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Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case

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Re: Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case

#11

Post by brunoqc »

codemogul wrote: post #8

Relevant and coincidental personal anecdote: 10 years ago I caught my x-wife in an affair as she was using this same method the communicate with her lover. Her choice of email address for the shared account raised alarms on my firewall, so it was a simple matter to track to her machine. While she had gone to the similar trouble to delete all records on Yahoo (coincidentally), she had been browsing with IE which, due…

> Her choice of email address for the shared account raised alarms on my firewall

What does that even mean?

Re: Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case

#12

Post by resoluteteeth »

The idea that Yahoo is covering for a government surveillance program is entertaining, but it hardly seems difficult to believe that they aren't actually deleting what they say they are deleting. Of course, keeping copies of everything forever in violation of their own policy is not exactly going to make law enforcement unhappy.

I suspect that yahoo and other companies haven't yet taken the issue of failing to delete data that should be deleted as seriously as that of losing data that shouldn't be deleted, but this has the potential to become a significant privacy issue.

Re: Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case

#13

Post by anonymousab »

pliny wrote: post #4

Here's a thought: what if 'Yahoo gives FBI snapshots' is actually parallel construction, but Yahoo are not allowed (under PATRIOT or whatever) to admit the extent of their cooperation with three letter agencies (for instance, that they hand over everything they see without requests being made). Do they have to refuse to comply with the court?

There is likely leeway for them, or the government, to address the judge in private and get this all dismissed.

Or perhaps some immunity to any results.

Re: Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case

#14

Post by satysin »

brunoqc wrote: post #11
codemogul wrote: post #8

Relevant and coincidental personal anecdote: 10 years ago I caught my x-wife in an affair as she was using this same method the communicate with her lover. Her choice of email address for the shared account raised alarms on my firewall, so it was a simple matter to track to her machine. While she had gone to the similar trouble to delete all records on Yahoo (coincidentally), she had been browsing with IE which, due…

> Her choice of email address for the shared account raised alarms on my firewall What does that even mean?

I would assume he means it wasn't one of the big players such as Gmail or Outlook so when he saw traffic to mail.ru or whatever service it was it looked suspicious to his normal traffic profile.

Re: Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case

#17

Post by beachstartup »

codemogul wrote: post #8

Relevant and coincidental personal anecdote: 10 years ago I caught my x-wife in an affair as she was using this same method the communicate with her lover. Her choice of email address for the shared account raised alarms on my firewall, so it was a simple matter to track to her machine. While she had gone to the similar trouble to delete all records on Yahoo (coincidentally), she had been browsing with IE which, due…

i'm curious... what was her reaction when you recovered the data?

Re: Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case

#18

Post by tobylane »

anonymousab wrote: post #13
pliny wrote: post #4

Here's a thought: what if 'Yahoo gives FBI snapshots' is actually parallel construction, but Yahoo are not allowed (under PATRIOT or whatever) to admit the extent of their cooperation with three letter agencies (for instance, that they hand over everything they see without requests being made). Do they have to refuse to comply with the court?

There is likely leeway for them, or the government, to address the judge in private and get this all dismissed. Or perhaps some immunity to any results.

In that case I'm surprised the judges are permitted to ask this sort of question in public, it creates a warrant canary.

Re: Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case

#19

Post by jacquesm »

codemogul wrote: post #8

Relevant and coincidental personal anecdote: 10 years ago I caught my x-wife in an affair as she was using this same method the communicate with her lover. Her choice of email address for the shared account raised alarms on my firewall, so it was a simple matter to track to her machine. While she had gone to the similar trouble to delete all records on Yahoo (coincidentally), she had been browsing with IE which, due…

Funny, I've run the mail server of our family for quite a while and it would never enter my head to read someone else's email.
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