6 ms·

Don't you mean: "Google would never add encryption for stored messages to unpaid Gmail accounts." Why would it necessarily be an "atrocious" business decision t

by declan 13y ago

Don't you mean: "Google would never add encryption for stored messages to unpaid Gmail accounts." Why would it necessarily be an "atrocious" business decision to charge extra for encrypted accounts? Google's happy to charge when the market demand exists for a paid service (GAE and GAB come to mind). It's true that the market demand may be insufficient here to make it worthwhile, but on the other hand privacy-sensitive companies and agencies might be more willing to switch to paid Gmail if their email were seen as more private than it is today.

superuser2 13y ago
It's also unlikely that Google could do government-proof mail any better than Husmail. They were compelled to fake the Java client in order to obtain a user's keys; why couldn't Google be pressured to do the same?
- sixothree 13y ago
  Compelled by a warrant? I think that would be acceptable to most people.
  - gcr 13y ago
    To the kind of people that think encrypted email is important, being "compelled by a warrant" to break the encryption is exactly what they wanted to protect against in the first place.
    - superuser2 13y ago
      > To the kind of people that think encrypted email is important Are you really okay with the police reading your email at any time for any reason? I would understand your attitude if email was already protected and encryption could only serve to hide from search warrants and wiretap orders, but that's not the case. The government can and does read our email whenever it pleases. How are you okay with this?
      - duaneb 13y ago
        I didn't read that tone at all. I think he was just pointing out that the people most likely to have access to mail (outside of Google itself) would be the government, so why bother encrypting at all if a warrant undoes it?
      - gcr 13y ago
        Why did you infer that I was okay with this?
        superuser2 13y ago
        You're implying that the only people who think email encryption is important are criminals (or sketchy enough that there's probably cause). I'm not a criminal, but I don't want the government reading my email.
        duaneb 13y ago
        Not all warrants issued are for criminals, just suspects, and there's nothing you can do to prevent against being a suspect.
- declan 13y ago
  I remember writing about Hushmail for Wired over 13 years ago (http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2000/03/34610?currentPage=all http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2000/03/34610?curren...). Don't you think technology has advanced a tiny bit since then? I'm thinking of Ajax, CSS, XHTML, XMLHttpRequest, DOM, JSON, HTML5, Chrome, Firefox, etc. The tools available today (and the platforms, and the machines) are far more capable. Your second point is more interesting. Hushmail was ahead of its time in ~2000 when turning to client-side encryption via Java. But nobody really loves Java in the browser. So about five years later the company began to offer a webmail service with server-side encryption. Well, duh. That's vulnerable to a court order allowing the intercept of someone's passphrase the next time they log on. Which is what happened. So you're right to say that Hushmail was vulnerable. But that was because of their server-side decision, and is unrelated to the vulnerability of properly implemented client-side encryption.
  - superuser2 13y ago
    The issue is that the client can be bugged. A provider can have a solid client-side encryption solution, but silently switch the client distributed to users of interest to an identical version which also phones home with their passwords. It's possible to verify that your code was signed with your provider's certificate, but how do you know it's the right client? How do you know it's the same one that's been peer-reviewed? We'd need a bulletproof way for the browser to check the hash of JavaScript before executing it. Unless you're going to copy/paste and MD5 the source for GMail every time you check it. The tools to be sure of the executable you're running really only exist for desktop software right now.

by declan 13y ago

superuser2 13y ago

It's also unlikely that Google could do government-proof mail any better than Husmail. They were compelled to fake the Java client in order to obtain a user's keys; why couldn't Google be pressured to do the same?

sixothree 13y ago
Compelled by a warrant? I think that would be acceptable to most people.
- gcr 13y ago
  To the kind of people that think encrypted email is important, being "compelled by a warrant" to break the encryption is exactly what they wanted to protect against in the first place.
  - superuser2 13y ago
    > To the kind of people that think encrypted email is important Are you really okay with the police reading your email at any time for any reason? I would understand your attitude if email was already protected and encryption could only serve to hide from search warrants and wiretap orders, but that's not the case. The government can and does read our email whenever it pleases. How are you okay with this?
    - duaneb 13y ago
      I didn't read that tone at all. I think he was just pointing out that the people most likely to have access to mail (outside of Google itself) would be the government, so why bother encrypting at all if a warrant undoes it?
    - gcr 13y ago
      Why did you infer that I was okay with this?
      - superuser2 13y ago
        You're implying that the only people who think email encryption is important are criminals (or sketchy enough that there's probably cause). I'm not a criminal, but I don't want the government reading my email.
        duaneb 13y ago
        Not all warrants issued are for criminals, just suspects, and there's nothing you can do to prevent against being a suspect.
declan 13y ago
I remember writing about Hushmail for Wired over 13 years ago (http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2000/03/34610?currentPage=all http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2000/03/34610?curren...). Don't you think technology has advanced a tiny bit since then? I'm thinking of Ajax, CSS, XHTML, XMLHttpRequest, DOM, JSON, HTML5, Chrome, Firefox, etc. The tools available today (and the platforms, and the machines) are far more capable. Your second point is more interesting. Hushmail was ahead of its time in ~2000 when turning to client-side encryption via Java. But nobody really loves Java in the browser. So about five years later the company began to offer a webmail service with server-side encryption. Well, duh. That's vulnerable to a court order allowing the intercept of someone's passphrase the next time they log on. Which is what happened. So you're right to say that Hushmail was vulnerable. But that was because of their server-side decision, and is unrelated to the vulnerability of properly implemented client-side encryption.
- superuser2 13y ago
  The issue is that the client can be bugged. A provider can have a solid client-side encryption solution, but silently switch the client distributed to users of interest to an identical version which also phones home with their passwords. It's possible to verify that your code was signed with your provider's certificate, but how do you know it's the right client? How do you know it's the same one that's been peer-reviewed? We'd need a bulletproof way for the browser to check the hash of JavaScript before executing it. Unless you're going to copy/paste and MD5 the source for GMail every time you check it. The tools to be sure of the executable you're running really only exist for desktop software right now.