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On The Privacy Subtleties Of GMail, Other Webmail
Brad Templeton writes "After talking with Google folks and learning about E-mail privacy law from EFF (join!) lawyers, I have written a new essay on the privacy subtleties of GMail and other advanced webmail applications. Some of the fear has been overdone, but there are surprising issues due to the fact that the ECPA, written almost 20 years ago, wasn't prepared for fancy e-mail offerings like GMail. I issue a call for Google to encrypt your mail to avoid these issues."
The problem is the few privacy fanatics who are boarded up in cabins with rifles and paperback copies of 1984. Overreaction is an understatement, and this article, while more neutral than most i've read regarding this topic (which was still 99% ass-kissing the name-dropping) was still pretty fanatical.
Really, nearly 100% of those "in the know" don't give a shit, and i'd guess the majority of those "in the know", like me, are sick of all the tinfoil hat fear mongering with no rational point or purpose.
1984 was a book, fiction, purely out of the imagination of a single person, who was not psychic, only creative. There are no facts in the book, there is no warning of the future, it's all fiction you meatheads. Now go lock yourself in the basement and let the people without an anxiety disorder do as they please.
Nothing. This is Slashdot. This is the home of people that say GNU/Linux and complain that software isn't 'free enough' because you have to copy a paragraph of text. They'd sooner build their own half-working implementation than use something that might in some way possibly maybe invade their precious privacy and expose their hardcore goat pr0n fetish to the world.
I'm probably not going to use Gmail simply because I don't need it. I've used the same email address for years now, so switching would be a massive PITA.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.