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 5)

bakerstreet

on Jul 08, 2005

"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."

Urm, but that's the point of being a corporation. People act like profit is dishonest or something. DO you really think ISPs and Google and such are charities in the public service? It's their job for their shareholders to make as much money as they can, however they can.

No offense, but this is all anti-corporate silliness for its own sake. No one seems to be able to say what the great sin is here, no one can frame the great danger looming over us in any but the most vague terms.

Google is providing a service for its own profit. If you don't want to use it, don't. Don't feel cheated when a business makes money off you, that's what they exist to do.

starkers

on Jul 08, 2005

Aha, but I do not feel cheated when a business makes money off me. I only ever purchase what I want or need and am never swayed by advertising spiel or gimmicks to part me from my cash.

In the real world, corporate crime and market manipulation is a fact of life, and when so many fools and their money are easily parted, the service provided by Google and others like it to large corporations can all too often see ill gotten gains going to already wealthy types who need it far less than those manipulated or duped out of their cash. It's called greed, and whilst Google, etc, may provide free public search engines and the like, the greater service goes to the corporate big wigs who gain greater access to power and fools and their money. Okay, if that's the intention, then it's immoral and an abuse of the resource.

Of course we need companies to exist to make money, otherwise there'd be no products, no employment. That's not the problem. Every day you can see a news item regarding corporate thuggery, market manipulation and greed...that's the problem, and when greater masses can be adversely affected via such a gobal medium, it becomes a social and moral issue. Now this is not to say that every company behaves unscrupulous, or that every consumer is a fool, but the average Joe and his family can ill afford to come out on the dirty end of the financial stick when their take home pay is kept relatively low and the greater wealth is enjoyed by so few. Limited incomes only go so far!

Yes, Google provides a sevice to marketeers and the corporate world, and that's fine if used responsibly, but it is so very open to abuse...the kind that's driven by greed and the thirst for power. That's the issue here, not Google, necessarily.

I do not use Google or Gmail, not because of any dislike, but because I've never found a need to.

bakerstreet

on Jul 08, 2005

You have a screwed up idea of "ill-gotten", immoral, or abusive. By your definition I don't see how any major corporation could stay in business. You call it greed, but to them it is income. No doubt your employer calls it greed when you ask for a raise.

There's nothing moral about this. You freely give a company information, and they use all their resources to make a profit. I'm sorry that reality seems to suck for so many people, but that's the facts. "Greed" and "Abuse" and all the rest just comes down to people who don't run businesses telling those who do how to run them.

If people want to tell Google how to run their business, then buy enough stock for your opinion to matter, or become a bomb-hurling communist and turn the world into one where there aren't any private businesses.

Or better yet, let people do what they like and if you don't like it do business with someone else.

starkers

on Jul 08, 2005

Bakerstreet: we obviously differ in our views on the world, but there's more than enough evidence to support both cases and we could debate the topic endlessly, so perhaps we should agree to disagree.

As for becoming a bomb-hurling communist, terrorist or otherwise....nah. No cause or argument justifies the maiming, killing and destruction of property. I may not like particular corporate entities for various business practices, but the horrors of 911, Madrid and recently London are more than sufficient to disuade any decent minded person from resorting to such fanaticism. Violence never solved anything and is pointless as a means to an end. However, buying enough stock to affect the dealings of large corporations is well out of the reach of average joe blow's such as I, so I whinge instead

As for asking the boss for a raise, well here in Oz, the average worker has their wage set to an award rate which is minimally indexed anually. Last I heard, very few are able to ask for a raise, let alone receive one outside indexation. In part, we can blame the government and unions....incomes are set and prices are not.

Oh well, that's another issue. T'was enlightening to read your views...you made some valid points, and thanks for sharing them.

starkers

bakerstreet

on Jul 08, 2005

Never meant to imply you would or should harm anyone. Just making an allusion to folks in the late 1800's who thought that they could change the world from the "greedy" place it is by force. Sadly for the Lenin's of the world, it just ain't hap'nin, nor is anyone going to do it voluntarily.

No worries, I can agree to disagree. Just fun to hash it out.

paintballer1717

on Jul 09, 2005

Hey how bout you leave gmail alone i mean come-on they are just trying to give you more space so you dont have to thrw shit away. I dont think that they want peoples mail

bakerstreet

on Jul 09, 2005

P.S. If you are writing from Joe User, there's a blog article called "Redneck Juice" that has paralleled this conversation uncannily, only it is about the oil industry.

Jafo

on Jul 09, 2005

Hey how bout you leave gmail alone i mean come-on they are just trying to give you more space so you dont have to thrw shit away.

Wow...how magnanimous of them...and charitable, too....

starkers

on Jul 10, 2005

No worries, Bakerstreet, I didn't think you were advocating violence....you come across as being far too intelligent for that. Actually, I don't normally visit joe user, but your reference has persuaded me to have a look at the article mentioned, thanks for that.

BTW, paintballer...my argument didn't actually target Google or Gmail directly, but was a generalisation about the business world as a whole....however, as the old saying goes...beware of Greeks bearing gifts...perhaps there's more to it than you bargained for.

Kyujin Geus Leithander

on Jul 10, 2005

People, just don't read your spam and you will probably be fine.

starkers

on Jul 11, 2005

Oh how times have changed....there was a time when spam was a canned meat...a derivative of ham, I suspect.

Sleeping Dragon

on Jul 11, 2005

My daddy told me "just 'cause you're paranoid, doesn't mean they are not out to get you"

Corky_O

on Jul 11, 2005

Things to perhaps keep in mind:

1 - "Use of information" laws are changing rapidly in the U.S.

2 - The ones behind the changing of the laws probably have long term agendas.

3 - The one(s) who can control the information will hold an advantage.

4 - Be careful who you give control to.

There is a term known as "an opening in one's ki" - which translates as "condition of vulnerability", and seems like it might apply here to some degree.

I am thinking that if there is not a time limit on the saved information (perhaps 6 or 12 months), then we may be looking at unfair exploitation.

Just a couple thoughts.

I Am Pariah

on Jul 12, 2005

"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."

Dear God, no! An Internet economy company is actually doing what it said it would do? The heresy!

Armageddon's coming!

KeithMacDonald

on Jul 16, 2005

Wow, you're really getting worked up over this.

So many people use Gmail that the chances of someone getting interest in your particular emails is very unlikely.

And who cares, the most people would be able to find in my email is ever changing passwords, and I mean ever changing.

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