If you're hiding something from Microsoft, you'd better not put it on Hotmail.
It came out yesterday that the company had read through a user's inbox as part of an internal leak investigation. Microsoft has spent today in damage-control mode, changing its internal policies and rushing to point out that they could have gotten a warrant if they’d needed one. By all indications, the fallout is just beginning.
But while Microsoft is certainly having a bad week, the problem is much bigger than any single company. For the vast majority of people, our email system is based on third-party access, whether it's Microsoft, Google, Apple or whoever else you decide to trust. Our data is held on their servers, routed by their protocols, and they hold the keys to any encryption that protects it. The deal works because they're providing important services, paying our server bills, and for the most part, we trust them. But this week's Microsoft news has chipped away at that trust, and for many, it's made us realize just how frightening the system is without it.
We've known for a while that email providers could look into your inbox, but the assumption was that they wouldn't. Even a giant like Microsoft is likely to sustain lasting damage, simply because there are so many options for free web-based email. Why stick with Microsoft if you trust Apple or Google more? But while companies have created a real marketplace for privacy and trust, you'll find the same structural problems at every major service. Ad-supported email means companies have to scan your inbox for data, so they need access to every corner of your inbox. (That's been the basis of Microsoft's Google-bashing "Scroogled" campaign.) Free email also means someone else is hosting it; they own the servers, and there's no legal or technical safeguard to keep them from looking at what's inside. Full story...
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It came out yesterday that the company had read through a user's inbox as part of an internal leak investigation. Microsoft has spent today in damage-control mode, changing its internal policies and rushing to point out that they could have gotten a warrant if they’d needed one. By all indications, the fallout is just beginning.
But while Microsoft is certainly having a bad week, the problem is much bigger than any single company. For the vast majority of people, our email system is based on third-party access, whether it's Microsoft, Google, Apple or whoever else you decide to trust. Our data is held on their servers, routed by their protocols, and they hold the keys to any encryption that protects it. The deal works because they're providing important services, paying our server bills, and for the most part, we trust them. But this week's Microsoft news has chipped away at that trust, and for many, it's made us realize just how frightening the system is without it.
We've known for a while that email providers could look into your inbox, but the assumption was that they wouldn't. Even a giant like Microsoft is likely to sustain lasting damage, simply because there are so many options for free web-based email. Why stick with Microsoft if you trust Apple or Google more? But while companies have created a real marketplace for privacy and trust, you'll find the same structural problems at every major service. Ad-supported email means companies have to scan your inbox for data, so they need access to every corner of your inbox. (That's been the basis of Microsoft's Google-bashing "Scroogled" campaign.) Free email also means someone else is hosting it; they own the servers, and there's no legal or technical safeguard to keep them from looking at what's inside. Full story...
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- How America's top tech companies created the surveillance state...
- Skype's secret Project Chess reportedly helped NSA access customers' data...
- NSA paid Google,Microsoft,Facebook,Yahoo to spy on you...
- Establishment hero Bill Gates sold you out to the NSA, but that's not all...
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