EFF Warns That Email Privacy Is In Jeopardy

MojoKid writes with this excerpt from HotHardware: "According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a dangerous legal precedent has just been set that can potentially unravel existing federal privacy protections for e-mail and Internet usage. The alert from the EFF is not just to sound a general warning, but it also takes the form of an Amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief, filed with the federal 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, asking for the court's legal finding to be overturned... The findings of this case could become the foundation of a legal precedent upon which other similar cases can subsequently be based. If that were to be the case, then the unauthorized retrieving of e-mails from an e-mail server would not be considered a violation of the federal Wiretap Act, which will then open the door for government-sponsored snooping."

Comments

Privacy?

[clang_jangle]

Not to be flippant, but does anyone really believe there is any privacy anymore with simple, unencrypted email? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the EFF is on the case. But it does seem to me that any expectation of privacy in any communication medium here in the USA went out the window with the news of the NSA telco backdoors. Our government is obsessed with spying on everyone, and they have demonstrated quite thoroughly they don't care about the rules at all.

Re:Privacy?

[the_raptor]

Exactly. How is unencrypted email different to a postcard? Every server along the path has full access (and probably stores a copy for hours to days) to the contents along with the routing information. Due to addressing problems I was receiving CC orders and other confidential emails for some mail order company, for about two months. I had to respond to every one and tell them not to be so stupid.

The problem is that so few people are set up to read encrypted email, that it isn't useful in day to day work.

Re:Privacy?

[TubeSteak]

How is unencrypted email different to a postcard?

Differing expectations of privacy.
An intermediate mail server is not a postal worker.

Perhaps most importantly:
Different laws regarding e-mail and postcards.

Re:An analogy

[megaditto]

If you think your padlock is keeping the Government away (the guys with aircraft carriers and nukes), you must be crazy.

US Government very much cares about the laws since that's about the ONLY thing that can stop them from doing to you what they do to everybody else. For example, the CIA torture manual advises you to always check the local laws first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Torture_Manuals#CIA_manuals

Re:Yet another reason...

[mccalli]

... to maintain your own mail server.

And how does maintaining your own email server help? Those outgoing mails are going to somewhere right? And the incoming ones arrived from somewhere? Then they're likely being transmitted in the plain somewhere along the line.

Unless you encrypt the messages themselves, you're on your own. Having your own mailserver, which I do, simply doesn't help with this problem.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:outlook encryption for POP3, SMTP, IMAP usage

[ettlz]

Install Thunderbird, GnuPG and the EnigMail extension.

Re:An analogy

[Firehed]

Regardless, it's not a very good analogy. It takes considerably more than the technological equivalent of a hacksaw to break a solid encryption scheme.

Re:Yet another reason...

[FridayBob]

True, running your own mailserver is only half of the solution, but as more people do the same it will become less likely that any 3rd party mail servers will be involved in your email exchanges. Many of my friends have ADSL connections and also run their own private mail servers. In these cases, my exchanges with them are also encrypted.

Re:Just copyright your emails

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything you write is automatically covered by the copyright laws.