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We're Fighting the Feds Over Your Email
61–70 of 94 posts
Re: We're Fighting the Feds Over Your Email
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
A physical letter in a rented mailbox is also generally not data-mined for the commercial purposes of the service provider. I think cloud companies essentially want the 4th amendment benefits of treating the cloud like real world private areas (e.g. bank lock boxes), without any of the obligations that come along with that. The "reasonable expectation of privacy" in things like safe deposit boxes or storage units is…
>they want the 4th amendment benefits of treating the cloud like real world private areas (e.g. bank lock boxes), without any of the obligations that come along with that. and... >That said, I think they're ultimately going to win. Warning: Total Conspiracy Theory Ahead Could this be an end-around by Microsoft to eliminate one of Google's main revenue streams? Follow me for a second. 1. Let's assume Microsoft wins th…
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Re: We're Fighting the Feds Over Your Email
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding was that he offered them his programming services to create a method to do exactly what they wanted- pull the email info out for just one user. True, he was going to charge them for it, but it was only $2000. A laughably small sum for the people he was dealing with. Supposedly, they denied this offer because they couldn't control it. From my perspective, $2k and a couple day wait is a paltry sum to p…
It wouldn't surprise me if the feds are sharply limited in what they can pay for warrant-wise. There's a good chance they simply didn't legally have the option of waiting and paying $2k. Understandably, the government does not want "I have a warrant" to become the sound of a cash cow begging to be milked. If I were to guess, I would say control is actually a huge issue. If it's their equipment and software that's cer…
Excellent points, which I didn't think of.
However, I'll ask you this: is it constitutionally agreeable to trample the rights of others for the sake of gathering evidence? I would say no. Just like how I would say searching all personal mail coming from a certain zip code because you know of someone sending secrets would be, in my viewpoint, wrong. I can chalk up the initial issue of a warrant to the judge not understanding technology, but as soon as it was explained in a courtroom how it was tied together, he should have told the feds to seek evidence elsewhere.
Re: We're Fighting the Feds Over Your Email
#64"Microsoft believes you own emails stored in the cloud, and that they have the same privacy protection as paper letters sent by mail"
Clarification: Microsoft now believes this (or claims to). They had no problem handing PRISM the keys to the kingdom while it was still secret.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-c...
Re: We're Fighting the Feds Over Your Email
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
> your emails become the business records of a cloud provider That is simply ridiculous. Email stored by a cloud provider isn't a business record of the provider any more than the contents of a physical letter stored in a rented mail box is a business record of the box provider.
A physical letter in a rented mailbox is also generally not data-mined for the commercial purposes of the service provider. I think cloud companies essentially want the 4th amendment benefits of treating the cloud like real world private areas (e.g. bank lock boxes), without any of the obligations that come along with that. The "reasonable expectation of privacy" in things like safe deposit boxes or storage units is…
Does anyone know the case law for services that filter a person's mail for them? E.G if I employ a service that will open mail for me to weed out the junk and send me the good stuff, do my letters become business records?
What if I also employ them to (going a step further), pay any bills that come in from my bank account?
I think that this line has already been drawn.
Tangential question: since the Supreme Court recently decided "do it with software" by itself is not sufficient (by itself) for software patents, can that precedent also be used for differentiating between letters and email? E.g. - letters with software is not enough distinction for 4th amendment bypass?
Re: We're Fighting the Feds Over Your Email
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
End users need to and can take control over their own email privacy. GPG. Ten minutes to download, install, and generate a key pair is all you need to secure your email. Perhaps the willingness to do so will increase when the government successfully argues that non-encrypted mail posted through an email server is the same as posting your thoughts on a public peg board... If you want full compatibility, you can pay a…
Pffft, GPG doesn't work if you want to communicate with other people. It's very difficult to get people to use it, and the UX is horrible for it. On top of that it's even harder to use on mobile platforms. GPG also doesn't have forward secrecy.
Email can not have forward secrecy. You receive it in a time, and want to read it later.
Re: We're Fighting the Feds Over Your Email
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
>they want the 4th amendment benefits of treating the cloud like real world private areas (e.g. bank lock boxes), without any of the obligations that come along with that. and... >That said, I think they're ultimately going to win. Warning: Total Conspiracy Theory Ahead Could this be an end-around by Microsoft to eliminate one of Google's main revenue streams? Follow me for a second. 1. Let's assume Microsoft wins th…
I think it goes off the rails in step 2. Private organizations are not bound by the 4th amendment. For the most part, the constitution defines the powers and limitations of the federal government (and to some extent the state governments). The government is the entity bound by the 4th amendment, not private companies. I think a more likely scenario is that we end up with a court ruling that says something along the l…
>I think it goes off the rails in step 2.
This went off the rails well before I started to write it. But let me push back on your thoughts.
If I am understanding Microsoft's argument correctly for this court case, they are trying to equate e-mails to letters. And, by extension, equate themselves to UPS/USPS/FedEx whathaveyou. E-mails are private correspondence, just like letters in the post. And please, correct me if I'm wrong in this assessment.
It is also a felony in the US to open someone's mail. So wouldn't that same protection exist in email? Which would mean nobody can look at an email correspondence unless they were either the sender or receiver of said email.
Re: We're Fighting the Feds Over Your Email
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
A physical letter in a rented mailbox is also generally not data-mined for the commercial purposes of the service provider. I think cloud companies essentially want the 4th amendment benefits of treating the cloud like real world private areas (e.g. bank lock boxes), without any of the obligations that come along with that. The "reasonable expectation of privacy" in things like safe deposit boxes or storage units is…
Does anyone know the case law for services that filter a person's mail for them? E.G if I employ a service that will open mail for me to weed out the junk and send me the good stuff, do my letters become business records? What if I also employ them to (going a step further), pay any bills that come in from my bank account? I think that this line has already been drawn. Tangential question: since the Supreme Court rec…
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Re: We're Fighting the Feds Over Your Email
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it goes off the rails in step 2. Private organizations are not bound by the 4th amendment. For the most part, the constitution defines the powers and limitations of the federal government (and to some extent the state governments). The government is the entity bound by the 4th amendment, not private companies. I think a more likely scenario is that we end up with a court ruling that says something along the l…
>I think it goes off the rails in step 2. This went off the rails well before I started to write it. But let me push back on your thoughts. If I am understanding Microsoft's argument correctly for this court case, they are trying to equate e-mails to letters. And, by extension, equate themselves to UPS/USPS/FedEx whathaveyou. E-mails are private correspondence, just like letters in the post. And please, correct me if…
I think the snail mail to email analogy is flawed...
snail mail has an envelope, plain text email does not. However, a postcard does not generally have an envelope...
So here are some better analogies:
snail mail letter == encrypted email
snail mail postcard == plain text email
publicly posted diary == plain text gmail
Re: We're Fighting the Feds Over Your Email
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it goes off the rails in step 2. Private organizations are not bound by the 4th amendment. For the most part, the constitution defines the powers and limitations of the federal government (and to some extent the state governments). The government is the entity bound by the 4th amendment, not private companies. I think a more likely scenario is that we end up with a court ruling that says something along the l…
>I think it goes off the rails in step 2. This went off the rails well before I started to write it. But let me push back on your thoughts. If I am understanding Microsoft's argument correctly for this court case, they are trying to equate e-mails to letters. And, by extension, equate themselves to UPS/USPS/FedEx whathaveyou. E-mails are private correspondence, just like letters in the post. And please, correct me if…
(I've yet to read TFA, but:)
I'm all for privacy in email, but if we're doing analogies, unencrypted email is more like postcards, than letters. And metadata is more like what's written on the letter than in it. (And SMTP over TLS would be like the mailboxes you're not allowed to look in, unless you're delivering mail, or are the recipient...)
As far as I can gather, the US has pretty shoddy laws guarding personal information from corporations -- so a change wrt email might be a win. But I don't know if this is the best way.
As long as there doesn't appear to be any viable way to get most people to use gpg/smime -- I'm not sure we're likely to get anywhere. Perhaps that is what Microsoft should do: leverage S/MIME for outlook.com (with the caveat that they would have to keep the encrypted private keys, and being a web service, could be forced to backdoor the clients in order to get the pass-phrases/passwords...).
Hm, I wonder if there's an IMAP extension for storing encrypted key-pairs?