Re: [tlug] gmail (was: Is Linux Helping MS to make Windows better?)

[Ian Barwick <barwick@example.com>]

On Thu, 6 May 2004 01:23:23 -0700, Jonathan Byrne <jq@example.com> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, May 06, 2004 at 02:02:35AM +0900, Ian Barwick wrote:
> 
> >Regarding privacy - I only use it for mailing lists and the like,
> >which tend to get publicly archived anyway.
> 
> You're missing the issue, I think.  Sure, you only use it for things that
> are publicly archived anyway, but so what?  It's not what you *write*
> that they concerned with as much as what you *read*. 
>
> Now, I know
> that a great many people  won't really care that Google builds a profile
> on their reading habits (or that said profile could be either subpoenaed
> or outright illegally obtained) any time during its retention period.
> It kind of gives me the creeps, though.

It doesn't bother me that someone knows what mailiing lists I read, with
the exception of TLUG they're quite a boring lot ;-) and as I post to most
at intervals that information is in the public domain.

What could be worrying is that it would be possible to prove that I (or
someone with access to the account) read a certain mail at a certain
time ("it it established the Accused did on May 8th 2005 receive and
read an email
containing intellectual property of SCO and the RIAA and is therefore
sentenced to an indefinite period of incarceration in Guantanamo Bay 
under the Digital Patriot Copyright Act").

(I should point out that in the interests of paranoia I have an extra Mozilla
profile just for gmail to keep the mail and search cookies apart.)

> Now, if Gmail is really good and they said "We just can't make this
> free, if you want it you have to pay a yearly fee for it, but
> we don't read your mail" I'd be willing to try it and actually pay
> for it if I found it worthwhile.  Paying for it by having them read
> my mail and deliver contractually-agreed spam based on that mail seems
> too expensive to me.

That wouldn't (technically) prevent them from tracking your mail though,
which isn't any different to any other web-based email, or any ISP-hosted
email service for that matter, and subject to the same risks of disclosure
to "interested" third parties by whatever means.

For anything remotely private I have my own mailserver anyway. Not that that
would stop three-letter agencies sniffing unencrypted mail traffic, or gaining
access to the colo centre... (Note to self: must acquire carrier pigeons ASAP).

Ian Barwick