OT: anyone who signed up for gmail

[joewigwam]

OT: anyone who signed up for gmail

...as I did. I got sent this link by a friend of mine and have looked at it and read it through once. Has it convinced me that gmail is evil or to delete my gmail account? No. It has though made me think maybe I should read it through a second time, follow some of it's links, read those through a couple times, maybe do some searches and get some of the differing(sp?) opinions. I'm just not sure what it will mean for me as with gmail but I'm glad to have had the opportunity to see it so I could make some kind of informed decision. Anywhoo.

http://gmail-is-too-creepy.com/

edit:sorry i meant to mark this OT and forgot thx to the kind soul who got it for me and didn't filet me for forgetting

 

[corax1]

ive been using gmail for a few weeks now and i see no problem with it. and that site seems to me just a bunch of the other email providers trying to scare people back into using their services.*shrugs* i like my gmail :thumbsup:

 

[AlterEgo]

edit:sorry i meant to mark this OT and forgot thx to the kind soul who got it for me and didn't filet me for forgetting

That was me :innocent: Only a mod can change the thread title.

Interesting site. I see it was done by a non-profit group, not a gmail/google competitor. It makes some interesting points. If even 50% true, it is kind of creepy. I'm glad not to be a gmail user, and I may be one of those who chooses not to respond to those who are. I'd rather Google not own my email messages, thank you very much.

 

[joewigwam]

ive been using gmail for a few weeks now and i see no problem with it. and that site seems to me just a bunch of the other email providers trying to scare people back into using their services.*shrugs* i like my gmail :thumbsup:

yes I'm liking it as well and on slightly further investigation I find that this guy has a personal beef with google http://www.google-watch-watch.org/ but that doesn't mean he's wrong, it just gives him a motive to be.

The only things in it were scary to me really were the fact that after a certain period of time email becomes subject to subpeona rather than warrant and the possible ways the gov. might decide to exploit this it wasn't really ever searched by a human clause. But as I said not convinced that I need to avoid it.

 

[joewigwam]

and I may be one of those who chooses not to respond to those who are. I'd rather Google not own my email messages, thank you very much.

Thanks again for fixing the title for me.

Yes absolutely I missed that the first time. Apparently Google has the right to hold on to even the messages I take the time to delete and retain some sort of ownership. Which makes that whole subpeona issue all the more scary.

 

[chase_encode]

....I'd rather Google not own my email messages, thank you very much.

:lol:

That should never happen as gmail and google (searches) aren't on the same system. The (computer generated) ads of your e-mail is the hurdle you should really be thinking about. As for the example of a lawyer who used g-mail and got an ad of a competing firm. I say if there client uses g-mail and sees the ad and desides to go with them, that is least of your worries.

I feel just as safe using gmail as I do any other e-mail provider out there. *If you are up to something that you think the government (or other powerfull entities of your choice) might be interested in, I suggest you use some sort of encryption and/or an anon remailer.

*There a number of legitamate choices for doing so.
Sending (unecrypted) e-mail is like doing all of your mail by post card. (Someone could read it, modify it, make copies, send it to somebody else....)

 

[Zarhrezz]

Interesting read. I did get an invite and made an account...but I can't open gmail heh. I get the 'loading....' screen and that's it. Oh well.

 

[DurfBarian]

There's no complaint made by that site that can't be maid about Yahoo mail. Or Hotmail. Or your ISP. It's just a bunch of paranoid baloney.

Those guys should be more worried about real problems, like giant squid atta

* eaten by squid *

 

[loverat]

If you have nothing to hide - what does it matter =D ?? Just don't send emails with EYE IZ A TERRORIZT etc mwahaha

 

[Jyde]

I've been using GMail for over 2 months now. I love it. While the article has a few good points, I agree with loverat - if you've got nothing to hide, why fear?

 

[wildjinn]

The dude in question is way too worried. I completely agree with chase_encode. Email has not ever been and is not currently a private form of communication. Unless email is encrypted by the sender and receiver independently of their communication devices, almost anyone in the middle can read it and the creators have almost no rights over their mail. Gmail really doesn't do anything to change that.

Even if it did, I'm almost positive that doing things like sending MP3's and such which is technically breaking copywrite enfringement is against the rules of any email administrators, so going so with Gmail is no less or more safe than doing so with any other email apps.

 

[barren]

I'm with Durf on this one, nearly every email provider also has a search engine tied to it that can be used for data mining purposes. Everything that site brings up also applies to every other popular email provider, especially your own ISP that can monitor much more then just email. If you want your information private, make your own email server based on linux. Simple as that.

 

[tragor]

I never understood what all the fuss about gmail was anyway. Now that we know that they're just like the others, so what? I don't use gmail and I don't use the others, either, at least not for anything important. I use a private POP server and I download all my mail. If I can verify that they've kept/used information from my mail I can sue them but really, if you want it "secure", use the phone.

Remember, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

 

[Jyde]

tragor's right... I'm too insignificant for anyone to bother

 

[Sir Lister of Smeg]

I never understood what all the fuss about gmail was anyway. Now that we know that they're just like the others, so what? I don't use gmail and I don't use the others, either, at least not for anything important. I use a private POP server and I download all my mail. If I can verify that they've kept/used information from my mail I can sue them but really, if you want it "secure", use the phone.

Remember, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

It depends a bit on where you are living, there appeared some data, I think about a year ago regarding to wiretapping by government agents. The Dutch government was topping the list as to percentage of tapped phonecalls. I'll try to google for an article.

As to gmail's security, I did get an account, have so far only used it to try and contact some friends. I do intend to when I'll engage in activity which might be seen as subversive by the powers that be and need to contact other people, to use other, more secure contact methods.

It might be interesting to do some gmail conversation which seems to concern subversive activity, just to test a few things. First of all, how much gmail is monitored, secondly whether, if the conversation could relatively clearly point at dangerous activity, the security services do their job, and thirdly, how talented we (the single player forum) are in a role of inventing activity and code it into seemingly normal language.
The thing that mostly troubles me with this, is that security services might monitor these conversations which are just a fake, and thus don't manage to notice the really dangerous ones originating from let's say another Al Qaeda plot. And if the latter succeeds we might be partially responsible because of our diverting attention towards our seemingly substantial conversation.

EDIT: The only article I found so far is this, section 3. Note that apparently the numbers stated are absolute numbers, not relative to the number of phone lines, which makes the discrepancy between The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States of America all the more interesting.