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Judge Orders Deleted Emails Turned Over
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Mar 17, 2006 11:33 AM
from the that-is-a-lot-of-mash-letters dept.
from the that-is-a-lot-of-mash-letters dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "In a lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission, a subpoena sent to Google orders the turnover of the complete contents of a Gmail account, including deleted e-mail messages. The Judge has granted the subpoena and orders that all e-mail messages, including deleted messages, be divulged. Google's privacy policy says deleted e-mail messages 'may remain in our offline backup systems' in perpetuity. It does not guarantee that backups are ever deleted. So much for the Delete Forever button."
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Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:4, Interesting)
I TOLD YOU SO.
I've maintained before [slashdot.org] that Google retains far too much information to make the use of Gmail anything less than a full-blown privacy nightmare. (For more information, please look here [epic.org] and here [gmail-is-too-creepy.com].)
And now, the chickens have come home to roost. From TFA: A stunning victory for the Establishment and a horror show for private citizens everywhere. Welcome to 1984.
And before you start, please don't object that the person affected is a defendant in a criminal proceeding, because that's quite beside the point. The point is that Google has this information on you, and will hand it over upon request. This vindicates the caterwauling of all the privacy advocates concerning Google and Gmail, and establishes a dangerous legal precedent. Remember, as our 'inalienable' rights are systematically stripped away by the architects of the New World Order, more and more of the things you do become 'illegal'...and subject to criminal persecution...er...prosecution. It might not be long before you are being referred to as 'defendant'...what will you think of your Gmail account then?
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Informative)
This is one more reason why my email is a regular old email account and I access it via secure POP/SMTP. If I want to delete email, I can do it myself and make sure that it is gone forever. Maybe I'm paranoid. Better safe than sorry.
I think the real issue
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why I'm my own ISP (so to speak). I run my own server, and do my own backups, which I retain ONLY for disaster recovery purposes. The system is backed-up each nite, with the backup files copied to another system. After 3 days, the backups are expunged with a secure erase program. It's all automated. It never hits tape, and as such, if I delete something, it's gone.
I also religiously encrypt outbound email, and ask my correspondants to encrypt mail they send to me.
Now, don't get me wrong - I don't think this is 100% secure, but it sure beats letting Google/Comcast/AT&T/Earthlink/MSN or whoever determine what gets kept and what doesn't.
I would never change back - come what may, as long as owning a server is legal, that's how I'm getting my email. And if they try to make it illegal, well, Jefferson told us how to deal with that problem.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Informative)
That's very commendable, and worthwhile.
But just so you know...
When the NSA goes datamining, they divide the intercepted traffic into two piles: clear and encrypted. Both piles get processed. Except yours has a red flag next to it.
Better to maintain a normal usage profile and be even sneakier about important correspondance, if you are worried about it. (And you should be.) Its all hassle vs security. If you are going to that much trouble already, why not go all the way and use stego or something that doesn't scream "I am encrypted info" like PGPMail? (for example)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:4, Interesting)
If I were a spook I would not want to figure out every message coursing through the interwebs, I would be more interested in tracking who is talking to whom. That way when I decide to piss all over peoples privacy I could seize and decrypt the accounts of the evil-doers and all their mates at slashdot. - The eternal problem that is easy to spot, is who decides what constitues evil? Are there non-binary levels of "evil", and if so what are they?
OTOH: This kind of social network monitoring and analysis has dismantled extremly vile networks involving child tourtue and sexual abuse of toddlers. Most notably in the mid 90's in Denmark where some very high profile Danes were implicated in an international child abuse network. The result in Denmark was public revultion with thousands of people attending mass protests.
How many people would peacfully tolerate privacy protection for that kind of activity sent over a global public network for profit? Should we refuse to employ bomb sniffing dogs to monitor snail mail because the dog might pick on an innocent package?
From anarchists all the way across the political spectrum to 1984, the spanish inquisition and the crucifiction of Christ, every one of us looks for nirvana in a personal "book of rules", this "nirvana rule book" only exists within the deluded individual's mind. The fact that "nirvana for all" can not be discovered through a single "book of rules" does not slow humanities enthusiaim for writing "rule books" and forcefully applying varying interpretations on to everyone they encounter. I'm not saying human nature is wrong, it just "is".
BTW: "1984" is a brilliantly insightfull book, "Animal Farm" is equally as brilliant and in my mind closer to the "truth" about ourselves.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Informative)
Whoever your provider is just needs to be subpoena'd, and voila... everything you
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:3, Funny)
Sigh (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt I can set up my own MTA...any good howto's out there, or should I *urp* google it?
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've always wondered if that clause was more of a CYA clause meant to get around the fact that plenty of stuff may remain in the GoogleFS for a period of time after it has been "deleted", but without a live index. The results here may very well show if that is true or not.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see why that's a "safe" assumption. The Google search engine churns through terabytes of data that can easily be recreated. That safety net allowed them to test their GoogleFS system before using it on other applications like Mail. GoogleFS was very much built around the concept that the system is its own backup. If any one PC in the cluster fails, they simply yank it and throw in another. No recovery is attempted on the old PC. They simply repair and wipe it if it's feasible, or junk it if it would cost too much time.
Thus in this guy's case, the matter will likely depend on whether Google explicitly maintains an index of deleted email and accounts, or if they simply "delete" things by removing the indexes and waiting until the various GoogleFS rebuilds wipe out the extra data.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Use PGP!
And would you mind telling me how gmail is any different than hotmail or yahoo mail in regards to managent's access to email contents?
what will you think of your Gmail account then?
"I refuse to divulge my PGP private key & passphrase."
You're Not Wrong, BUT... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that there are definite privacy concerns about GMail. What I think you're doing, however, is mistaking Google's full disclosure for some kind of unique and sinister plot.
Google warns that "delete forever" does not mean that the message is necessarily gone. Their offline backup servers may contain copies of your messages in perpetuity. Can you think of why this might be?
Because I can. Like any responsible data company, they don't want you to lose important data... so they back it up. Independently. Into offline storage. And when you click the "delete forever" button, your message is not magically removed from media that is not connected to the system.
Google discloses this all very plainly. I use gmail, and while I guard my privacy, I recognize that electronic communication of any kind flat out has different risks than other kinds of communication. Life is full of risks, but the risks you take with Google are much easier to calculate than the risks you take with other companies.
Specifically, do you think Hotmail has an offline backup system? Yahoo? Juno? If they don't, you may lose some very important data... but I suspect that they do, and if they do, then they have this exact same problem When you delete things from their servers, do their tapes or whatever magically erase the same stuff?
Of course not.
But I don't see them warning anyone about that fact... so pick your poison. Google could probably violate your privacy at some point or another, and they are telling you that up front. Any other service you use could do the very same thing, but I don't see them coming right out and admitting it. Do you?
Re:You're Not Wrong, BUT... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not buying it. Here's a way to test your theory. Delete an email message with a large pdf attachment. Wait a few days and contact Google. Tell them you had a hard drive failure and a message you deleted contained the only copy of your Ph.D. thesis. Beg, plead, cajole. Offer them anything.
I'll bet you a beer you won't get the message back. Google's long-term data retention policies have nothing to do with altruistic measures to protect users from data loss.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this would be better stated if you replace "will hand it over upon request" with "must hand it over when ordered to by a judge". I see a big difference there.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I mean you wouldn't want the following email message to get out into the public
to: MOMfrom: TripMasterMonkey
Subject: Second Post
Mom, I only got second post on the slashdot story about Gmail. Well, at least I got +5 interesting for mentioning 1984. If you need me, I'll be in the basement. A new story is coming out in 5 minutes and I have to do some serious copying and pasting and then mention privacy concerns. See you upstairs later tonight for dinner.
Love, Your son TMM ^_^
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:4, Insightful)
You guys ever hear of a search warrant? A signed one of those can let people in your FUCKING HOUSE, nevermind your email. IT'S SCARY!
Oh, nice use of both "New World Order" and 1984 in one post. I award you double kook points for that.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
What someone in 1789 considered "reasonable" might be very different from what someone today considers "reasonable". Imagine what sort of things a person will consider to be "reasonable" when they grew up expecting that the government would read their personal email and that they shouldn't care because they've got nothing to hide.
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
While any ISP, including your local pop3 box provider would likely comply with this request...
Only google claims to want to "organize all the worlds information", including the information *you* no longer value, like old emails you've deleted. They have value to them for their profiling/advertising efforts.
While any ISP *might* have an incidental backup of your email going back 3 years. Google is the only one that is likely to be systematically going to the trouble of keeping your email, all of it, going back forever.
It only remains a question of how much data Google has actually retained. Though they don't guarantee to delete mail when trashed, in practice they probably do eventually, and the case concerns events two or three years ago.
Exactly. No other ISP is likely to be able to produce much more than an incidental or partial backup that far back; but nobody here will be surprised if Google can bring back everything. (Complete with relevant ads down one side.)
Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... (Score:5, Insightful)
A supposition. What's the point of matching ads to messages you've already deleted; meaning you will never display them again? If they wanted to process them for their "profile" they would already have done that. It seems more likely to me that Google does intend to delete trashed messages, but just doesn't want to promise exactly when they'll get around to it. Maybe a scheduled garbage collection once an hour/week/month. Anyway, this case may reveal just how it works.
Easiest way to deal with this in 2 easy steps (Score:4, Informative)
2. Start using a client and your favourite encryption software
Re:Easiest way to deal with this in 2 easy steps (Score:5, Informative)
Encryption would be the way to go with email if all your correspondents would agree to cooperate. In my case, there are perhaps two people I correspond with regularly via email who might consider making the effort.
Easier way to deal with this in 2 easy steps (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Use the Postal Service
email longevity & PGP (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're concerned about the contents of your emails being divulged - USE (open/gnu/etc...)PGP!
If that is still too insecure for you, meet the recipient in the middle of the park for a strolling conversation; and don't forget the white noise generator.
Please !!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Heck
Talk about burying the opposition in paperwork.
This is Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to tell someone something securely, you need to make up a language only you two know and whisper it in their ear.
What you're doing is only marginally more secure (and enormously more of a pain in the ass) than using GMail. At least when a disk croaks at Google you won't lose your mail. Disk croaks at your house, its gone.
Oh wait, you have backups? Did your e-mails you deleted off your home system magically get deleted off of them, too?
Re:This is Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you use strong encryption, your email server is no more safe than using gmail, and the only person you're kidding is yourself.
The Government Hates Google (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The Government Hates Google (Score:4, Insightful)
U R pwned. (Score:5, Interesting)
Does NO ONE remember Ollie North and the White House PROFS system? 20 years later, and people still think incriminating data will always just go away when you desire.
INFORMATION WANTS TO BE COPIED.
Encrypt everything. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Encrypt everything. (Score:5, Informative)
And finally, if that doesn't work, they'll throw you in jail for contempt of court until such time as you do remember your passphrase.
Don't underestimate the power of the government to discover secrets, they've been in the business for years.
What concerns me more is this enforced compliance with a subpoena for a crime that might have been committed, but for which they have to conduct a search to determine if evidence exists that a crime was committed. This thing stinks to high heaven of unconstitutional and illegal search and seizure. Where are the lawyers screaming habeas corpus?
So if you really hate someone with a gmail account (Score:3, Funny)
With apologies to Douglas Adams (Score:5, Funny)
Google: The gmail documents may remain present in our offline backup system. ... with a torch.
IRS: I eventually had to go down to the cellar...
Google: That's the offline backup system's machine room.
IRS:
Google: Ah, the lights had probably gone.
IRS: So had the stairs.
Google: But you found the tape, didn't you?
IRS: Yes. It was backed up on paper tape stored in the bottom of a locked drawer beneath a PC04/PC05 tape reader with a dot-matrix printed sign on the door saying 'ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS.' Ever thought of going into search technology?
how appropriate! (Score:5, Interesting)
Just more proof that the 'e' in email doesn't stand for 'electronic', it's 'evidence'.
Procedural Note (Score:5, Insightful)
However, based on the article Google has not yet had the opportunity to respond to the subpoena. The third party can always move to squash, and that's where things will get interesting. Will Google be able to convince the court that certain messages are deleted and thus not retrievable. Or, perhaps, that the defendant believed he was deleting the messages and thus deserves to have the messages kept under lock?
These are questions only Google, as the third party, can raise. Now that the judge has issued the subpoena, Google is in a position to actually make those motions. And, if my legal education is worth anything, my money says Google/defendant will appeal if they lose because it's such a new area of the law that an Appeals Court really ought to announce a legal precedence.
Yippee; How is it unusual? (Score:4, Insightful)
So what? They're asking for a bit of a backlog. This is no surprise
What privacy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Look folks.. Privacy simply does not exist. You'll get your search terms read, email copied, if you encrypt you have to give over the keys and if you don't then you get put into prison anyway.
Your phone will be tapped, mobile will be tracked, cars followed with "traffic enforcement cameras". Your DNA will be on file, biometrics saved and your Underground trips logged.
Everywhere you go there are CCTV cameras, face recognition. Your purchases are tracked with credit cards, store loyalty cards and RFID tags. Your bank transactions are flagged if they look interesting and the tax people peer into your account looking for money that suddenly appears.
1984 got here, oh, 22 years ago now...
Re:That's just like... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's life in America (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, maybe this time they're trying to protect you (though it seems it's actually more of a tax dispute). The possibility of abuse is huge and scary.
It might be that reading deleted emails, or wiretapping American citizens, or planting infiltrators in protest groups, will save some lives. You know what? Too bad. We hear all the time how "freedom has costs" and we honor "the greatest generation" and the current military for being willing to risk their lives for freedom. Here's the kicker: If you live in a free society, you must tolerate risks in the name of freedom too.
There's a chance unbridled surveillance will prevent a terrorist attack. There's a much higher chance that unbridled surveillance will destroy the Republic as we know it. I am for preserving the liberties that make the nation worth living in.
Re:That's life in America (Score:4, Insightful)
now for me, If you live in a free society, you must tolerate risks in the name of freedom too. this sounds more reasonable. forget the injustices we "must" suffer to remain safe, and start taking a few more risks to ensure that we remain free. otherwise our government becomes no better than the old soviet government or the governmtner that orwell created in 1984 with big brother watching over us.
Re:Am I the only one who doesn't care? (Score:4, Insightful)
Two hundred and some years ago some guys got all fed up with how they were being treated and so they wrote to the king, "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to throw off the political bonds that have connected them with another..." Well, it turns out that the king wasn't all that gracious about the whole thing and there was a lot of killing and other "lashing out" kinds of behaviors.
Our boys finally prevailed and they realized that any government (even their new government) can fall into this same oppressive mindset, so they put some things in their new constitution that might either prevent oppression altogether, or at least provide a means for citizens to throw off oppression if it occurs.One of those things is privacy. Our boys knew that if King George had been able to station a soldier in every private home, their little revolution would never have gotten off the ground.
We hear a lot of the phrase, "Who cares, I've got nothing to hide." Let's put the shoe on the other foot and ask, "If the government is doing such a good job of protecting us and not oppressing anyone, why should they fear their citizens having a lot of privacy?" In other words, the government's desire to "station a soldier" in eveyone's computer might indicate that they feel they should have something to fear.They would know best, after all.
Re:Am I the only one who doesn't care? (Score:4, Insightful)
The big deal is that no one in this world is free from having committed actions that many others would find objectionable. There are any number of everyday activities that you do everyday that would fall into this catagory. Eat a burger lately, PETA would like to know who you are. You have a DNA gene that predisposes you to a certain disease, your health insurance company sure would like to know that. You look at hardcore (but legal) porn, the police might like to keep tabs on you. You show interest in the plight of people who might be "associated with terrorism", all sorts of agencies would love to gather what they can about you.
These are just a few off the top of my head. Heck, here's a few more: a potential landlord would surely like a look at your bank balance. Your boyfriend/girlfriend might be interested in your visits to medical clinics. Your boss might like to know how much spare time you have on weekends. Your racist neighbour might like to know about your ethnic friends. Your parents might like to track where you go on your own time. And on and on and on...
All of your actions could be legal and ethical, but that doesn't stop people who frown upon (or could benefit from) your legitimate actions from using this information against you in some way. Do you really want people you don't like you, and that you don't like, knowing everything about you?
Privacy is something that may not be required in the distant future, when humanity evolves to the point where we no longer judge one another, and there exists no reason for fear of recrimmonations for holding beliefs and taking actions that are different than anyone else's. Human nature may never allow us to ever reach this level of trust and comfort with our fellow man. So until that happens, I will value privacy until it is no longer required.
Re:Retention of data - just curious (Score:4, Interesting)
The company I worked for had come under subpoena in the past, and a lot of effort was expended to retrieve the data the subpoena requested. With the PBX, once a voicemail is deleted, it was gone. Not so with the VoIP system - voicemails would be found on the phone server, on mail servers, on workstation email client cache, and anywhere that end users decided to save the WAV files - and any backup tapes for the above. If another subpoena occurred, we may have been responsible to discover, transcribe and deliver information about voicemails going back to the beginning of the VoIP system.
That would be horrendously expensive. In order to circumvent this, investment was made in a third party system that would strip voicemail files out of everything. They wouldn't be backed up to tape they would be deleted from any system after some time period (30 days?). That way, we could state such in our data retention policy, and any subpoena including voicemails would only go back 30 days, and not forever.
If you don't have the data, and are destroying it in accordance with a data retention policy, it can't be subpoenaed.
I know this is all somewhat tangential to your question, but I figured you might find it interesting.
You have nothing to fear, Comrade! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going to install a satellite phone/monitor/GPS on your car that will phone the police if you exceed the current speed limit. I don't see how this will harm you unless you're breaking the speed limit.
I'm going to install a keystroke logger on your computer that will record everything you type. I don't see how this will harm you unless you use your computer to transfer money for gangsters.
I'm going to log every packet your computer sends that leaves the USA (Oh, wait, the NSA beat me to it...). I don't see how this will harm you unless you're secretly communicating with al Qaeda.
I'm going to steam every piece of mail that arrives in your mailbox open and photocopy it before it gets to you. I don't see how this will harm you unless you were the bastard who was sending the Anthrax letters.
I'm going to put a rootkit on that CD you bought that will contact me if you try to copy it and then break your computer. I don't see how this will harm you unless you like to rip and share music illegally.
Have I made my point?
Re:If you're not doing anything illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
See if you can understand the implications?
Question one: Does someone that refuses to implicate himself in a government witchhunt prove he is guilty?
Does someone that denies he is involved in the communist party mean he is guilty?
The point is that any american that is worth his salt SHOULD deny telling the government anything for fear that failure to state his position on something will be construed as anything other than defending his constutuional rights. Check www.papersplease.org for more information.
Erik