On Privacy, Email and Passwords

Pete wrote in with the rather touchy issue of privacy between the folks you live with and how far that extends. What happens when things go wrong between you and your roommate/live-in girlfriend/boyfriend/brother/best friend/etc when they go poking through your belongings, or even your computer and read things they weren't supposed to for whatever reason. Is it right for these people to expect your life to be an open book simply by virtue of the relationship they share with you? What can you do in situations like these? Click below for the whole submission.

Pete asks: "Due to recent events with my live-in girlfriend, she is very unhappy and untrustful of me. Why? She snooped through my computer and broke into my email 'cause she was suspicious. Well you can imagine that if you start looking for evidence, you're bound to come up with something. At the moment I'm taking a break from packing my belongings and such- I'm moving on and out. As much as I love her, I don't, won't, and refuse to share email, passwords, websites I read, and whatever's on my computer. Am I paranoid or overboard? I think not. I don't have anything to hide, but my conversations between my friends, family, and online anonymous persons are between me and them. Has anything similar happened to you? Do you think there's something wrong with NOT sharing email and passwords?"

On a personal note: I'm with Pete on this one. I don't think anyone, even my parents have rights to the details of my life simply because they are suspicious. If they have suspicious, they can come right out and ask me. Anything else is quite simply an invasion of privacy.

Comments?

Comments

been there, man.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pete:

My condolences on your breakup. Just wanted to mention that I went through much the same thing a couple of years ago, but from the other side.

At the time, my live-in and I were having some problems. I tried talking about them to her, but there were certain times and places and people that she would stonewall me about.

Finally, I decided that I had to do a little illicit computer espionage. I hoped that I'd be wrong about my suspicions, but it turned out that I was all too correct, and that she was being rather two-faced about our whole living arrangement and relationship conventions -- things that we'd agreed on gladly and mutually at the outset.

Also, for whatever reason, she was waiting for me to get tired of her and break up. I don't know why *she* didn't have the stones to dump me; I suspect she wanted to come across as the good party in our circle of shared acquaintances and was thus reluctant to act unilaterally.

Anyway, I obliged her, and my life is much better for it. I wasted enough time with her. My espionage prevented me from wasting any more. I spied on her as a last resort, and I did make good-faith efforts to work the stuff through conversationally. So my conscience is clean. I'm not losing any sleep over opening up her Eudora.

Re:been there, man.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean you think she was right to look through his personal information? You never did say if you thought she was right to do so or not.

Every adult relationship is different. In Pete's opinion -- and his is the only one that really matters in this particular situation -- his ex did wrong by looking at his files. She violated the terms of their relationship and is now suffering the consequences.

Some people (like a couple of the other posters to this topic) say they practice total data openness. Others encrypt everything. I don't think any of those approaches are more wrong or right -- it's up to the people who have to live with those policies to determine their rightness or wrongness.

Which is a big waffle, of course, and gets me away from answering your original question, but that's the only answer I can offer.

You, and Pete's girlfrind, apparently thought you were justified in snooping. You would feel the same, I presume, if someone else went through your computer files, looking through your private conversations?

That's a tough question, of course. And I can't pretend to be sanctimonious about this; if what happened to Pete happened to me, I'd be pretty pissed off. I imagine my ex (who knows what I've done; I confronted her with some of the nastier material I pulled from her Eudora, so that she could know *exactly* what I thought about her) is pissed off at me for doing so. And by the terms of our relationship she'd be right to be. I should have recognized the situation as unsalvageable before I went snooping. But she was my first really large-scale long-term relationship, so I lacked the wisdom to understand that. I've learned better now, believe me.

My question then, is why did you not dump her for keeping secrets, rather than... invade her privacy?

I wanted to be sure that things were irrevocably unsalvageable. I suspect that subconciously I was looking for the kick in the pants strong enough to propel me away from her, which I got in spades.

Re:been there, man.

[matthead]

Does this mean you think she was right to look through his personal information? You never did say if you thought she was right to do so or not.

I'd say that on the whole, honesty is the best policy, and she was wrong to go behind his back instead of confronting him with her suspicions. If she has questions or somesuch, bring them to him. Things are not always as they appear; people who go looking for information on their own often misinterpret what they find to fit their idea of what they're looking for, as Pete suggests his girlfriend did.

You, and Pete's girlfrind, apparently thought you were justified in snooping. You would feel the same, I presume, if someone else went through your computer files, looking through your private conversations?

I'm with Pete. I have a few things on my computer that I'd rather ceratin people (such as my roommate) did not see. I'm sure he has things on his computer he'd rather I didn't see. We respect each other's privacy, and come to each other's face with our concerns, instead of snooping through files.

On the other hand, you did question your girlfrind first; you gave it a shot. She refused to answer your questions. My question then, is why did you not dump her for keeping secrets, rather than... invade her privacy?

Privacy

[Detritus]

I suppose it depends on how you were brought up, but I would be extremely upset if someone was snooping through my private files. There isn't anything particularly interesting in them, I just value my privacy and don't subscribe to the notion that a relationship gives someone a right to know everything about the other person.

Re:Question

[JamesKPolk]

Probably the easiest thing to do in the long run, would be to install linux. :-)

Grab any of the many PGP or GPG enabled mail readers (including KMail, which supports PGP by default, and does support GPG if you use a patch). If you want whole-disk protection, grab the kerneli.org crypto patches, and use the encrypted filesystem features.

Say It With Me: Pathetic

[InitZero]

"Due to recent events with my live-in girlfriend,

<Dr. Laura>Shack-up honey.<Dr. Laura>

she is very unhappy and untrustful of me. Why?

Probably because you spend more time online than interacting with her. Probably because you are both immature. Probably because you have given her reason not to trust you. Probably because you get email from sexxxy69@aol.com on a regular basis.

She snooped through my computer and broke into my email 'cause

...you're a lousy sys admin and don't feel that strong passwords and encryption are necessary. Let's just hope that you get better at such 'trivial' tasks before you get a job protecting my online credit card transactions.

Well you can imagine that if you start looking for evidence, you're bound to come up with something.

I believe that both Bill Clinton and Bill Gates used that same logic in their recent court battles. We can't help you unless you first admit that you have a problem.

As much as I love her, I don't, won't, and refuse to share email, passwords, websites I read, and whatever's on my computer. Am I paranoid or overboard?

Yes.

Love -- real love -- is stronger than root.

Am I the only one here who thinks this guy's problem has nothing to do with technology, passwords or even nerds? The guy obviously is trying to hid something. (And doing it poorly, I might add.) The girl obviously has reasons to suspect that the guy is doing something behind her back. And she's a psychotic bitch for breaking into his stuff. But, once again, this has nothing to do with anything technology-related.

This tale of woe could just have easily been 'My shack-up honey used a hair pin to break into my foot locker where she found letters from old girlfriends and a stack of crusty Playboys. She has violated my privacy and I'm going to dump her. Yeah, I knew that she had asked me to throw away the letters and Playboys (and I agreed) but that's beside the point. The point is that I got caught red-handed. No! Er, I mean the point is that my privacy was violated.

I don't have anything to hide,

You ever notice how those with something to hide are always the ones with something to hide? ('I am not a crook.'; 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman.'; 'IE is just a browser.'; etc.)

Has anything similar happened to you?

No. I wouldn't get involved with a snoop nor would I give anyone I love the boot over root.

Do you think there's something wrong with NOT sharing email and passwords?"

I think there's something wrong with any personal relationship that requires trust through verification. However, your situation has nothing to do with email or passwords and until you come to understand that, you will never be able to have a happy, healthy interpersonal relationship.

Init 'soon-to-be-married' Zero

Re:Say It With Me: Pathetic

[Lionfire]

Nope... I'm going to have to give the other side of that argument.

I'm already married and my wife and I are very open with one another. We're honest with one another, we share things -- especially our secrets (one of the best bits about being married is you're allowed to tell your other half all that stuff everyone always tells you not to tell anyone -- and everyone expects it!:)

But I don't give her my passwords, and she doesn't give me hers. If she wants to know something and asks, sure -- I'll tell her whatever she wants to know. But there's no way I'd let her snoop through or play with my stuff.

For practical reasons -- I have research work there I just don't want messed up in an accident, preferences I don't want "tweaked" and bits of things that tend to break far too easily. Only I know my system well enough not to mess things up -- that's why we have multiple user accounts under a good OS. Not to mention misreading something you only have half of and way out of context anyway.

For personal reasons -- it's an invasion of privacy. Yes, I know... we're married. But some things remain private. That's part of being in a relationship -- respect. And respecting your partner's privacy is important.


Okay, so maybe I'm not an expert on relationships -- but ours is a happy one, and we both understand what's private and what's not.

If your partner doesn't require that privacy, that's fine -- but it's no sign of a better/worse relationship if not.

If you are a minor

[The Iconoclast]

Well, if you are a minor, then i think that your parents should be able to look at the stuf on your computer. Not only do they have a legal right (which i don't really care about), but parents should be involved with thier children and know what thier kids are up to in order to be effective parents. Good parents will understand that much of things kids do is out of curiostiy and will discuss things with them. Not-so-good parents will either ignore behavior they don't want to deal with or outright forbid it without talking about it, both of which only cause the problem to get worse.

However, If you are an adult, you shouldn't be expected to share all of your infomation with others. being able to talk to others truthfully is what healthy relationships are all about

A wealthy eccentric who marches to the beat of a different drum. But you may call me "Noodle Noggin."

Privacy

[srwalter]

I personally think that these things should remain confidential, and are no one else's business. I suspect that this is the opinion of most /. readers.

==================================================

Re:Privacy and Loved Ones

[Mr_Ceebs]

Well you can imagine that if you start looking for evidence, you're bound to come up with something
soundsrather like if she did manage to look then there was something to find.

Re:Privacy and Loved Ones

[Mr_Ceebs]

move the submit and preview buttons apart!!

Actually I remember feeling like this myself in this sort of situation. The rootes of my feeling like this were several years spent at boarding school. each week I had to provide a letter to prove to the staff that I was keeping in touch with my family. The result of this however Is that I have an Intense dislike for people reading my Mail. (this is the reason that Jack straw will be getting my encryption keys sometime a few millenia after hell freezes over.

with Women however I have learned over several painfull experiences not to put myself in a position where the situation above is happening. people can take the fact that you don't like people looking through your mail as evidence that you have something to hide. this can cause extreme stress in a relationship.

All I can say Is learn from this and dont let yourself be in this position again.

Question

[identity0]

I have a question as to how one would keep their email safe.
I use PGPDisk on a WinNT box to encrypt all of my personal files, and I have Eudora installed on the PGPDisk partition; unfortunately, this creates some problems. I have Eudora itself on the PGPDisk instead of just the PGP plug-in because I don't want to have to de-crypt each message when I look thorugh them. However, PGPDisk is sometimes unstable on WinNT, and it is now impossible for me to re-install the Eudora plug-in (to change the version number), because I need PGPDisk open to do so, and the PGP installation prog. won't let me have the PGPDisk partition open when I install. Complicated, huh? Anyone know a better sloution?

My solution

[Mark F. Komarinski]

I solved most of it by buying my wife her own computer. I don't look at her e-mail, and she doesn't look at mine. I see it less as a matter of trust as a matter of "that's my password - the more people that know it, the less secure it is". I don't think she agrees.

Of course, if you're really paranoid, you can use something like GPG to encrypt your e-mail. I also don't keep my e-mail local (thank you, IMAP).

A female point of view ;-)

[MooBug]

This is such a touchy subject.

No matter how much a person suspects you of doing something they shouldnt invade your privacy like that - if anyone thinks what they did is right then think of it this way ... if you were on the receiving end - would you like it?

Information passed between two people, can easily be misconstrued text doesnt always convey emotion and a phrase or suggestion could be taken the wrong way !

I admit that I use smiley faces/emoticons etc.. to show my mood but two friends may know each other well enough to know that a suggestion was meant in jest etc etc.

if a person is untrusting of you or paranoid that you've done something they should ask you the person not refer to some text on a screen

Privacy and Loved Ones

[Matthew Weigel]

I frankly believe that the number of things a person doesn't know about you is proportional to how close the two of you are (think secrets=k*ceiling(distance)). But I also think that such trust is predicated on understanding, not a search for proof.

Quite simply, unless you see a person at many levels, you don't know them very well. By knowing my parents' history before I was born, what they did and where they went, etc., I know a lot more about who they are. If you shield a person from certain levels, or certain things, you are setting a boundary for intimacy. Not that that's a bad thing, it's simply something to be recognized -- there is some level of intimacy that you don't want.

Me, I have an open-book policy: my girlfriend has access to all my data when she's around (long distance relationship, and since she doesn't have access to ssh I won't give her my root password), and I answer every question she or my family asks truthfully. My family also has total access to my room and everything in it when I'm not around, but not when I'm there since I need moment-to-moment privacy.

So there's my take on it -- without specific details the (ex-?)girlfriend looks like someone with whom Pete couldn't have that level of intimacy, based on her reaction; and Pete didn't want it anyways.

Re:Privacy and Loved Ones

[Matthew Weigel]

(this is the reason that Jack straw will be getting my encryption keys sometime a few millenia after hell freezes over.

Heh. I'm speaking, however, about a lack of privacy with loved ones, and no one else. If people think I have something to hide because I don't feel they're entitled to something, so be it. If I think they are entitled to something, then I think they are entitled to see me as I am, with out me even tinting the truth.

But for everyone else, stay the Hell out of my mail :)

Responsibility

[JamesKPolk]

I'd add that parents, being responsible for their children in every way, must keep tabs.

It'd be wrong for society to hold parents responsible for raising children (in some cases holding them criminally accountable for children's behavior) without giving parents the right to check up on everything.