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Ask Slashdot: What Country Has the Best Email Privacy Laws?

Posted by samzenpus on from the spanning-the-globe dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Given all that is going on with the ability of the government to go through my email if it is on a third-party server, I was wondering: what countries have the best privacy laws and what are some good hosts to use? I would rather pay a token fee to have secure private email than have members of the government able to read it as soon as it's 180 days old if I keep it at my email provider."

3 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. Re:privacy laws won't fix a broken privacy model by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 3, Informative

    I mean, do you even know what countries your emails might route through between sending and arriving at their destination? If you're going to go to a server in a different country to gain the benefit of their better privacy laws, you're likely going to need to transfer data over networks that geographically reside in other countries too. And your end points probably are still somewhere within your own country. What are the laws like there?

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
  2. Re:privacy laws won't fix a broken privacy model by klapaucjusz · · Score: 5, Informative
    STARTTLS is used between mail servers if:
    • both the sender and the receiver support the STARTTLS extension; and
    • the receiver has been configured with a certificate (even a self-signed one).

    All modern mail servers support STARTTLS, and most ISPs have configured a certificate in their MX. To see if yours has, do the following:

    $ host -t mx google.com
    google.com mail is handled by 50 alt4.aspmx.l.google.com.
    google.com mail is handled by 30 alt2.aspmx.l.google.com.
    google.com mail is handled by 40 alt3.aspmx.l.google.com.
    google.com mail is handled by 10 aspmx.l.google.com.
    google.com mail is handled by 20 alt1.aspmx.l.google.com.
    $ telnet aspmx.l.google.com smtp
    Trying...
    Connected to aspmx.l.google.com.
    Escape character is '^]'.
    220 mx.google.com ESMTP
    EHLO localhost
    250-mx.google.com at your service
    250-SIZE 35882577
    250-8BITMIME
    250-STARTTLS
    250 ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
    QUIT /blockquote

  3. IMMI - International Modern Media Initiative. by mordur · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't know which country has the best protection for users of online services now, but Iceland most certainly will be a contender when the IMMI legislation has been passed as per the Parliamentary Resolution passed on June 16. last year. Check it out: http://immi.is/