CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

I read about Google's new E-mail service they've been testing (and should be available soon), and it sounded interesting.

However today the "friend" of mine who I'm not speaking to ( ) sent out a link to an APNew article about the possible security risks of the service and how she won't be responding to anyone who get's a google account (you don't know how much I felt like getting one )

Anyway, the article: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040407/D81PUR3G0.html

I'm not too much of a slouch when it comes to security or privacy concerns, I've played it smart and followed most of the rules I guess.... but when I had read about the new Google service I figured it sounded no worse than Yahoo's banners they tack to every message.

On top of that, wasn't there the big issue about e-mail not being considered a secure form of communication anyway? Going back to EBBSes I remember most of the systems posting notices to that effect. And E-mail doesn't travel encrypted anyway, it's open text transmitted for all to see. All I have to do is run a server that bounces the e-mail through it and I can potentially read every bit of text that is sent across the line (correct me if I'm wrong on the technical aspect, the legal/ethical issues with doing that are something alltogether different).


It seems there are 2 issue here:

1) Google will be scanning all the e-mails for the information to display ads on. Computers will scan for keywords, just as many do now for Spam and virus protection. The ads themselves are supposed to (from the description I read) appear on the GMail owners screen next to the message much as the text boxes appear next to searches on Google do now. Other than a computer reading the mail, I'm not sure why this is an issue, but it appears to be the case. (and not nearly as bad as the thing Microsoft was talking about doing with it's linking HTML files to keywords, did they ever abandon that or is it just an option in the off position?)

2) Google's servers may contain residual data even if you delete the message. This is understandable since Google is going to use it's own search engine to allow you to search your emails. But anyone who thinks that when they delete that message from Yahoo, that the data is all gone, has another thing comming. I'm sure that no-one's doing any more work at removing data than any normal home user is, the sectors aren't being wiped for the deleted files.... sounds like hype to me.


Am I being naive? Am I missing something?

I'm not sure that I'll be dropping my Yahoo account anytime soon for a Google account, but it sounded like a pretty good service, and the relevant text ads sure beat the "remorgage your home now" ads that I have to slog through on Yahoo (actually, my "Adblock" on Firebird works pretty good at removing most of those ads ).

The GMail service does look pretty interesting, and chance are that I will drop Hotmail and sign up for one when the service is made available to the public (or just get all of my Hotmail emails forwarded to Gmail ).

I don't really have a problem with a computer scanning emails for keywords, as I don't use my email for top-secret personal stuff anyway.

It would actually be nice if the ads were tailored to the content of emails. Most of the hotmail ads are for dating services, which get really annoying after a while. Hopefully with Gmail there would be none of those.

Heh... Had to pick this one off u/f...
(from: http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20040404 )

ROFL splat the butterfly!

*looks at oldphilosopher's attachment.*

*marks down that oldphilosopher's cool points went up by a factor of ten.*

Thanks, oldphilosopher. That is great.

I am also keeping an eye on the GMail service. I am studying in network security, and basically, madphilb is right. For the most part, e-mail is not a secure form of communication. Therefore, the idea of Google searching words in my e-mail really does not bug me... since I consider e-mail not secure in the first place.

Again, thanks, oldphilosopher, for sharing that logo with us.

Thanks for the Logo/comic oldphilosopher, very, very, funny stuff.

Gmail opponents also want Google to revise a policy that entitles the company to retain copies of people's incoming and outgoing e-mail even after they close their accounts.

" wrote:2) Google's servers may contain residual data even if you delete the message. This is understandable since Google is going to use it's own search engine to allow you to search your emails. But anyone who thinks that when they delete that message from Yahoo, that the data is all gone, has another thing comming. I'm sure that no-one's doing any more work at removing data than any normal home user is, the sectors aren't being wiped for the deleted files.... sounds like hype to me.

I'm definately in favour of GMail, but this whole residual data thing really bugs me. Unlike Yahoo, Google's system is designed with the intent of actively saving your old emails. I expect that the search feature would be just as effecient if it crawled existing emails, you do get 1GB of storage after all. So why would Google want to keep your old emails?

I think that they should come out with a "hard delete" button. When another organisation stores data about you, you've got the right to have it removed under the Data Protection Act. (at least here in the UK...)

we have no protection anymore in the states, so i wont use it.

I don't use Hotmail, Yahoo or anything else. I just have my own POP server. Problem solved.

AWSOME!!! O

Well, I would. What if my stock broker send emails to me that tell me how my stocks are doing? Especially if I signed up for an online brokerage firm. They email you your password to protect you. I don't think I want the possibility, no matter HOW remote, that it's going to be sitting on a hard drive somewhere that I can't control. Give me PGP for those types of transactions, thank you very much!

What's PGP?

>>password

PGP = Pretty Good Privacy. Check out the free version of their software. You get a key and put it on a server where people can download it. Then you write your mesage. You encrypt it using someone's key that you download from the server, and then send the message. They can unecrypt it, but no one else can. If anyone really wants a lecture on public-private key encryption, I'll put one in the tutorials area. Just bug me for it.

I saw that on