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> GMail won't update to 3.0 in any meaningful way, no matter what Perhaps this problem can be addressed by having a plugin/add-on/extension that decrypts the m

> GMail won't update to 3.0 in any meaningful way, no matter what Perhaps this problem can be addressed by having a plugin/add-on/extension that decrypts the mail within the browser. GMail, Yahoo, or other mail providers that don't adopt this new and secure email protocol won't get the plaintext of your message, and preferably not the metadata either. This requires that the new protocol use a converter or proxy or something to be able to talk to the existing email infrastructure. I'm sure this idea has occurred to the Silent Circle and Lavabit guys.

diydsp 13y ago
Maybe people could run a local app/filter that extracts keywords from our own mail and shares them with google. Leave the power completely in our hands to give to google what we feel like giving them.
- dmix 13y ago
  This patchwork approach to attempting to solve a large broken system has visibly failed analogously to politics, in terms of preventing the threat of mass-surveillance. I don't see how this is any different. We need new technology to solve new problems. Decentralization. Changing behavior is not easy, but sometimes necessary. Everything else being proposed seems half-assed (for lack of a better word) and easily circumventable by a resourceful adversary. As long as Google (or whomever) holds all the cards and has a lot to lose by not complying to threat of force (for ex. shareholders and stock prices), then we won't get anywhere.
vidarh 13y ago
There are two parts to e-mail security: (EDIT: To the security of the information in any particular message, there are additional issues regarding e.g. routing to prevent leaking information) The contents. You can secure that with pgp etc. today, and gmail can do nothing about it, and there a browser plugin that "hides" the mess would be workable. The metadata. Here gmail etc. is a problem. The best we can do are remailers that anonmize the sender. In the case of e.g. Gmail, the recipient at Gmail will obviously still be in plain text, but we can obscure the sender by encrypting forwarding information and setting the To: field to a remailer. A plugin could handle that too. Of course any such plugins would either need the cooperation of the webmail providers (yeah, right) or would need to deal with breaking whenever they change their UI.

diydsp 13y ago

Maybe people could run a local app/filter that extracts keywords from our own mail and shares them with google. Leave the power completely in our hands to give to google what we feel like giving them.

dmix 13y ago
This patchwork approach to attempting to solve a large broken system has visibly failed analogously to politics, in terms of preventing the threat of mass-surveillance. I don't see how this is any different. We need new technology to solve new problems. Decentralization. Changing behavior is not easy, but sometimes necessary. Everything else being proposed seems half-assed (for lack of a better word) and easily circumventable by a resourceful adversary. As long as Google (or whomever) holds all the cards and has a lot to lose by not complying to threat of force (for ex. shareholders and stock prices), then we won't get anywhere.

vidarh 13y ago

There are two parts to e-mail security: (EDIT: To the security of the information in any particular message, there are additional issues regarding e.g. routing to prevent leaking information) The contents. You can secure that with pgp etc. today, and gmail can do nothing about it, and there a browser plugin that "hides" the mess would be workable. The metadata. Here gmail etc. is a problem. The best we can do are remailers that anonmize the sender. In the case of e.g. Gmail, the recipient at Gmail will obviously still be in plain text, but we can obscure the sender by encrypting forwarding information and setting the To: field to a remailer. A plugin could handle that too. Of course any such plugins would either need the cooperation of the webmail providers (yeah, right) or would need to deal with breaking whenever they change their UI.