The full article can be found:http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,64094,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2
To me, this is such a gross violation of privacy. I can't believe the federal courts don't see anything wrong with the fact that this e-mail provider was reading his customer's private e-mails. I'm also personally fearful that many e-mail providers will use this as an excuse to read their customer's e-mails. Watch what you write.
Feel free to post your thoughts or discuss any points.
Email is nothing more than a service provided by a private company. The level of privacy attributed to that service depends entirely upon that service provider, and they are under no obligation to provide any level of privacy at all.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
quote:
When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Maradon! said:
Email is nothing more than a service provided by a private company. The level of privacy attributed to that service depends entirely upon that service provider, and they are under no obligation to provide any level of privacy at all.
This is the key part. As a company providing service I can state that I have the right to do whatever I damn well please with data on my systems. This isn't limited to just email, but to web data, ftp storage, anything that is on my systems. I can also put in a clause to let me sniff your traffic at will (depending on the wording I may or may not have to prove that it was "accidental discovery during routine maintence") meaning anything not encrypted (web surfing, blog entries, IRC sessions, IM sessions) is fair game to be read. Some service providers actually have this in their User Agreement and worse, they deny you the ability to use Cryptographic means to secure your traffic/email/data. You're caught using SSH to connect to a server at the office to restart the web server? Tough shit, you violated the AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) and we can terminate the account.
As a private company offering services, there's a SHITLOAD of things that can be done that you agreed to the instant you signed up for the account... chek the AUP for your own ISP sometime and see if they state that email is confidential or if encrypted data streams are allowed... I've discontinued service with a company in the past over the Crypto bit...
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Ryuujin probably says this to all the girls:
To me, this is such a gross violation of privacy. I can't believe the federal courts don't see anything wrong with the fact that this e-mail provider was reading his customer's private e-mails.
Technically, they're the email providers private emails.
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Ryuujin had this to say about Captain Planet:
A federal appeals court last week ruled that an e-mail provider did the break the law when he copied his customer's e-mails and read them.
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Everyone wondered WTF when Random Insanity Generator wrote:
This is the key part. As a company providing service I can state that I have the right to do whatever I damn well please with data on my systems. This isn't limited to just email, but to web data, ftp storage, anything that is on my systems. I can also put in a clause to let me sniff your traffic at will (depending on the wording I may or may not have to prove that it was "accidental discovery during routine maintence") meaning anything not encrypted (web surfing, blog entries, IRC sessions, IM sessions) is fair game to be read. Some service providers actually have this in their User Agreement and worse, they deny you the ability to use Cryptographic means to secure your traffic/email/data. You're caught using SSH to connect to a server at the office to restart the web server? Tough shit, you violated the AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) and we can terminate the account.As a private company offering services, there's a SHITLOAD of things that can be done that you agreed to the instant you signed up for the account... chek the AUP for your own ISP sometime and see if they state that email is confidential or if encrypted data streams are allowed... I've discontinued service with a company in the past over the Crypto bit...
Spooky 
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
