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Free Schnail Mail for life

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Re: Free Schnail Mail for life

#11

Post by knotty66 »

StavrosK wrote: post #4

The problem with email is that we've arrived at a monoculture. TLS-enabled email is pretty secure if nobody can compromise either of the two ends (or, well, the intermediaries). Since everyone uses Gmail, it's trivial to just get everyone's email, since one of the two ends is pretty much guaranteed to be there. If we move to a system where everyone has their own mail server, or at least one mail server for a few peop…

If a system evolved where a significant proportion of communications were difficult for the security services to monitor, encryption would be criminalized and it's users vilified as unpatriotic.

Re: Free Schnail Mail for life

#12

Post by greyman »

The article is a bit demagogic, because saying "we open your letters" is not the same thing as "Google algorithm reads your email."

I don't defend Google here, and I also stopped using Gmail, but not for the reasons mentioned in the article. Storing the emails and mechanically parsing them wouldn't be a problem for me, if they could ensure that those emails will not leak out of Google - but that is not technically nor legally possible (at least nowadays).

Re: Free Schnail Mail for life

#13

Post by JohnLBevan »

I like the way this has been presented, but have to admit that I disagree with the point - if someone's willing to give me something for free (monetary) in exchange for reading info I pass through their services I'm fine with that - I just won't use their service to send anything I don't want them to read. There are good arguments for privacy, and for people/organisations being open about how they use any personal data they collect, but in this scenario you've willingly and knowingly signed up to a contract; and in doing so invalidated your right to be upset by the required "payment method" of information.

Re: Free Schnail Mail for life

#14

Post by greyman »

masnick wrote: post #10

In my opinion, this kind of argument is demagoguery and ignores practical security concerns. For the average person, which is more likely? (1) A hacker taking over their email account to get bank info, etc. (2) Some nebulous threat from Google having too much information about you. Google and Gmail offer some of the best security controls and threat detection of any webmail provider that I've seen (pioneered two-fact…

> Government snooping is a separate issue, but as far as I know there are no major email providers that a non-technical person can use that aren't vulnerable.

But at least, those other email providers are different that your web search provider - while if you use Gmail, your profile will also contain your searches (if you use Google for search), visits from those searches, and then also data from other Google services you choose to use.

Re: Free Schnail Mail for life

#15

Post by alextingle »

knotty66 wrote: post #11
StavrosK wrote: post #4

The problem with email is that we've arrived at a monoculture. TLS-enabled email is pretty secure if nobody can compromise either of the two ends (or, well, the intermediaries). Since everyone uses Gmail, it's trivial to just get everyone's email, since one of the two ends is pretty much guaranteed to be there. If we move to a system where everyone has their own mail server, or at least one mail server for a few peop…

If a system evolved where a significant proportion of communications were difficult for the security services to monitor, encryption would be criminalized and it's users vilified as unpatriotic.

Great. Let's cross that bridge when we come to it.

Re: Free Schnail Mail for life

#16

Post by lcedp »

masnick wrote: post #10

In my opinion, this kind of argument is demagoguery and ignores practical security concerns. For the average person, which is more likely? (1) A hacker taking over their email account to get bank info, etc. (2) Some nebulous threat from Google having too much information about you. Google and Gmail offer some of the best security controls and threat detection of any webmail provider that I've seen (pioneered two-fact…

Wow, that's a rant you wrote! We should use software that allows encrypting of sensible information on the client's side. That's it.

If they want show me ads - all right then, let me choose out of categories that I'm really interesting in(i.e. Android, Ruby, running, my favorite authors and tv-shows etc-etc). And I will click that links.

Re: Free Schnail Mail for life

#17

Post by MetaCosm »

darxius wrote: post #7
zaidf wrote: post #5

Machine "reading" the email != humans reading the same thing A machine can't laugh at your embarrassing confession. Nor can a machine talk about your letter to its friends. For either of these things to happen with gmail would require serious risk and effort on part of an employee.

It doesn't matter, the information is there. He mentions building a profile. While the machines might have built it, there's nothing stopping a real person (forced or otherwise) from browsing those profiles.

First of all, there are lots of things stopping them (systems permissions, checks, organizational rules, etc). All might be circumventable -- but to claim they don't exist is ridiculous.

Secondly, intent matters. Killing a person can be a pure accident, can be manslaughter, can be first degree premeditated murder. You might attempt to dumb it down to "It doesn't matter, the person is dead" -- but that isn't how the US legal system, or the majority of people think.

If the intent of a system is to allow the profiles to be read by people (or shipped to government) that is very different than if the intent it to be exclusively used by software.

Re: Free Schnail Mail for life

#18

Post by cLeEOGPw »

zaidf wrote: post #5

Machine "reading" the email != humans reading the same thing A machine can't laugh at your embarrassing confession. Nor can a machine talk about your letter to its friends. For either of these things to happen with gmail would require serious risk and effort on part of an employee.

Why would you think they would hire a human to read mails? As I understand you submit your message online, they analyze your message the same way emails are analyzed, then they print the letter along with some ads and puts it in letter. Hiring people to read the letters would be extremely inefficient.

Re: Free Schnail Mail for life

#19

Post by bjornsing »

Funny, but for extra laughs they should add a section on PRISM: We keep scanned copies of all your snail mail indefinitely, which the NSA can access through our PRISM backdoor on a moments notice. ;)

Re: Free Schnail Mail for life

#20

Post by facorreia »

bjornsing wrote: post #19

Funny, but for extra laughs they should add a section on PRISM: We keep scanned copies of all your snail mail indefinitely, which the NSA can access through our PRISM backdoor on a moments notice. ;)

I don't think they would be allowed to acknowledge that.
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