On Sat, 11 Sep 2004, Robert Bonomi wrote:
I agree. The privacy implications are *really* scary. (And they're sufficiently worse for non-subscribers that I've contemplated blocking gmail-bound messages from my (personal) systems.)
While we're on _that_ subject, what about Postini, or Brightmail, or -any- other big provider (e.g. SBC/Yahoo) that handles mail for multiple 'client' domains?
Every one of those folks also reads and analyzes everybody's incoming mail, including correlating it with mail sent to other destination on their systems. AND correlating source (IP address and/or email address) with content.
The folks with the tinfoil hats are going to need extra shielding. If you believe your provider is untrustworthy, mail storage is a small part of your problems. An untrustworthy provider doesn't need to run the mail server to watch the traffic to and from it. Encryption helps a little, but that's true even if you used a provider's mail server. Encryption is difficult for most people to do well. If you put a personal server in a co-lo, remember the co-lo provider potentially has physical access to your equipment on their premises. On the other hand, if your trust your provider enough to believe it will conform to the law and contractural arrangements, you may make a rational choice to rely on the service provider to maintain a mail server instead of trying to maintain one yourself. Some people hide their money in a mattress in their house, other people keep valuables in a safe deposit box at a bank. US law may still be developing in the area of stored electronic information in comparison to physical storage. US Supreme Court Justice Marshall said in Couch (1973) "Placing [records] in a safe deposit box is different from letting them remain for many years with an accountant." In the electronic world how different is storing a file on a floppy disc in a physical safe deposit box of a bank for more than 180 days different than storing the same file online in an "electronic vault" of a Internet service provider for more than 180 days?