Re: news from Google

[JC Dill <jcdill.lists () gmail com>]

Seth Mattinen wrote:
> JC Dill wrote:
> > Seth Mattinen wrote:
> <snipped>
>
> What I mean was that everyone seems happy with the whole "don't do 
> anything you don't want anyone knowing" thing, then this tangent 
> started. There must be things you don't want people to know that have 
> nothing to do with a potential issue with law enforcement, no? 
> Companies that use gmail must not want trade secrets or IP to be 
> considered fair game for everyone to know? 

True. 

But email isn't secure, no matter what provider you use.  I refer you to 
the CRU "hacked email server" again, as well as wikileaks, as examples 
of what can happen.  If you really don't want the info to potentially 
leak out, don't put it on the internet, which also means don't even put 
it on any internet connected computer.

Any information that you send from your computer to anyone else can be 
leaked.  It can be leaked by the recipient - intentionally or 
accidentally (e.g. forwarding it to the wrong address).  It can be 
leaked by their ISP - and not just their mail provider.  If they have a 
virus/trojan infected computer, (an unfortunately highly likely 
scenario) it can be stolen.  If they sell their used computer, it can be 
recovered from the hard drive that they "thought" they had cleaned.  If 
they put it on a laptop the laptop can be stolen.  These things happen 
every day.

Worrying about it being leaked because they use gmail is far down the 
list of things to worry about.  AFAIK there are no actual cases of 
information being compromised or leaked because someone used gmail.

The #1 thing you can do to minimize that theoretical possible leak, if 
you care, is to use encryption e.g. PGP.

Everyone on NANOG should know all of this already.

jc