Judge Orders Deleted Emails Turned Over 600
Anonymous Coward writes "In a lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission, a subpoena sent to Google orders the turnover of the complete contents of a Gmail account, including deleted e-mail messages. The Judge has granted the subpoena and orders that all e-mail messages, including deleted messages, be divulged. Google's privacy policy says deleted e-mail messages 'may remain in our offline backup systems' in perpetuity. It does not guarantee that backups are ever deleted. So much for the Delete Forever button."
oh! (Score:2, Funny)
oh, really?
Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:4, Interesting)
I TOLD YOU SO.
I've maintained before [slashdot.org] that Google retains far too much information to make the use of Gmail anything less than a full-blown privacy nightmare. (For more information, please look here [epic.org] and here [gmail-is-too-creepy.com].)
And now, the chickens have come home to roost. From TFA: A stunning victory for the Establishment and a horror show for private citizens everywhere. Welcome to 1984.
And before you start, please don't object that the person affected is a defendant in a criminal proceeding, because that's quite beside the point. The point is that Google has this information on you, and will hand it over upon request. This vindicates the caterwauling of all the privacy advocates concerning Google and Gmail, and establishes a dangerous legal precedent. Remember, as our 'inalienable' rights are systematically stripped away by the architects of the New World Order, more and more of the things you do become 'illegal'...and subject to criminal persecution...er...prosecution. It might not be long before you are being referred to as 'defendant'...what will you think of your Gmail account then?
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Informative)
This is one more reason why my email is a regular old email account and I access it via secure POP/SMTP. If I want to delete email, I can do it myself and make sure that it is gone forever. Maybe I'm paranoid. Better safe than sorry.
I think the real issue here is control. By allowing Google to control your email, you are forced to stand helpless when shit like this happens. Google may offer nice services, but do you really want to give up control over your personal data such as emails? I don't.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why I'm my own ISP (so to speak). I run my own server, and do my own backups, which I retain ONLY for disaster recovery purposes. The system is backed-up each nite, with the backup files copied to another system. After 3 days, the backups are expunged with a secure erase program. It's all automated. It never hits tape, and as such, if I delete something, it's gone.
I also religiously encrypt outbound email, and ask my correspondants to encrypt mail they send to me.
Now, don't get me wrong - I don't think this is 100% secure, but it sure beats letting Google/Comcast/AT&T/Earthlink/MSN or whoever determine what gets kept and what doesn't.
I would never change back - come what may, as long as owning a server is legal, that's how I'm getting my email. And if they try to make it illegal, well, Jefferson told us how to deal with that problem.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Informative)
That's very commendable, and worthwhile.
But just so you know...
When the NSA goes datamining, they divide the intercepted traffic into two piles: clear and encrypted. Both piles get processed. Except yours has a red flag next to it.
Better to maintain a normal usage profile and be even sneakier about important correspondance, if you are worried about it. (And you should be.) Its all hassle vs security. If you are going to that much trouble already, why not go all the way and use stego or something that doesn't scream "I am encrypted info" like PGPMail? (for example)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Interesting)
First line is "I hate your fucking guts"
Then the attachment of goatse/tubgirl, which contains the real message...
I mean, who the fuck is going to spend a lot of time staring at tubgirl???
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ridiculous! Do you really think that the NSA is trying to crack ALL encrypted traffic? Yes, I know about the "spying on americans" issue and all that. But think about it from a labor standpoint.
There are many many "normal" uses of encryption that go on every single day.
- SSH
- SSL
- PGP
- VPN
If you think the NSA is looking at ev
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:4, Interesting)
If I were a spook I would not want to figure out every message coursing through the interwebs, I would be more interested in tracking who is talking to whom. That way when I decide to piss all over peoples privacy I could seize and decrypt the accounts of the evil-doers and all their mates at slashdot. - The eternal problem that is easy to spot, is who decides what constitues evil? Are there non-binary levels of "evil", and if so what are they?
OTOH: This kind of social network monitoring and analysis has dismantled extremly vile networks involving child tourtue and sexual abuse of toddlers. Most notably in the mid 90's in Denmark where some very high profile Danes were implicated in an international child abuse network. The result in Denmark was public revultion with thousands of people attending mass protests.
How many people would peacfully tolerate privacy protection for that kind of activity sent over a global public network for profit? Should we refuse to employ bomb sniffing dogs to monitor snail mail because the dog might pick on an innocent package?
From anarchists all the way across the political spectrum to 1984, the spanish inquisition and the crucifiction of Christ, every one of us looks for nirvana in a personal "book of rules", this "nirvana rule book" only exists within the deluded individual's mind. The fact that "nirvana for all" can not be discovered through a single "book of rules" does not slow humanities enthusiaim for writing "rule books" and forcefully applying varying interpretations on to everyone they encounter. I'm not saying human nature is wrong, it just "is".
BTW: "1984" is a brilliantly insightfull book, "Animal Farm" is equally as brilliant and in my mind closer to the "truth" about ourselves.
Not possible to decrypt (Score:3, Insightful)
1. A miraculous mathematical advance that made the factoring of the product of two extremely large prime numbers much easier. (Unlikely.)
2. A quantum computer. (More unlikely.)
3. More conventional computer power than the rest of the world combined. (Extremely unlikely.)
All three are completely unrealistic. It is doubtful that the NSA can crack PGP, unless it's through a weakness in one of the symmetric c
Re:Not possible to decrypt (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll agree that the NSA certainly doesn't have more general purpose computing power than the rest of the world combined, but I suspect that they may have more special purpose computing power. The NSA uses a lot of custom hardware and has access to significant microprocessor fabrication capacity, and when you're looking at integer factorization, it's not unreasonable to expect a hundred-fold increase in performance
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Informative)
Then you generate a key pair one key is public and people who want to send you encrypted files or emails get it either from you or a keyserver (I think) and a private key that decrypt what the others have sent you and actually use it. If you need to know that the identity is really who you think they might be, then you need to set up a key signing party where you will;
Uh, no. (Score:3, Informative)
I like (HOPE) that we're a normal ISP in this reguard.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hate to say 'You're dead WRONG', but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Informative)
Whoever your provider is just needs to be subpoena'd, and voila... everything you thought you removed is back in action.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Insightful)
That being said, it is clear that your legal understanding comes from Law and Order and Matlock.
I am not trying to be a jerk, but seriously- you are one of those people who thinks that at if you ask a cop "are you a cop?" and they say no then you will get off because it is entrapment...
The law is complex, and perhaps you should study it a bit before commenting.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Funny)
Even if you store mail on your own servers, there is no guarantee that the same mail isn't stored somewhere else, such as say the Sent Messages folder of whoever sent i
Sigh (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt I can set up my own MTA...any good howto's out there, or should I *urp* google it?
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:2)
TMM - I've got you on my friend's list, but I've gotta be honest, this is hardly a Google thing. Any large free provider - Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. have massive backup libraries going back months if not years. Short of running your own mail server, this sort of backup is inevitable.
A stunning victory for the Establishment and a horror show for private citizens everywhere. Welcome to 1984.
Here, I ag
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:2)
BTW - TMM - how many first-posts have you racked up? ;)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've always wondered if that clause was more of a CYA clause meant to get around the fact that plenty of stuff may remain in the GoogleFS for a period of time after it has been "deleted", but without a live index. The results here may very well show if that is true or not.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see why that's a "safe" assumption. The Google search engine churns through terabytes of data that can easily be recreated. That safety net allowed them to test their GoogleFS system before using it on other applications like Mail. GoogleFS was very much built around the concept that the system is its own backup. If any one PC in the cluster fails, they simply yank it and throw in another. No recovery is attempted on the old PC. They simply repair and wipe it if it's feasible, or junk it if it would cost too much time.
Thus in this guy's case, the matter will likely depend on whether Google explicitly maintains an index of deleted email and accounts, or if they simply "delete" things by removing the indexes and waiting until the various GoogleFS rebuilds wipe out the extra data.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:2)
Why more so than Hotmail, Yahoo, or any other webmail? I'm sure all their "privacy" promises are at least as loose as Google's. It only remains a question how much data Google has actually retained. Though they don't guarantee to delete mail when trashed, in practice they probably do eventually, and the case concerns events two or three years ago.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
While any ISP, including your local pop3 box provider would likely comply with this request...
Only google claims to want to "organize all the worlds information", including the information *you* no longer value, like old emails you've deleted. They have value to them for their profiling/advertising efforts.
While any ISP *might* have an incidental backup of your email going back 3 years. Google is the only one that is likely to be systematically going to the trouble of keeping your email, all of it, going back forever.
It only remains a question of how much data Google has actually retained. Though they don't guarantee to delete mail when trashed, in practice they probably do eventually, and the case concerns events two or three years ago.
Exactly. No other ISP is likely to be able to produce much more than an incidental or partial backup that far back; but nobody here will be surprised if Google can bring back everything. (Complete with relevant ads down one side.)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
A supposition. What's the point of matching ads to messages you've already deleted; meaning you will never display them again? If they wanted to process them for their "profile" they would already have done that. It seems more likely to me that Google does intend to delete trashed messages, but just doesn't want to promise exactly when they'll get around to it. Maybe a scheduled garbage collection once an hour/week/month. Anyway, this case may reveal just how it works.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Interesting)
But not one made completely off the cuff.
What's the point of matching ads to messages you've already deleted; meaning you will never display them again?
Matching ads to *them* nothing. But they don't match ads based on the content of a single message; its based on the aggregate information you have, fine tuned by whats in a particular message.
If I receive 200 messages about vampire bats and then you send me a "Hey! Whats up?" they can show me some ads about bats, because nothing else is more re
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Use PGP!
And would you mind telling me how gmail is any different than hotmail or yahoo mail in regards to managent's access to email contents?
what will you think of your Gmail account then?
"I refuse to divulge my PGP private key & passphrase."
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's ok, we'll just subpoena you're personal computer, PDA, desk, cell phone, etc. to find your private key. I'm sure there's a copy of it around here somewhere.
Oh, and this is Jack Bauer. He'll be asking you for your passphrase in Holding Room B.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Interesting)
So, he gets charged with some violation of some regulation. They come in and seize two desktops, a laptop, a printer, a monitor, KVM, and anything else computer related. They even took the keyboard and mouse. They took his fu
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Funny)
of course, followed by:
"And stop torturing me in this secret eastern european prison, #@##$$%!"
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Informative)
and
from http://www.faqs.org/faqs/pgp-faq/part2/ [faqs.org]
3.21. Can I be forced to reveal my pass phrase in any legal
proceedings?
Gary Edstrom reported the following in earlier versions of this FAQ:
- -----
The following information applies only to citizens of the United
States in U.S. Courts. The laws in other countries may vary. Please
see the disclaimer at the top of part 1.
There have been several threads on Internet concerning the question of
whether or not the
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:2)
This is bad phraseology and bad lawyering. It will create bad law, but its not the end of society as we
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You're Not Wrong, BUT... (Score:3, Insightful)
Because I can. Like any responsible data company, they don't want you to lose important data... so they back it up.
Google isn't being exactly 100% altruistic. They are a corporation, so if you want to determine their motivation for any particular thing, look at what motivates all corporations: money.
Re:You're Not Wrong, BUT... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not buying it. Here's a way to test your theory. Delete an email message with a large pdf attachment. Wait a few days and contact Google. Tell them you had a hard drive failure and a message you deleted contained the only copy of your Ph.D. thesis. Beg, plead, cajole. Offer them anything.
I'll bet you a beer you won't get the message back. Google's long-term data retention policies have nothing to do with altruistic measures to protect users from data loss.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:2)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
What someone in 1789 considered "reasonable" might be very different from what someone today considers "reasonable". Imagine what sort of things a person will consider to be "reasonable" when they grew up expecting that the government would read their personal email and that they shouldn't care because they've got nothing to hide.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this would be better stated if you replace "will hand it over upon request" with "must hand it over when ordered to by a judge". I see a big difference there.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I mean you wouldn't want the following email message to get out into the public
to: MOMfrom: TripMasterMonkey
Subject: Second Post
Mom, I only got second post on the slashdot story about Gmail. Well, at least I got +5 interesting for mentioning 1984. If you need me, I'll be in the basement. A new story is coming out in 5 minutes and I have to do some serious copying and pasting and then mention privacy concerns. See you upstairs later tonight for dinner.
Love, Your son TMM ^_^
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't people to know shit, don't record it, whether in writing, email, audio, or anything else. Otherwise there is the risk it will come back to haunt you.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:4, Insightful)
You guys ever hear of a search warrant? A signed one of those can let people in your FUCKING HOUSE, nevermind your email. IT'S SCARY!
Oh, nice use of both "New World Order" and 1984 in one post. I award you double kook points for that.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Keep in mind that situations like Waco have happened throughout the FBI's history, going all the way back to the gangsters of the 20's. Having stockpiles of powerful munitions and arms is rarely sufficient to withstand a full out assault from well-equipped and well-trained FBI teams. The only reason why most situations take time to resolve is that t
Easiest way to deal with this in 2 easy steps (Score:4, Informative)
2. Start using a client and your favourite encryption software
Re:Easiest way to deal with this in 2 easy steps (Score:2)
Re:Easiest way to deal with this in 2 easy steps (Score:2)
POP can delete client-side (Score:3, Informative)
Remember, Google unabashadly says it wants to index the world's knowlege. Your emails, personal or not is part of that knowlege...
Re:Easiest way to deal with this in 2 easy steps (Score:5, Informative)
Encryption would be the way to go with email if all your correspondents would agree to cooperate. In my case, there are perhaps two people I correspond with regularly via email who might consider making the effort.
Easier way to deal with this in 2 easy steps (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Use the Postal Service
email longevity & PGP (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're concerned about the contents of your emails being divulged - USE (open/gnu/etc...)PGP!
If that is still too insecure for you, meet the recipient in the middle of the park for a strolling conversation; and don't forget the white noise generator.
Please !!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Heck
Talk about burying the opposition in paperwork.
Re:email longevity & PGP (Score:3, Funny)
I prefer the Cone of Silence [wikipedia.org] to secure my communications.
This is Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to tell someone something securely, you need to make up a language only you two know and whisper it in their ear.
What you're doing is only marginally more secure (and enormously more of a pain in the ass) than using GMail. At least when a disk croaks at Google you won't lose your mail. Disk croaks at your house, its gone.
Oh wait, you have backups? Did your e-mails you deleted off your home system magically get deleted off of them, too?
Re:This is Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you use strong encryption, your email server is no more safe than using gmail, and the only person you're kidding is yourself.
The Government Hates Google (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The Government Hates Google (Score:4, Insightful)
U R pwned. (Score:5, Interesting)
Does NO ONE remember Ollie North and the White House PROFS system? 20 years later, and people still think incriminating data will always just go away when you desire.
INFORMATION WANTS TO BE COPIED.
One other possibility (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:One other possibility (Score:3, Insightful)
Private Mail Server (Score:2, Redundant)
Perhaps it's overkill for the average Joe, but as a technology provider anyway, keeping my own server is economical, and provides me strong assurances of privacy.
I've NEVER trusted Gmail, Hotmail, or any other hosted application. I've never trusted those 3rd party "webmail gateways" that let you use your email address via a website.
It's not paranoia, it's just understanding that anybody who's not really on y
Encrypt everything. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Encrypt everything. (Score:5, Informative)
And finally, if that doesn't work, they'll throw you in jail for contempt of court until such time as you do remember your passphrase.
Don't underestimate the power of the government to discover secrets, they've been in the business for years.
What concerns me more is this enforced compliance with a subpoena for a crime that might have been committed, but for which they have to conduct a search to determine if evidence exists that a crime was committed. This thing stinks to high heaven of unconstitutional and illegal search and seizure. Where are the lawyers screaming habeas corpus?
Re:Encrypt everything. (Score:3, Informative)
So if you really hate someone with a gmail account (Score:3, Funny)
kept in backups (Score:2)
The REAL question is, how long do they keep their backups? I have 4 tape sets of fu
With apologies to Douglas Adams (Score:5, Funny)
Google: The gmail documents may remain present in our offline backup system. ... with a torch.
IRS: I eventually had to go down to the cellar...
Google: That's the offline backup system's machine room.
IRS:
Google: Ah, the lights had probably gone.
IRS: So had the stairs.
Google: But you found the tape, didn't you?
IRS: Yes. It was backed up on paper tape stored in the bottom of a locked drawer beneath a PC04/PC05 tape reader with a dot-matrix printed sign on the door saying 'ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS.' Ever thought of going into search technology?
Baleeted! (Score:3, Funny)
Just a word of warning (Score:3, Insightful)
100%, why?
Because it would time effort when you delete an email togo back and remove it from backups.
Just because google is the only one who drew light to this matter, doesn't mean that they are:
The first
The only
But the comments on here give me the impression that you guys think otherwise.
Does your own backup handle emails intelligently? Does it know not to backup deleted emails? (I am not saying it is impossible for mail server backups may do on account of space, who knows). But that is deleted emails.
What about will have soon to have been deleted emails? (red dwarf on temporal paradox)
You can go back and fetch that magnetic tape all over again, so wipe that smug 'my backup doesn't touch the trach folder' smile of your face you overweight fucking IT tech.
how appropriate! (Score:5, Interesting)
Just more proof that the 'e' in email doesn't stand for 'electronic', it's 'evidence'.
Re:how appropriate! (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? If you hire an ISP to provide you with Internet Service, then what do you care if they backup their servers or not? If all you want from them is an Internet connection, then it doesn't matter, so long as they meet their contract with you.
If you're using their SMTP and POP3 servers, and you're relying on email to conduct your extremely important business communications, I suggest you read the RFCs and find o
Procedural Note (Score:5, Insightful)
However, based on the article Google has not yet had the opportunity to respond to the subpoena. The third party can always move to squash, and that's where things will get interesting. Will Google be able to convince the court that certain messages are deleted and thus not retrievable. Or, perhaps, that the defendant believed he was deleting the messages and thus deserves to have the messages kept under lock?
These are questions only Google, as the third party, can raise. Now that the judge has issued the subpoena, Google is in a position to actually make those motions. And, if my legal education is worth anything, my money says Google/defendant will appeal if they lose because it's such a new area of the law that an Appeals Court really ought to announce a legal precedence.
Yippee; How is it unusual? (Score:4, Insightful)
So what? They're asking for a bit of a backlog. This is no surprise
The moral (Score:3, Funny)
This is not a big deal. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to argue about something, say that they have no right to go digging through someone's mail looking for maybes.
No suprise (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't a suprise. What Google's policy says is simple and obvious: "We make backups of our systems. That includes data files like your mailbox. We archive the backups on a rotating schedule that you don't know, so don't go assuming you know when any particular day's backup will be wiped. And we don't go back and alter those backups when you modify your data, so don't assume that deleting something today makes it disappear from all backups back to the beginning of time (or the inception of our service).". This subpoena is no different from a standard subpoena to a company asking for all documents including archived copies. If you wrote a memo, it got archived and then later you decided to shred your copies of the memo, the archived copies still have to be turned over in response to the subpoena. And note that GMail's not special in this regard. If you recieve your e-mail through your ISP and use their POP3/IMAP server to get it, it's probably backed up the same way and subject to the same risk of being subpoena'd
First rule: if you want control over your data and when it's destroyed, you must never allow it onto systems which you don't control.
You think email is bad? (Score:3, Interesting)
Finally, a use for spam! (Score:3, Funny)
Retention of data - just curious (Score:3, Interesting)
Where is that data stored?
Has any telco been ordered by a court to turn over that voice data?
Just curious...
Re:Retention of data - just curious (Score:4, Interesting)
The company I worked for had come under subpoena in the past, and a lot of effort was expended to retrieve the data the subpoena requested. With the PBX, once a voicemail is deleted, it was gone. Not so with the VoIP system - voicemails would be found on the phone server, on mail servers, on workstation email client cache, and anywhere that end users decided to save the WAV files - and any backup tapes for the above. If another subpoena occurred, we may have been responsible to discover, transcribe and deliver information about voicemails going back to the beginning of the VoIP system.
That would be horrendously expensive. In order to circumvent this, investment was made in a third party system that would strip voicemail files out of everything. They wouldn't be backed up to tape they would be deleted from any system after some time period (30 days?). That way, we could state such in our data retention policy, and any subpoena including voicemails would only go back 30 days, and not forever.
If you don't have the data, and are destroying it in accordance with a data retention policy, it can't be subpoenaed.
I know this is all somewhat tangential to your question, but I figured you might find it interesting.
What privacy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Look folks.. Privacy simply does not exist. You'll get your search terms read, email copied, if you encrypt you have to give over the keys and if you don't then you get put into prison anyway.
Your phone will be tapped, mobile will be tracked, cars followed with "traffic enforcement cameras". Your DNA will be on file, biometrics saved and your Underground trips logged.
Everywhere you go there are CCTV cameras, face recognition. Your purchases are tracked with credit cards, store loyalty cards and RFID tags. Your bank transactions are flagged if they look interesting and the tax people peer into your account looking for money that suddenly appears.
1984 got here, oh, 22 years ago now...
a thought on secure mail (Score:3, Interesting)
First: set up a computer on a residential connection that sends all logs to
Second: set up local accounts for all the people you want to communicate with, and limit them reading their mail locally via ssh only.
Third: Show each user how to read the email by sshing into the machine and reading the text mails with vi, or with mutt, or some other command-line emailer.
Fourth: Create an iso that can be used to set the box back up from scratch to the current config, and that performs the install without user intervention, and employs a disk-wiping mechanism during the install.
Fifth: Set the computer to boot from CD first, and a cron job to reboot the machine every night at 2am.
Now you can happily send email to each other all day long. Every evening, the box reboots, wipes itself, and reloads everything, so mail isn't stored locally for more than 22 hours or so, limiting the amount of incriminating evidence on the machine. Even if the machine's traffic is captured and stored, the encryption is via ssh, so you can't provide your private key for decryption -- there isn't one.
Your only real concerns now are ssh exploits, weak passwords, and your cohorts cut and pasting content from the ssh session onto their local computer. But then, if they'd do that, there are probably lots of other ways they're screwing up the heist.
Also, having never actually done anything like this, it's pure speculation. Someone tell me why it won't work.
Companies must understand this will happen... (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean this: if it can be done, the court may compel to you do it. So Google says "we'll keep it, but we won't do anything with it". Even if you believe them, the court may make them do something with it. So they simply can't keep it.
Same with DRM. Sony says "Yeah, a Blu-Ray disc can be made that will deactivate your player's ability to play discs, but we'd never do that." Well, they may not, but a company whose IP was breached may compel Sony to do it. Sony's only real way to avoid this is to not make it possible in the player.
Companies need to take the long view. They want to keep all their options open, but they're just going to end up making a product where the law can compel them to bone customers, and the customers will feel burned eventually.
Stop holding so much control, it's the only way forward.
Re:That's just like... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why save deleted message? (Score:3, Informative)
Sure, it could take a lot of time, but under a subpoena, Google may be forced to go through all of their archive tapes and grab every piece of data from every time period they have recorded.
Re:That's life in America (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, maybe this time they're trying to protect you (though it seems it's actually more of a tax dispute). The possibility of abuse is huge and scary.
It might be that reading deleted emails, or wiretapping American citizens, or planting infiltrators in protest groups, will save some lives. You know what? Too bad. We hear all the time how "freedom has costs" and we honor "the greatest generation" and the current military for being willing to risk their lives for freedom. Here's the kicker: If you live in a free society, you must tolerate risks in the name of freedom too.
There's a chance unbridled surveillance will prevent a terrorist attack. There's a much higher chance that unbridled surveillance will destroy the Republic as we know it. I am for preserving the liberties that make the nation worth living in.
Re:That's life in America (Score:4, Insightful)
now for me, If you live in a free society, you must tolerate risks in the name of freedom too. this sounds more reasonable. forget the injustices we "must" suffer to remain safe, and start taking a few more risks to ensure that we remain free. otherwise our government becomes no better than the old soviet government or the governmtner that orwell created in 1984 with big brother watching over us.
Re:That's life in America (Score:3, Insightful)
No, that's the death of America!
It's beyond me how not anyone could have flagged your post as "insightful". I object most strongly to the entire sentiment of your post.
To put things into perspective: I'm not at all worried about this particular case. I know that whatever I send over the Internet can and probably will be snooped by Echelon [heise.de], and even without that, the Internet is simply not a safe medium for confidential data. Nor am I suprised that not all data is necessarily instantly destroyed. Nor that G
Re:Am I the only one who doesn't care? (Score:4, Insightful)
Two hundred and some years ago some guys got all fed up with how they were being treated and so they wrote to the king, "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to throw off the political bonds that have connected them with another..." Well, it turns out that the king wasn't all that gracious about the whole thing and there was a lot of killing and other "lashing out" kinds of behaviors.
Our boys finally prevailed and they realized that any government (even their new government) can fall into this same oppressive mindset, so they put some things in their new constitution that might either prevent oppression altogether, or at least provide a means for citizens to throw off oppression if it occurs.One of those things is privacy. Our boys knew that if King George had been able to station a soldier in every private home, their little revolution would never have gotten off the ground.
We hear a lot of the phrase, "Who cares, I've got nothing to hide." Let's put the shoe on the other foot and ask, "If the government is doing such a good job of protecting us and not oppressing anyone, why should they fear their citizens having a lot of privacy?" In other words, the government's desire to "station a soldier" in eveyone's computer might indicate that they feel they should have something to fear.They would know best, after all.
Re:Am I the only one who doesn't care? (Score:4, Insightful)
The big deal is that no one in this world is free from having committed actions that many others would find objectionable. There are any number of everyday activities that you do everyday that would fall into this catagory. Eat a burger lately, PETA would like to know who you are. You have a DNA gene that predisposes you to a certain disease, your health insurance company sure would like to know that. You look at hardcore (but legal) porn, the police might like to keep tabs on you. You show interest in the plight of people who might be "associated with terrorism", all sorts of agencies would love to gather what they can about you.
These are just a few off the top of my head. Heck, here's a few more: a potential landlord would surely like a look at your bank balance. Your boyfriend/girlfriend might be interested in your visits to medical clinics. Your boss might like to know how much spare time you have on weekends. Your racist neighbour might like to know about your ethnic friends. Your parents might like to track where you go on your own time. And on and on and on...
All of your actions could be legal and ethical, but that doesn't stop people who frown upon (or could benefit from) your legitimate actions from using this information against you in some way. Do you really want people you don't like you, and that you don't like, knowing everything about you?
Privacy is something that may not be required in the distant future, when humanity evolves to the point where we no longer judge one another, and there exists no reason for fear of recrimmonations for holding beliefs and taking actions that are different than anyone else's. Human nature may never allow us to ever reach this level of trust and comfort with our fellow man. So until that happens, I will value privacy until it is no longer required.
Re:Encrypted emails any better than partial delete (Score:3, Insightful)
A judge can pretty much order you to do anything. Whether that gets held up on appeal or is subject to reversal happens after the fact.
If you refuse the judge, bring your toothbrush.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You have nothing to fear, Comrade! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going to install a satellite phone/monitor/GPS on your car that will phone the police if you exceed the current speed limit. I don't see how this will harm you unless you're breaking the speed limit.
I'm going to install a keystroke logger on your computer that will record everything you type. I don't see how this will harm you unless you use your computer to transfer money for gangsters.
I'm going to log every packet your computer sends that leaves the USA (Oh, wait, the NSA beat me to it...). I don't see how this will harm you unless you're secretly communicating with al Qaeda.
I'm going to steam every piece of mail that arrives in your mailbox open and photocopy it before it gets to you. I don't see how this will harm you unless you were the bastard who was sending the Anthrax letters.
I'm going to put a rootkit on that CD you bought that will contact me if you try to copy it and then break your computer. I don't see how this will harm you unless you like to rip and share music illegally.
Have I made my point?
Re:If you're not doing anything illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
See if you can understand the implications?
Question one: Does someone that refuses to implicate himself in a government witchhunt prove he is guilty?
Does someone that denies he is involved in the communist party mean he is guilty?
The point is that any american that is worth his salt SHOULD deny telling the government anything for fear that failure to state his position on something will be construed as anything other than defending his constutuional rights. Check www.papersplease.org for more information.
Erik