Automatically_Encrypting_all_Incoming_E... So if my mail server or any of my imap clients are compromised, my mail isn't.
      - morganpyne 16y ago
        All of your incoming email has travelled through so many insecure servers on it's way to you that encrypting it on receipt is like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.
        mike-cardwell 16y ago
        Untrue. A lot of my core correspondance run their own mail systems and use TLS. Even for those who don't, having my mail encrypted on all of my clients and on my own server is still a big gain for me security-wise. Just because I can't secure the senders system, doesn't mean I shouldn't bother securing my own.
- andrewcooke 16y ago
  i host my own server, but the best i found - about a year ago when i looked into this - was a norwegian company called runbox http://www.runbox.com/ http://www.runbox.com/ their support was also friendly, helpful, and technically clued up when i discussed some issues (i didn't go with them in the end because i've hosted my own email before, know how to do it, and decided it wasn't worth paying anyone else). [edit: to be clear, not only do i have more faith in the impartiality and openness of a scandinavian govt than the usa, there's an advantage in simply not using a host in your own country, imho. also, running your own server isn't hard. with opensuse, for example, it's pretty much just a case of (1) clicking the right options in yast and (2) configuring getmail to pull your email from your isp. although to get something anywhere close to gmail in functionality you also need to understand (and use) procmail and mairix. then you need a client - i use mutt over ssh, but you can also install a webmail soln like squirrelmail if you want.]
  - seats 16y ago
    I used runbox for several years a long time ago. I was very happy with them then and would definitely recommend as well. Also, rackspace has a hosted email offering - http://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/ http://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/
- Bootvis 16y ago
  You could try Hushmail (http://www.hushmail.com/ http://www.hushmail.com/). They claim to encrypt your e-mail but off course you can never be sure with third parties.
- forwardslash 16y ago
  A good bet might be a Swiss hosted e-mail service such as Neomailbox which is what I use. Lavabit is another one which might be what you're looking for.
  - pilif 16y ago
    Living in Switzerland and knowing the laws, I would strongly recommend against that: since 2000 we have a law that forces all email providers to hand out communication logs to the authorities and to retain them for at least 6 months. Granted: that's not the message contents, but it's bad enough. Also, from my experience I can tell you that the authorities do make use of this law even if it's just to track down a student anonymously badmouthing their teacher. No. Stay away from Switzerland if you want your correspondence to be hidden.
    - tripzilch 16y ago
      That data-retention law is for the entire European Union. 6 months is the EU minimum, but for some reason the Netherlands decided to require triple that. I bet some idiot politician thought it must be "extra secure" ... :-/
- jeromeflipo 16y ago
  We could ask Google. They've tested a PGP feature in Gmail back in Feb. 2009, so I'm sure they would (try to) release it publicly if we ask for it loud enough. http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/02/gmail-tests-pgp-signature-verification.html http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/02/gmail-tests-pgp-sig...
- armored 16y ago
  Maybe hushmail.com ...
- tintin 16y ago
  Well you can have a secure in-box yourself, but your e-mail will still be sent to untrusted providers. Another option is to give a certificate to your contact and send all conversations encrypted. edit: oops, I did not notice bhousel's post (posting the same in other words)
- baltoo 16y ago
  You could check out https://countermail.com/ https://countermail.com/.
- David1421 16y ago
  For me, I use TrulyMail. If another TrulyMail user sends me a message, it doesn't go through any email server (just TrulyMail's server). Everything is automatically encrypted /decrypted on the client so even if someone access their servers, there is nothing readable. They also have email encryption. They are also priced right: free. PGP is great and I used to use it but, as many posters have said, if the other party doesn't use it (or if they use it and you don't know they use it) it doesn't do much good. This is really true of all encryption systems.
jamespo 16y ago
Some more detail in that article would be nice.
known 16y ago
Since Gmail is free, you're the product Google is selling.
- pstuart 16y ago
  For ads, fine. That was the deal from the very beginning.
- crocowhile 16y ago
  This is true but not relevant to this discussion. Any commercial provider would have to comply if the government asked information about their customers.
mgrouchy 16y ago
Unless you host your own email, I assume that even without this specific backdoor built in google would have little trouble getting at the email they host. This is not necessarily bothering to me, or unexpected for hosted services.
- jganetsk 16y ago
  The backdoor would not be for Google, but for US intelligence.
  - mgrouchy 16y ago
    I'm not sure your conclusion is exactly right. If Google can access my data anyway(even though its a pain in the ass), they can still comply with US subpoena's. I would imagine its easier to just automate the process(with a backdoor of sorts) then have to mess around doing this all the time. I don't see any details on the actual backdoor in the article, so I hesitate to jump to conclusions.
SageRaven 16y ago
Not that I think this would truly help (they probably replicate all inbound/outbound mail to some vast pool for statistical analysis), but is there an automated way to delete all mail from one's Gmail account? I use fetchmail to remove mail from my inbox and manage it on my workstation, but must periodically log on via the web interface and go to my "All Mail" folder and do a manual select and delete.
- pudquick 16y ago
  Well, if you use POP3 - it can definitely be automatic. Client-side configuration on how long to retain messages seen on the server.
  - SageRaven 16y ago
    Mail removed from the inbox (or most other "folders" on gmail) works as expected. However, they still remain in the "All Mail" folder, which doesn't appear to be accessible to POP/IMAP clients.
    - LordLandon 16y ago
      https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#settings/fwdandpop https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#settings/fwdandpop When a message is marked as deleted and expunged from the last visible IMAP folder:
    - pyre 16y ago
      "All Mail" is accessible over IMAP, but not POP. POP doesn't have a concept of 'folder.'
- iuguy 16y ago
  There may be a difference between you deleting an email from your inbox and google deleting the actual message.
raintrees 16y ago
"In the aftermath of Google's announcement, some members of Congress are reviving a bill banning U.S. tech companies from working with governments that digitally spy on their citizens. Presumably, those legislators don't understand that their own government is on the list." Gave me a good laugh this morning...
- savagejen 16y ago
  "a bill banning U.S. tech companies from working with governments [except for the U.S.] that digitally spy on their citizens"
truthtechnician 16y ago
I run my own mail server with a roundcube frontend interface, for $5 a month (if that) on Amazon EC2. What's the point of SSL in Gmail if Google has your certs?
- maqr 16y ago
  SSL is for end-point to end-point security. SSL does not attempt to solve the problem of either end being compromised. This means that SSL won't help you if your computer is infected with rogue software or if the server you're talking to is compromised. SSL does, however, help to prevent eavesdropping between point A and point B.
  - jamespo 16y ago
    Worthwhile if you use wireless networks, particularly unencrypted ones to access your email. And with the cost of a godaddy or similar certificate so low, well worth implementing on your own box.
- josephb 16y ago
  > I run my own mail server with a roundcube frontend > interface, for $5 a month (if that) on Amazon EC2. How well does outgoing mail work for you? Amazon EC2 IP ranges are considered a large enough source of spam for many people that they are blocked wholesale.
gbrindisi 16y ago
I know it's sad to say but as a rule of thumb I've always assumed that my mails are always read and/or stored by third parties. For really important stuff my only solution is encryption.
beagle3 16y ago
Some people on this discussion mention that they simply run their own mail servers -- that's dandy for incoming mail. But how do you guys make sure your outgoing mail is not blacklisted/ignored/considered spam? That's been a non trivial problem for me in the past when I was running a mail server (and spam was not such a big problem back then). Also, is there any mail server you can run/recommend that has gmail-speedy searches and tagging? (And maildir support would be a super-extra-plus?)
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  I use a mail server stack that includes Postfix + Dovecot + RoundCube; RoundCube's search function isn't as good as Gmail's, but the ability to filter messages by literally any part of the message content just blows Gmail's tagging out of the water, IMO. (You need managesieve + a plugin for RoundCube to do this.) I so far haven't had the mail server blacklisted even once since I started using it 18 months ago. I have a number of other customers on it, including one that sends out a 500-odd subscriber newsletter, using software I developed. I have taken a couple of precautions against spam: I use SPF records for as many domains as possible, the mail server itself is locked down tighter'n a flea's bunghole (including some proactive security measures), I have remote monitoring that keeps an eye on the server constantly, and (so far) I've had the pleasure of only doing business with people I trust. It requires a lot of effort to build a good mail server, and there isn't a single "perfect" tutorial on the web for it. So, for a lot of people, it might not be worth it. For me though, I haven't touched my Gmail account in a very long time, and I really do love the fact that I have complete control over every aspect of my email (and my customers').
  - windsurfer 16y ago
    Hear hear! I use a similar set up, and it truly is great. It's even caused me to seriously consider a service that sets up a Linode for people that wants something as awesome.
    - thaumaturgy 16y ago
      Yeah, I've been sorely tempted to make a Stackscript for this setup and make it public. There are two downsides: it's at least $20 a month to do it, and having your own mail server really isn't quite a set-it-and-forget-it deal. It requires an amount of attention that wouldn't make sense for a lot of people (or businesses).
rryan 16y ago
"The rumor that China used a system Google put in place to enable lawful intercepts, which I used as a news hook for this essay, has not been confirmed. At this point, I doubt that it's true." http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/02/more_details_on.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/02/more_details_o...
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- andybak 16y ago
  Sigh. Can we get this correction to the top of the comment list please?
VladRussian 16y ago
all this evil isn't done by some special evil people. It is you or people like you who does it. people like you write the laws mandating backdoors, people like you force companies to implement it, people like you actually implement it. After all that, you dare to express displeasure with the thing you done pretty much by yourself to yourself. Man up and take responsibility for your actions. Next time you're groped by a TSA agent, you can find a relief in the thought that you (or your friend working at Google) groped the agent's Gmail account. Tit-for-tat.
- hammock 16y ago
  Damn I wish more people would realize this. Our brains "need" a clear antagonist, someone to pin the blame on. But that's not how it works, rather it's an agglomeration of many small attitudes that result in an emergent phenomenon known as culture- every time you say "hmm we need this or that!" - or more likely, every time you don't question authority and instead just roll over and accept it- you are feeding into the fucked up system that results in evil. It's not special evil people doing it. It's us.
  - jrwoodruff 16y ago
    All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. It's a great quote because it's so true, and it's happened so many times throughout history.
- reedlaw 16y ago
  That's simply not true. Even in Nazi Germany there were pockets of resistance and people like Sophie Scholl who gave their lives because of their ideals. I for one am doing my best to resist tyranny in all its forms. I certainly won't write a backdoor or vote for anyone in favor of Patriot Act-style tyranny.
  - VladRussian 16y ago
    >Even in Nazi Germany there were pockets of resistance and people like Sophie Scholl who gave their lives because of their ideals. that's exactly the point. Once you really start to not being part of the evil, you live gets really impacted, to put it mildly. >I for one am doing my best to resist tyranny in all its forms. so, how do you refuse to take your shoes off and quietly wait for the TSA agent to complete groping a child ahead of you? You just don't understand what you're talking about. You still have Internet access, and it sounds like you aren't even arrested. You do your best "armchair warrior" style. Have respect and don't mention people who gave their lives in the same paragraph with "your best" >I certainly won't write a backdoor or vote for anyone in favor of Patriot Act-style tyranny. you may have already wrote it, yet you'd not be able to disclose any details about the NSA letter that instructed your so and to avoid committing the crime you must to continue saying "i didn't write a backdoor" :)
pnathan 16y ago
So let's go with a rational assumption, which is that your email provider has the capability to read your email (scenarios: warrant, hacker, bored sysadmin). You, being a good geek, encrypt your personal systems out the wazzoo. Then you want to take the next step: encrypted communications (examples: legal, business). This now makes your request of everyone you deal with to dink with public/private keys and - likely - some sort of infrastructure. What's the best real-world (i.e., non-propellerhead) solution to this?
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  Don't communicate vital, secret, sensitive, or confidential information over email.
- ChuckMcM 16y ago
  What's the best real-world (i.e., non-propellerhead) solution to this? There isn't one. I've looked at creating one, and while its a sizable engineering job all the pieces are available. What it isn't is monetizable. Not like 'make me a gazillion dollars' monetizable, but like 'pay me a living wage to work on it' monetizable. The key (and its a horrible pun) is the key. You can build zero knowledge proof [1] key exchangers now (patent expired :-) and a relatively inexpensive 'key' based on either USB or bluetooh communications (see Yubikey [2] as an example). Such that email to a new third party could be done in an encrypted way such that the message could only be read when that exact party was reading the email in a reader that could get the keys to unlock it from the physical key. Like most such systems it only 'makes sense' if everyone (or at least a large fraction of everyone) has one. To get initial adoption it needs support in 'free' tools which means it needs to be open in the sense that folks can trust what it does, and implement a compatible protocol without paying you anything. To earn a spot in your pocket/purse/pack it needs to be flexible enough to accomodate other uses. To get those other uses the folks who provide them need to be able to support it for 'free' since their customers won't be paying them to put it in. So a large investment in propellor heads to make it usable by the rest of the world and achieve critical mass for adoption. Oh, and if you do start getting traction the governments of the world are going to want to disappear you (which was one of Bruce's points) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof [2] http://www.yubico.com/yubikey http://www.yubico.com/yubikey

289 points by powertower 16y ago

edanm 16y ago

I'm guessing this is in response to this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2505857 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2505857

obtino 16y ago

You guys realise that this essay was published on January 23, 2010 right? I'm sure it's been posted here before.

powertower 16y ago
Doing a quick search I can't find any posts linking to this essay except in 1 comment.
rryan 16y ago
Not only that, but Schneier posted a follow-up later that month saying that there was no evidence for what he had claimed: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/02/more_details_on.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/02/more_details_o...

pragmatic 16y ago

Could anyone recommend a hosted email service that does not allow spying on users? Alternatively I wonder what Bruce Schneier recommends? Do you have to host your own email server?

pragmatic 16y ago
I currently use gmail. The only features I "need" are tags and searching.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
theDoug 16y ago
It's not necessarily 'spying.' Many large service providers have such as system for logging in as a user to aid in troubleshooting. Yahoo's is known as AMT for example and lets customer service (or anyone with high enough access clearance) 'be' that user, to see first hand the issues the customer might be dealing with. For everyone who thinks they're an email pro, or never come across problems, there's thousands of users calling any support number they can to try to understand why their junk mail folder won't empty.
hvs 16y ago
Under U.S. laws, providers are often required to give information to the government if they have a warrant. If you want (more) security, host it yourself.
- daniel1980fl 16y ago
  question: wouldnt your ISP capture all traffic and "log it" on the run, so if you have your own mailserver, government can still ask ISP to get them your traffic packets? -- AFAIK mail runs in plain text over the net, right?
- SageRaven 16y ago
  True, however some providers make attempts to thwart this by making it impossible for even themselves to access mail by way of encryption. I haven't looked at it in a long while, but lavabit.com was one such company, and it's a pretty good raw POP/IMAP service (at last check the web interface and spam measures were somewhat lacking).
  - mike-cardwell 16y ago
    I like what lavabit has done, but at the end of the day, if they are forced to, they can modify their server side software to log your password when you log in, and then use that password to decrypt all of your email on the server side. It also doesn't secure the email on the client side. If your IMAP client stores the email on disk, then you need to make sure it is encrypting it in a secure fashion first. Lavabit should offer an extra layer of encryption whereby they allow you to upload a public pgp key which they encrypt all your incoming email with using PGP/MIME.
    - earl 16y ago
      I don't think even what you said is sufficient -- as long as they are within the jurisdiction of the US court system, I think a judge can order them to start saving copies of incoming mail before encrypting, etc. I think fundamentally you can't circumvent the law with technical measures. You need to change the law to require warrants.
semanticist 16y ago
If you use a hosted service, then unless it is specifically set up to prevent it (as with tarsnap for backups, which requires key management on the end-user's part), the people hosting it will have access to your data. If that's a major issue, then your only recourse is to host it yourself. Running a mail server isn't terribly hard, but it does mean that when the server dies you're on the hook for fixing it. If you're not a sysadmin, then the pragmatic choice is probably to accept that Google doesn't care about the details of your email and will only be spying on you in aggregate to determine what adverts to display.
adnam 16y ago
Yes: sdf.lonestar.org. Been running since 1987.
- lawnchair_larry 16y ago
  Haha, and a top contender for the record of having the most independent backdoors at a given time. If you want privacy, the last place to host your email is on a shared shell box (especially a free one).
- jbapple 16y ago
  I had a sdf.lonestar.org account. Once, when their mail servers appeared to me to be down for a day, I asked on the discussion forums if I was the only one experiencing problems. The site administrator posted a response right away on the forums. He told me to stop whining, then explained to everyone that I received too many emails per day. (I was receiving <100 emails per day, and I was nowhere near my disk quota) He then named the most common sender of the emails I received. He did all of this in a public forum. Not only would I not trust SDF not to leak the content of your emails to unauthorized parties, I would not trust SDF not to simply read your emails for shits and giggles, or leak their contents in order to teach you a lesson for asking rude, nosy questions like, "Hey, is anyone else having problems with the mail server?"
  - babumahesh 16y ago
    hi i am mahesh
bhousel 16y ago
You could pgp encrypt anything that you really don't to be read in transit. Short of that, you might as well assume that your emails are being read and stored by third parties. Even if you personally use the most secure email server in the world, it doesn't matter because everyone that you send email to or from is likely using hosted services like gmail, verizon, hotmail, etc.
- 16s 16y ago
  One big point here is that PGP only works when both sender and receiver and doing it. Try sending Bank of America a PGP encrypted email about your account. See what happens. Edit: Re-reading my response... I don't mean this in a condescending way and I agree that PGP is a good way to handle email privacy. I only meant to point out that the majority of people don't use it.
  - mike-cardwell 16y ago
    Depends. All of my incoming email is encrypted with my public key as soon as it hits my mail server: https://grepular.com/Automatically_Encrypting_all_Incoming_Email https://grepular.com/Automatically_Encrypting_all_Incoming_E... So if my mail server or any of my imap clients are compromised, my mail isn't.
    - morganpyne 16y ago
      All of your incoming email has travelled through so many insecure servers on it's way to you that encrypting it on receipt is like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.
      - mike-cardwell 16y ago
        Untrue. A lot of my core correspondance run their own mail systems and use TLS. Even for those who don't, having my mail encrypted on all of my clients and on my own server is still a big gain for me security-wise. Just because I can't secure the senders system, doesn't mean I shouldn't bother securing my own.
andrewcooke 16y ago
i host my own server, but the best i found - about a year ago when i looked into this - was a norwegian company called runbox http://www.runbox.com/ http://www.runbox.com/ their support was also friendly, helpful, and technically clued up when i discussed some issues (i didn't go with them in the end because i've hosted my own email before, know how to do it, and decided it wasn't worth paying anyone else). [edit: to be clear, not only do i have more faith in the impartiality and openness of a scandinavian govt than the usa, there's an advantage in simply not using a host in your own country, imho. also, running your own server isn't hard. with opensuse, for example, it's pretty much just a case of (1) clicking the right options in yast and (2) configuring getmail to pull your email from your isp. although to get something anywhere close to gmail in functionality you also need to understand (and use) procmail and mairix. then you need a client - i use mutt over ssh, but you can also install a webmail soln like squirrelmail if you want.]
- seats 16y ago
  I used runbox for several years a long time ago. I was very happy with them then and would definitely recommend as well. Also, rackspace has a hosted email offering - http://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/ http://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/
Bootvis 16y ago
You could try Hushmail (http://www.hushmail.com/ http://www.hushmail.com/). They claim to encrypt your e-mail but off course you can never be sure with third parties.
forwardslash 16y ago
A good bet might be a Swiss hosted e-mail service such as Neomailbox which is what I use. Lavabit is another one which might be what you're looking for.
- pilif 16y ago
  Living in Switzerland and knowing the laws, I would strongly recommend against that: since 2000 we have a law that forces all email providers to hand out communication logs to the authorities and to retain them for at least 6 months. Granted: that's not the message contents, but it's bad enough. Also, from my experience I can tell you that the authorities do make use of this law even if it's just to track down a student anonymously badmouthing their teacher. No. Stay away from Switzerland if you want your correspondence to be hidden.
  - tripzilch 16y ago
    That data-retention law is for the entire European Union. 6 months is the EU minimum, but for some reason the Netherlands decided to require triple that. I bet some idiot politician thought it must be "extra secure" ... :-/
jeromeflipo 16y ago
We could ask Google. They've tested a PGP feature in Gmail back in Feb. 2009, so I'm sure they would (try to) release it publicly if we ask for it loud enough. http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/02/gmail-tests-pgp-signature-verification.html http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/02/gmail-tests-pgp-sig...
armored 16y ago
Maybe hushmail.com ...
tintin 16y ago
Well you can have a secure in-box yourself, but your e-mail will still be sent to untrusted providers. Another option is to give a certificate to your contact and send all conversations encrypted. edit: oops, I did not notice bhousel's post (posting the same in other words)
baltoo 16y ago
You could check out https://countermail.com/ https://countermail.com/.
David1421 16y ago
For me, I use TrulyMail. If another TrulyMail user sends me a message, it doesn't go through any email server (just TrulyMail's server). Everything is automatically encrypted /decrypted on the client so even if someone access their servers, there is nothing readable. They also have email encryption. They are also priced right: free. PGP is great and I used to use it but, as many posters have said, if the other party doesn't use it (or if they use it and you don't know they use it) it doesn't do much good. This is really true of all encryption systems.

jamespo 16y ago

Some more detail in that article would be nice.

known 16y ago

Since Gmail is free, you're the product Google is selling.

pstuart 16y ago
For ads, fine. That was the deal from the very beginning.
crocowhile 16y ago
This is true but not relevant to this discussion. Any commercial provider would have to comply if the government asked information about their customers.

mgrouchy 16y ago

Unless you host your own email, I assume that even without this specific backdoor built in google would have little trouble getting at the email they host. This is not necessarily bothering to me, or unexpected for hosted services.

jganetsk 16y ago
The backdoor would not be for Google, but for US intelligence.
- mgrouchy 16y ago
  I'm not sure your conclusion is exactly right. If Google can access my data anyway(even though its a pain in the ass), they can still comply with US subpoena's. I would imagine its easier to just automate the process(with a backdoor of sorts) then have to mess around doing this all the time. I don't see any details on the actual backdoor in the article, so I hesitate to jump to conclusions.

SageRaven 16y ago

Not that I think this would truly help (they probably replicate all inbound/outbound mail to some vast pool for statistical analysis), but is there an automated way to delete all mail from one's Gmail account? I use fetchmail to remove mail from my inbox and manage it on my workstation, but must periodically log on via the web interface and go to my "All Mail" folder and do a manual select and delete.

pudquick 16y ago
Well, if you use POP3 - it can definitely be automatic. Client-side configuration on how long to retain messages seen on the server.
- SageRaven 16y ago
  Mail removed from the inbox (or most other "folders" on gmail) works as expected. However, they still remain in the "All Mail" folder, which doesn't appear to be accessible to POP/IMAP clients.
  - LordLandon 16y ago
    https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#settings/fwdandpop https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#settings/fwdandpop When a message is marked as deleted and expunged from the last visible IMAP folder:
  - pyre 16y ago
    "All Mail" is accessible over IMAP, but not POP. POP doesn't have a concept of 'folder.'
iuguy 16y ago
There may be a difference between you deleting an email from your inbox and google deleting the actual message.

raintrees 16y ago

"In the aftermath of Google's announcement, some members of Congress are reviving a bill banning U.S. tech companies from working with governments that digitally spy on their citizens. Presumably, those legislators don't understand that their own government is on the list." Gave me a good laugh this morning...

savagejen 16y ago
"a bill banning U.S. tech companies from working with governments [except for the U.S.] that digitally spy on their citizens"

truthtechnician 16y ago

I run my own mail server with a roundcube frontend interface, for $5 a month (if that) on Amazon EC2. What's the point of SSL in Gmail if Google has your certs?

maqr 16y ago
SSL is for end-point to end-point security. SSL does not attempt to solve the problem of either end being compromised. This means that SSL won't help you if your computer is infected with rogue software or if the server you're talking to is compromised. SSL does, however, help to prevent eavesdropping between point A and point B.
- jamespo 16y ago
  Worthwhile if you use wireless networks, particularly unencrypted ones to access your email. And with the cost of a godaddy or similar certificate so low, well worth implementing on your own box.
josephb 16y ago
> I run my own mail server with a roundcube frontend > interface, for $5 a month (if that) on Amazon EC2. How well does outgoing mail work for you? Amazon EC2 IP ranges are considered a large enough source of spam for many people that they are blocked wholesale.

gbrindisi 16y ago

I know it's sad to say but as a rule of thumb I've always assumed that my mails are always read and/or stored by third parties. For really important stuff my only solution is encryption.

beagle3 16y ago

Some people on this discussion mention that they simply run their own mail servers -- that's dandy for incoming mail. But how do you guys make sure your outgoing mail is not blacklisted/ignored/considered spam? That's been a non trivial problem for me in the past when I was running a mail server (and spam was not such a big problem back then). Also, is there any mail server you can run/recommend that has gmail-speedy searches and tagging? (And maildir support would be a super-extra-plus?)

thaumaturgy 16y ago
I use a mail server stack that includes Postfix + Dovecot + RoundCube; RoundCube's search function isn't as good as Gmail's, but the ability to filter messages by literally any part of the message content just blows Gmail's tagging out of the water, IMO. (You need managesieve + a plugin for RoundCube to do this.) I so far haven't had the mail server blacklisted even once since I started using it 18 months ago. I have a number of other customers on it, including one that sends out a 500-odd subscriber newsletter, using software I developed. I have taken a couple of precautions against spam: I use SPF records for as many domains as possible, the mail server itself is locked down tighter'n a flea's bunghole (including some proactive security measures), I have remote monitoring that keeps an eye on the server constantly, and (so far) I've had the pleasure of only doing business with people I trust. It requires a lot of effort to build a good mail server, and there isn't a single "perfect" tutorial on the web for it. So, for a lot of people, it might not be worth it. For me though, I haven't touched my Gmail account in a very long time, and I really do love the fact that I have complete control over every aspect of my email (and my customers').
- windsurfer 16y ago
  Hear hear! I use a similar set up, and it truly is great. It's even caused me to seriously consider a service that sets up a Linode for people that wants something as awesome.
  - thaumaturgy 16y ago
    Yeah, I've been sorely tempted to make a Stackscript for this setup and make it public. There are two downsides: it's at least $20 a month to do it, and having your own mail server really isn't quite a set-it-and-forget-it deal. It requires an amount of attention that wouldn't make sense for a lot of people (or businesses).

rryan 16y ago

"The rumor that China used a system Google put in place to enable lawful intercepts, which I used as a news hook for this essay, has not been confirmed. At this point, I doubt that it's true." http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/02/more_details_on.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/02/more_details_o...

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andybak 16y ago
Sigh. Can we get this correction to the top of the comment list please?

VladRussian 16y ago

all this evil isn't done by some special evil people. It is you or people like you who does it. people like you write the laws mandating backdoors, people like you force companies to implement it, people like you actually implement it. After all that, you dare to express displeasure with the thing you done pretty much by yourself to yourself. Man up and take responsibility for your actions. Next time you're groped by a TSA agent, you can find a relief in the thought that you (or your friend working at Google) groped the agent's Gmail account. Tit-for-tat.

hammock 16y ago
Damn I wish more people would realize this. Our brains "need" a clear antagonist, someone to pin the blame on. But that's not how it works, rather it's an agglomeration of many small attitudes that result in an emergent phenomenon known as culture- every time you say "hmm we need this or that!" - or more likely, every time you don't question authority and instead just roll over and accept it- you are feeding into the fucked up system that results in evil. It's not special evil people doing it. It's us.
- jrwoodruff 16y ago
  All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. It's a great quote because it's so true, and it's happened so many times throughout history.
reedlaw 16y ago
That's simply not true. Even in Nazi Germany there were pockets of resistance and people like Sophie Scholl who gave their lives because of their ideals. I for one am doing my best to resist tyranny in all its forms. I certainly won't write a backdoor or vote for anyone in favor of Patriot Act-style tyranny.
- VladRussian 16y ago
  >Even in Nazi Germany there were pockets of resistance and people like Sophie Scholl who gave their lives because of their ideals. that's exactly the point. Once you really start to not being part of the evil, you live gets really impacted, to put it mildly. >I for one am doing my best to resist tyranny in all its forms. so, how do you refuse to take your shoes off and quietly wait for the TSA agent to complete groping a child ahead of you? You just don't understand what you're talking about. You still have Internet access, and it sounds like you aren't even arrested. You do your best "armchair warrior" style. Have respect and don't mention people who gave their lives in the same paragraph with "your best" >I certainly won't write a backdoor or vote for anyone in favor of Patriot Act-style tyranny. you may have already wrote it, yet you'd not be able to disclose any details about the NSA letter that instructed your so and to avoid committing the crime you must to continue saying "i didn't write a backdoor" :)

pnathan 16y ago

So let's go with a rational assumption, which is that your email provider has the capability to read your email (scenarios: warrant, hacker, bored sysadmin). You, being a good geek, encrypt your personal systems out the wazzoo. Then you want to take the next step: encrypted communications (examples: legal, business). This now makes your request of everyone you deal with to dink with public/private keys and - likely - some sort of infrastructure. What's the best real-world (i.e., non-propellerhead) solution to this?

thaumaturgy 16y ago
Don't communicate vital, secret, sensitive, or confidential information over email.
ChuckMcM 16y ago
What's the best real-world (i.e., non-propellerhead) solution to this? There isn't one. I've looked at creating one, and while its a sizable engineering job all the pieces are available. What it isn't is monetizable. Not like 'make me a gazillion dollars' monetizable, but like 'pay me a living wage to work on it' monetizable. The key (and its a horrible pun) is the key. You can build zero knowledge proof [1] key exchangers now (patent expired :-) and a relatively inexpensive 'key' based on either USB or bluetooh communications (see Yubikey [2] as an example). Such that email to a new third party could be done in an encrypted way such that the message could only be read when that exact party was reading the email in a reader that could get the keys to unlock it from the physical key. Like most such systems it only 'makes sense' if everyone (or at least a large fraction of everyone) has one. To get initial adoption it needs support in 'free' tools which means it needs to be open in the sense that folks can trust what it does, and implement a compatible protocol without paying you anything. To earn a spot in your pocket/purse/pack it needs to be flexible enough to accomodate other uses. To get those other uses the folks who provide them need to be able to support it for 'free' since their customers won't be paying them to put it in. So a large investment in propellor heads to make it usable by the rest of the world and achieve critical mass for adoption. Oh, and if you do start getting traction the governments of the world are going to want to disappear you (which was one of Bruce's points) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof [2] http://www.yubico.com/yubikey http://www.yubico.com/yubikey