Who's reading your email?

“Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds.”
- John Perry Barlow

When you use the Internet, you can NEVER assume any privacy. Consider email for example. Your text is moving in the clear between many servers and can be easily intercepted. It is stored on a server at the email company where police and others can request to see it with a court warrant. Any employee at the email company with access to the server could read the email (though it may violate company/corporate privacy regulations.) Don't think this could happen? There are many examples of Civil employees caught reading the DMV records or tax records of celebrities, friends and enemies.

Another technology that puts privacy at risk is Chat. It's not uncommon for employees within a company to chat with other. But if the chat is run by an outside company, then confidential conversations can compromised. At my last job, the IT department came to fear this and required that everyone only use a new Chat service that was run within the company.

One problem today is that we have little clue who owns or operates services on the Internet. Your favorite site or service could be running in China with a history of disregard for privacy. Recently one of the pioneering chat companies, ICQ, was sold to a Russian company where the Russian "secret service" is entitled by law to any information it wants.

Bottom Line

Anything you put on the Internet may be leaked or become public. Don't assume privacy. I'm often annoyed by sites where I register and then they email back a welcome letter with my password printed out in clear text.

I read yesterday of a case in Europe where a brother privately boasted of a murder on Facebook to his sister. She turned the message over to the police.