security of gmail

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 01:20:56AM +0300, Zbigniew Koziol wrote:
> Now, I would have a good question for this list.
>
> As you know or not, I am now in Russia. I use normally my gmail.com  
> account to send and receive emails.
>
> I know almost for sure that I am followed by Russian Secret Intelligence  
> (heh, I am indeed somewhat oversensitive to these issues, but I have  
> also good confirmation that that kind of activity if going on around).  
> That by CIS is likely too. Not that I care much about that, but anyway  
> one would like sometime to be more certain about privacy. In fact -  
> never ever trust a government agency, and I believe that I am right in 
> that.
>
> So, I just wonder, to what extent gmail.com can protect me from unwanted  
> survillance by Russians when I actually send and receive emails from  
> Russia? I use gmail secure pop and smtp, but how are they really secure?  
> Anyone is able to comment on that?
>
> That gmail.com can be viewed with high likeness by CIS I assume as granted.

Well if you use the web interface in https mode (it might always be on
now, it used to be a preference), then it should not be possible for
anyone other than gmail to read your messages.  Well of course once you
send a message, it uses smtp to go to the destination across the internet
from gmail, so anyone along that path can read it.

ssl secured pop or imap or smtp to gmail ought to have the same level
of encryption.

Of course if google receives a court order to give out a copy of your
emails, they will.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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