Wednesday, 5 October 2016

Week 1 [03.10-09.10.2016] Yahoo 'secretly scanned emails for US authorities'

Read the article  Yahoo 'secretly scanned emails for US authorities' at


http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37551415 and present your opinion on it/discuss it. 

13 comments:

  1. It's interesting news. I think, that not only yahoo scanned mail's whitch are on our e-mail boxes. I think that Google or Facebook also scans messages but newer doesn't admit do this.

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  2. I think scanning private letters, messages or phonecalls has a long history. There are only technological changes.

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  4. Usually the first thing to say in such circumstances is – I care about my privacy and I don’t want anybody to read my private correspondence. But at the same time I’m pretty sure that majority of people claiming this has never read the terms of using services like public mailboxes. And in many cases there are points referring to how our personal data might be processed & used. So – you can blame only yourself for not being cautious enough.

    Obviously we might also face situation where internal security agencies / intelligence agencies will want to get our data. And due to their functioning characteristics companies being in possession of our personal data cannot get to know specific reason of such request and assess its reasonability. But somehow I’m under impression that terrorists planning next WTC attack have better tools to communicate than Google Mail of Facebook Chat…

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  5. Unfortunately, nowadays the internet is no longer a private place. I think that not only Yahoo scans private messages. I think Facebook, Instagram and Google-Gmail also scan and archive our conversations. Unfortunately, nothing is lost on the Internet, for example. You can not delete your Facebook account ... We are being followed in today's world at own desire - smartphones show our current location. If we want a really privacy, we should completely get rid of the smartphones and send letters via a standard post office.

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  6. It's sad, but we have nothing to do.
    This practice is well known for many years. Before Yahoo, the same things was said about Google and Facebook (where we share also photos, private messages and sms, phonecalls etc. (for example via smartphones with Android OS). Of course in article they said, that they were not asked for sharing this informations for government, but they also didn't said nothing about using it for themself :)

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  7. Frankly speaking, I perceive such news only as an interesting issue for PR departments of global companies. Reading comments above I believe most of us here were not surprised that it happen. In my opinion most global corporations cooperate somehow with USA government. Moreover, even if no intelligence agency requests them for scanning internet traffic, it doesn’t mean that they don’t do it for their purposes. Some of such actions are stated in their terms of service which every user accepts while registering. As Krzysztof mentioned, almost nobody reads the terms.

    Anyway, I don’t have a clear opinion on this matter. I am not a terrorist and I believe there is no reason for government to track me down and put me in jail. I accept that I lose part of my privacy to gain more protection from the authorities. On the other hand, there is a fine line between collecting information to secure citizens and using information to manipulate them. For instance China or Russia may scan emails to chase people that are in opposition to the government.

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  8. It's of little importance to me, as the people who are opposed are usually the people who have something to hide. In the face of current terrorist threat you have to be considerate and understand the government agencies handling the difficult task of keeping us safe.

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  9. The Internet had opened us to the world. Without leaving home We can make money, meet new people, make dreams come true, shop or expand knowledge on any topic. Unfortunately, it has its drawbacks. We lost our anonymity. Emails, account at social networks are a mine of knowledge about us. Portals such as Yahoo, Gmail or Facebook can use it to trade our data. This is unacceptable, but unfortunately we can do nothing about it.

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  10. This article was not a surprise for me. For example most of us probably have heard about Mr. Snowden. He is an author of the one of the biggest scandals in the USA. He revealed secret information to the public that Facebook, Google and Yahoo were among the top companies coaopareting with the NSA. Beacuse of that a lot of simple people data leaked i.e. from yahoo website have been stolen data of 500 million users. After that this data could find place on a black market and be sold to the advertising companies. The Internet cannot be longer known as private, we need to be carefull what information we present about ourselves on the network.

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  11. I agree that subject is nothing new and only the ways are different.
    As Ewa I agree the government have a though nut to crack with it to keep safety. I really believe government or big companies are looking to ours privacy only for keeping safety or making money ;)

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  12. I think thats just the case of getting caught, I am 100% sure every provider does that, at least in US. Some companies are forced to share their data with gov, and even if they dont, NSA and CIA have full acceess to them. Its very hard to protect your privacy in an online world.

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  13. Dear friends,
    I think that our every steps on the Internet are saved in some database, but not all data logs are monitored by special institutions (in example: government). This is impossible, because this data are many. Dedicated computers looking for anomalies in data and system sends alerts to institutions (in example: police, FBA etc.). If we not use internet illegaly we do not have to expect the police in home. No worries. We live in free country. Yet.

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