Gmail = bad

major security risk!!!

Published on July 5, 2005 By Tominated In Internet

Google has been naughty. They have kept every email that a gmail user has sent or recieved (the mail still got sent).
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.

Comments (Page 4)

tjesterb

on Jul 07, 2005

This whole thing assumes an evil intent on the part of Google. I've seen a lot more questionable behavior from Microsoft than I have from Google.
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.

EventHorizon

on Jul 07, 2005

It seems to me that the people who wail the loudest for 'privacy' are the ones with something to hide...

stutefish

on Jul 07, 2005

Uh... Mail storage instead of deletion was one of the major and most publicized FEATURES of Gmail!

bakerstreet

on Jul 07, 2005

When we delete something from Wincustomize, would we expect Stardock to go back through their database backups and remove it from every one of them? Would the admins *cough* like the job of slogging through it all? I kind of doubt it...

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.

tjesterb

on Jul 07, 2005

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?

bakerstreet

on Jul 07, 2005

Someone above said that stuff like this endagered people who might on a lark use the term "kiddie porn" in a search engine, and get picked up on such a scouring of data.

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.

Double Zero

on Jul 07, 2005

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

Jafo

on Jul 07, 2005

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'....

EternalDarkWing

on Jul 07, 2005

Like I really care. All I send are person e-mail and read newsletters. I send nothing important so it doesn't really matter to me. Google has my support, they are a good company with some good products.

tjesterb

on Jul 07, 2005

Bakerstreet, Thanks for the clarification.
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.

bakerstreet

on Jul 07, 2005

Woof, good lord Jafo. This is, well, email, right? A storm is really raging in that teacup, evidently.

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.

Jafo

on Jul 07, 2005

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...

Jafo

on Jul 07, 2005

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....

on Jul 08, 2005

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.

starkers

on Jul 08, 2005

I have to agree with Jafo here. It's not the piddling emails or online chats that are of concern, but rather the ever growing database of information that in the hands of one entity is considerable power when used enmass to manipulate any given situation to its own advantage. Okay, so we have nothing to hide in our emails and chats, but many have personal information on their machines, and when the thirst for knowledge far outweighs the information gleaned fron these sources, what's to say that your Google bar won't in the future have a data miner which can access deep into your personal information.

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.

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