Gmail = bad
major security risk!!!
Tuesday, July 5, 2005 by Tominated | Discussion: Internet
They have also been keeping the gmail users details. All of the emails and info have been kept on one helluva server. This is just to warn you.
 |
|
Page 3 of 5 | |
|
|---|
Reply #42 Thursday, July 7, 2005 11:27 AM
Reply #43 Thursday, July 7, 2005 12:29 PM
| The last time my ISPs email server crashed, I thought I had lost all my mail. Three days later they replaced it, only not only did I get my mail back, I got every email I had recieved for the last 6 months. I'm thinking this kind of backup isn't rare, or skeery, unless you are discussing somethign that might provoke a search warrant. |
Baker,
Excellent points, and ones I agree with. But for different reasons.
As you know, I'm usually the first to cry "foul" over privacy concerns. But this simply doesn't qualify, because it involves a company with one voluntarily chooses to do business (and, even more importantly, at no cost to the consumer). Any privacy that is surrendered to Gmail and other online companies is surrendered voluntarily and there is simply no valid basis for complaint.
I say, let's save the privacy rights soapboxes for instances of REAL violations.
Reply #44 Thursday, July 7, 2005 4:27 PM
Reply #45 Thursday, July 7, 2005 5:13 PM
| "As you know, I'm usually the first to cry "foul" over privacy concerns. But this simply doesn't qualify, because it involves a company with one voluntarily chooses to do business (and, even more importantly, at no cost to the consumer)." |
I would add that people constantly contact these ISPs and scream "OMG I JUST DELETED THE MOST IMPORTANT EMAIL IN HUMAN HISTORY!!!", and frankly those people find it a great service that email servers are backed up regularly.
I mean, can you imagine the pain in the butt it would be to have every email you delete today traced back through every hard drive backup they made?
Let's say you keep an email for 6 months, then delete it. How many times have their databases been backed up in that time? Now, when you delete it, you expect them to go in and delete that single email from all those archives?
The idea is silly, frankly. Backups are there for a reason. It doesn't matter how much the skeery governement snoops, they still HAVE TO CHARGE YOU WITH A CRIME TO USE IT. If searching for kiddie porn is a crime in your area, then you damn well shouldn't do it, or you should fight against the law.
Taking away a government's means to spy on you is a waste of time, there will always be other means. Address what they do with the information, or the permissability of them digging to begin with. Don't punish Google for something people expect them to do.
Reply #46 Thursday, July 7, 2005 5:23 PM
Stardock has my personal info, including credit card number, but I trust them not to misuse it because they want me to continue to do business with them. Google gets their money from advertising. They want your patronage. It's no more in their best interest to misuse that info than it is for any other business.
Reply #47 Thursday, July 7, 2005 5:59 PM
Reply #48 Thursday, July 7, 2005 6:15 PM
Reply #49 Thursday, July 7, 2005 6:38 PM
I mean, if Google is doing something extra that every ISP doesn't do to track you, I'd like to know what it is. Otherwise, you've got a long list ahead of you if you want to address this. Better stay off the internet altogether.
Reply #50 Thursday, July 7, 2005 8:30 PM
| If searching for kiddie porn is a crime in your area, then you damn well shouldn't do it, or you should fight against the law. |
Not sure if I understand your meaning there. Why would anyone fight against a law agianst kiddie porn?
Reply #51 Thursday, July 7, 2005 8:46 PM
My point was if your local lawmakers make such a search illegal, either don't do it, even in jest, or for heaven's sake address the laws, not the poor IT guy that keeps the backups.
Reply #52 Thursday, July 7, 2005 8:53 PM
| It seems to me that the people who wail the loudest for 'privacy' are the ones with something to hide... |
Great point EH... I personally dont care whos spying on me, reading my Email or whatever..I am prettyt sure they will get bored and go away..I do..LoL
Reply #53 Thursday, July 7, 2005 9:06 PM
Baker...I think the problem is one of scale...and omniscience.
We live in 'the Information Age'....Global communication has never been simpler/faster....and if the adage 'Knowledge is Power' bit Orwellian, probably.... then Google may be seen as a 'power shift'.
Most social commentators look unkindly on corporate entities of global dominance, be it some Antitrust or other, yet what is transpiring with the all-pervasiveness of a Google search-engine is their rise towards a knowledge critical mass.
Advertisers need to know what you want to buy....that's a given....but it's only the start...
By accumulating your 'history' [note...not your identity...who cares exactly when you were born?]...they will soon [by association] begin to learn what you think...
[that's step 2]
Eventually, by the time they're aware of what you think they can impose specific targetting to instruct you how to think.
Shades of Doubleplusungood Newspeak....
[Let's eradicate 'poverty' by removing the word and ultimately the concept from our language].
BTW...I'm not paranoid...that bespokes an irrational fear or trepidation.
I'm entirely rational.
My one failing is that I am not gullible....and can think for myself. I don't wear a tinfoil hat ....and I believe only half of what I see and nothing of what I read.
I DO know that if someone knows more about something than someone else he can use that as a power over that person. Knowledge very much is power. An invidious infiltration by one entity into a global knowledge-base is a very real 'shift' of power that has [or eventually can have] far-reaching repercussions.
Now is just the tentative beginnings of the 'shift'....
Reply #54 Thursday, July 7, 2005 9:14 PM
Reply #55 Thursday, July 7, 2005 9:50 PM
There was a discussion on Slashdot a while back about some new laws requiring hosting companies to report CP (child porn) traffic and turn over the records to the authorities. Most of them said they just erased the tapes and bumped the users off the servers. The red tape they would have to get involved with if they reported it wouldn't have been worth their time.
Whether or not they should be reporting CP is another argument, but the point is that pulling an individuals emails off the backup tapes (or drives depending the storage system) is a real pain.
We curently use DLT and LTO tape for backups on our servers. On the occasions when a server has crashed, it has been easier to rebuild the data than to restore from the tapes. We are looking at a better storage solution, though since Sarbanes-Oxley demands we keep consistent off-site backups.
Reply #56 Thursday, July 7, 2005 9:53 PM
To me, what undercuts all that is the false belief that any of this is private anyway. If you see internet snooping as an invasion of your privacy, then you must have considered your interenet communications private to begin with. I don't see our acceptance of this as negative, I see it as realistic.
That's like being outraged that someone at the next table in a restaurant is listening to your conversation. You can whisper, you can cover your mouth with a newspaper, but the original idea that a public conversation is private is what is flawed.
We have our little email passwords, sure, but that isn't about privacy, that is about someone breaking into your account and deleteing your mail or abusing your account. The fallacy of privacy disappears when you hit send, and the email bounces all over the internet, and sits in logs and backups until the end of time.
If this truly depicts the shift you are talking about, it has more to do with the fact that we either have unreasonable expectations about privacy, or we have become so paranoid that we don't like the idea of even our public communications being overheard.
Reply #57 Thursday, July 7, 2005 10:21 PM
Baker...I don't care about email as an entity...just about how one individual [company] appears to be on a path to make it [the company] indispensible..and all-pervading.....looking for mass-takeup/acceptance of it's product, yet the commercial reward to them is knowledge, not income directly.
Don't respond to specifics....it's always accepted that communication is not genuinely 'private'....hell...my father was involved with the Enigma Codes during WW2....Army Intelligence...his entire active service was involved in intercepting communications.
This goes way beyond that...
Reply #58 Thursday, July 7, 2005 10:28 PM
If it were actually a teacup it'd be fine.
This is the whole darn teaset, and a bit besides. Data mining can probably be had in ways as yet untapped by Google....let's just see if they add them to their repertoire....
Reply #59 Friday, July 8, 2005 1:31 AM
| Hmmm... interesting points, I agree with some of the 'both'. I only would say: Unless you have something to hide, you have nothing to fear. |
Yeah. I could also enter the restroom and watch you, after all, you got nothing to hide right? The only people that don't want to be watched or tracked is criminals or terrorists.
Anyway, I believe that if there's an agreement, and you signed or "signed" it, Both company and you are bound by it's terms.
What I DO fear is the future that everyone is being watched by government everywhere, from outside in forests to inside the restroom. ironically, it won't really help. there's so many people you would have to hire about fourth of those population to be effective.
Reply #60 Friday, July 8, 2005 9:00 AM
Yes, it could be detected and removed, maybe not.
The point is not so much what governments can glean because the corporate world eventually has greater powers upon law abiding citizens anyhow. It's your dollar, pound or peso they're after, and in one way or another, one company or another will find ways of prising it from your grasp using Google and other such devices.
Perhaps Google and Yahoo are not the villains, perse, but they have climbed into bed with many sponsors and advertisers competing for the power of knowledge to aquire the power of financial superiority.
Perhaps those of you who believe a few email intrusions are acceptable will want to reconsider... the quest for the mighty buck will endlessly forge forwards and unscrupulous corporations will endlessly find unscrupulous ways to build large bank accounts at your expense. Forget about corporate laws and trade practice acts.... the main players can well afford the paltry fines, in comparison to the financial rewards.
Being paranoid...no...history shows some of the worst ever thugs have been collar and tie, corporate ones.
Please login to comment and/or vote for this skin.
Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
- Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums and downloading skins.
- Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
- Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
- It's simple, and FREE!
|
|
Page 3 of 5 | |
|
|---|
Reply #41 Thursday, July 7, 2005 10:58 AM
I understand people have the ability to watch, and collect data. Does that mean I have to walk around paranoid about it, no. But once again, who is "they"? Is is a government conspiracy, or maybe a corporate one?