2 ms·

>I think it goes off the rails in step 2. This went off the rails well before I started to write it. But let me push back on your thoughts. If I am understand

by pappyo 12y ago

>I think it goes off the rails in step 2. This went off the rails well before I started to write it. But let me push back on your thoughts. If I am understanding Microsoft's argument correctly for this court case, they are trying to equate e-mails to letters. And, by extension, equate themselves to UPS/USPS/FedEx whathaveyou. E-mails are private correspondence, just like letters in the post. And please, correct me if I'm wrong in this assessment. It is also a felony in the US to open someone's mail. So wouldn't that same protection exist in email? Which would mean nobody can look at an email correspondence unless they were either the sender or receiver of said email.

me1010 12y ago
I think the snail mail to email analogy is flawed... snail mail has an envelope, plain text email does not. However, a postcard does not generally have an envelope... So here are some better analogies: snail mail letter == encrypted email snail mail postcard == plain text email publicly posted diary == plain text gmail
e12e 12y ago
(I've yet to read TFA, but:) I'm all for privacy in email, but if we're doing analogies, unencrypted email is more like postcards, than letters. And metadata is more like what's written on the letter than in it. (And SMTP over TLS would be like the mailboxes you're not allowed to look in, unless you're delivering mail, or are the recipient...) As far as I can gather, the US has pretty shoddy laws guarding personal information from corporations -- so a change wrt email might be a win. But I don't know if this is the best way. As long as there doesn't appear to be any viable way to get most people to use gpg/smime -- I'm not sure we're likely to get anywhere. Perhaps that is what Microsoft should do: leverage S/MIME for outlook.com (with the caveat that they would have to keep the encrypted private keys, and being a web service, could be forced to backdoor the clients in order to get the pass-phrases/passwords...). Hm, I wonder if there's an IMAP extension for storing encrypted key-pairs?
ncallaway 12y ago
The fourth amendment doesn't protect you from other people reading your post. It probably _does_ protect you from the government reading your post (though, apparently not protect you from the NSA logging all your mail[1]). It is a crime for other people to read your mail, though that protection comes from the legislative branch, not the constitution. Specifically, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 83, § 1702 [2]. If you could convince a judge that § 1702 applied to e-mail, you might be able to ruin Google's day. It'd be a very different legal argument than the fourth amendment legal claim. Whatever comes from Microsoft's legal arguments about the 4th amendment won't have a bearing on this line of argument. I still think the best avenue for a conspiracy theory motive for Microsoft is to get a ruling that says "if the e-mail provider examines the communication for any purposes other than facilitating mail delivery, then the communication loses its 4A protections." That would allow other competitors to advertise strong 4A protections, and force Google to choose between that sweet, sweet personal data or also advertising 4A protections. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mai... [2] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1702 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1702

by pappyo 12y ago

me1010 12y ago

I think the snail mail to email analogy is flawed... snail mail has an envelope, plain text email does not. However, a postcard does not generally have an envelope... So here are some better analogies: snail mail letter == encrypted email snail mail postcard == plain text email publicly posted diary == plain text gmail

e12e 12y ago

(I've yet to read TFA, but:) I'm all for privacy in email, but if we're doing analogies, unencrypted email is more like postcards, than letters. And metadata is more like what's written on the letter than in it. (And SMTP over TLS would be like the mailboxes you're not allowed to look in, unless you're delivering mail, or are the recipient...) As far as I can gather, the US has pretty shoddy laws guarding personal information from corporations -- so a change wrt email might be a win. But I don't know if this is the best way. As long as there doesn't appear to be any viable way to get most people to use gpg/smime -- I'm not sure we're likely to get anywhere. Perhaps that is what Microsoft should do: leverage S/MIME for outlook.com (with the caveat that they would have to keep the encrypted private keys, and being a web service, could be forced to backdoor the clients in order to get the pass-phrases/passwords...). Hm, I wonder if there's an IMAP extension for storing encrypted key-pairs?

ncallaway 12y ago

The fourth amendment doesn't protect you from other people reading your post. It probably _does_ protect you from the government reading your post (though, apparently not protect you from the NSA logging all your mail[1]). It is a crime for other people to read your mail, though that protection comes from the legislative branch, not the constitution. Specifically, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 83, § 1702 [2]. If you could convince a judge that § 1702 applied to e-mail, you might be able to ruin Google's day. It'd be a very different legal argument than the fourth amendment legal claim. Whatever comes from Microsoft's legal arguments about the 4th amendment won't have a bearing on this line of argument. I still think the best avenue for a conspiracy theory motive for Microsoft is to get a ruling that says "if the e-mail provider examines the communication for any purposes other than facilitating mail delivery, then the communication loses its 4A protections." That would allow other competitors to advertise strong 4A protections, and force Google to choose between that sweet, sweet personal data or also advertising 4A protections. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mai... [2] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1702 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1702