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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. 

Comments

Unknown said…
The true is that nowadays when internet is everywhere our privacy can't be safe. We should rather think 'When my private information leaks to the internet?' instead of ensuring ourselves that it's safe. Maybe companies like Facebook or Google are not involved in this issue but common is that they can share private data when government asks about it. For example:
1) In the first half of 2015 Google was asked 629 times by Polish prosecutors Office to share information about 839 accounts. They agreed in 25% of cases,
2) In the first half of 2015 Facebook was asked 492 times by Polish prosecutors Office to share information about 444 accounts. They agreed in 34,35% of cases.

In my opinion every company is involved in this deal, some of them (like Yahoo) in direct way, others (like Facebook or Google) is indirect way. That's the only difference.
It's nothing new that companies typically are forced under some conditions to share private data - that is especially true in US, where people are being spied on basically every day, with even extreme measures applies to specific "threats". Moreover, it's actually very hard nowadays to ensure our privacy, because there is gigantic amount of hardware and software that even REQUIRES features that are openly and directly leaking our private data without us doing anything. Google is probably the biggest player today, as nearly all Android devices are connected to various services - market, location, account, constant sync of data and more.

In US the situation is much worse than in EU, because it's much easier to force given company to share private data. This already happened several times, with one company being forced to share their hardware backdoor in order to decrypt particular HDD disk. I can't remember anymore which company it was, as I didn't pay that much attention back then.

Truth is, staying anonymous on the internet today is close to impossible, and requires massive IT knowledge that is super rare to achieve.
Unknown said…
In my opinion it's nothing new that Internet companies spy users. They have information about all users and they can use it to everything without permission. Not everybody knows that companies can use their data. In my opinion it's not fair to people who use the internet.
Unknown said…
In my opinion it's nothing new that Internet companies spy users. They have information about all users and they can use it to everything without permission. Not everybody knows that companies can use their data. In my opinion it's not fair to people who use the internet.
Unknown said…
It only shows that we value our privacy way lower than having early news and social media. It's a fair trade, since with cameras in every building and smartphones tracking our locations privacy is gone either way. And since the only way to fight it is being able to give up on the Internet, there is really nothing we can do.

At least most companies aren't hiding anymore. For instance, Google ads basically say "we scanned your mailbox and tracked your browser history, and realised that you really like bagpipes for some reason. So there you go, here's a link to an online bagpipes store. Thank us later".
Well I am not shocked, everyone know about it and Edward Snowman mention about this. Big companies are like Hans Klosse stories - everyone know he was a spy but nobody have proof. In last month owner of torrent site has been captured in the poland because he use Apple iTunes to buy music (how ironic…) and Apple sell him to U.S government. Messenger processes all our private message. But still everyone thinks : „Its fine. I am not criminal”. of course you’re not, at least for the moment because you not talking about truth about black, islam, asian, gay or other politically incorrect topics. I really like the quote to poem written by Martin Niemoller:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist. (…)
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.
Nothing new on this front. American intelligence organizations are known for their attempts to control Internet traffic in their country and as the case of Snowden has shown people don't really care about it.
Unknown said…
Everyone knows that spying is a fact - not a guess.
Regarding the abortion in Poland, we can shout and protest. Spying case is a huge machine working all over the world.
We can protect our privacy disagreeing with it. It's easy. Let's don't use Facebook, Google or even Internet.
Maciej Główka said…
After Edward Snowden leak i am not shocked, that NSA, FBI and other security agencies in other countries are spying our emails and internet activity. Can people in USA do something about it? Coming back to Snowden leak we see, that there were many protests, articles about american citizen privacy, but as we see now nothing really changed.
All internet users should know, that what we put in internet stays there forever. Therefore we should think twice before we post something.
Unknown said…
I belive I can understand Yahoo, that they agreed, because they thought they would lose. I'm also happy that some of the Yahoo workers care about this and that they present their thoughts and feeling about companys decision.
I really like the response of other sites/portals, becuase as a person who is using it I'm glad that they want to defend my privacy.
But I belive that making such decision isn't easy, so I'm not judging Yahoo and I'm not sure if I belive that other comapnies will fight for it as they declare.
You have to be really naive if things like that surprise you in this day and age. You have to always be aware that anything you send into the internet will stay there. Too bad we don't really do anything in situations like this.
Secret scanning of Internet Content always was and will continue to be a part of the world of Internet. Everyone should be aware of the fact that there is no such thing as privacy in the Internet. Funny thing is that all the companies mentioned in the article claim that they've never conducted such surveillance action. This is obviously a lie and the truth is that they scan each other on daily basis. Happy scanning Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, and ... Apple ;)
Andrzej Gulak said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Piotr Basiński said…
In my point of view there is no privacy on the Internet right now. It is very sad that big companies have ability to store and use information from emails. Maybe it will change to better in the future. As Michał said, it is very sad that nobody does anything when you go out information like this in article.
Unknown said…
This example shows how the security of our personal data is compromised everywhere on the internet. Yahoo has a very hard time today. From the news we hear "cyber attack on Yahoo", "poor financial results of the company", "Verizon wants a $1 billion discount on the Yahoo deal" and finally "email spying". It's not a secret that company is very weak now. Obeying the decision of the government is understandable. But, to my mind, for companies which are working with the personal data, security should be the number one priority. Can I understand the company? Yes, maybe. Will I trust Yahoo? No, never.

P.S.: It's interesting to see how other companies (Facebook, Google, Twitter) are trying to PR in this circumstances.
Unknown said…
It's sad but true that when you using a mobile phone already you stop being anonymous. All the time we give our data some large corporation for example our localization. Even if we stop using social media like facebook, now it's impossible not distribute data about yourself. In my opinion scaning e-mails by American government doesn't have much in common with security. We could see that USA isn't such a free country as everyone thinks.
Unknown said…
Well, even if its suprising it does not matter right? Who uses Yahoo, anyway?
But seriously, its not new, and we should be careful what information we put about ourselves on the web. Time shows that USA smoothly went from "policeman of the world" to paranoic maniacs ready to spy on their own people, while singing "America the land of free"...
Unknown said…
It seems like perfect summary for what is going on. How long will it take before NSA will start using info that they have against ordinary people? I definitely do not want to live in world a'la Orwells "1984".
It is nothing new that we are spied on a daily basis. What frightens me is that even though people know about this fact, they simply ignore it. They believe that this problem does not apply to them, that no one is interested in their private conversations. In fact, there is always someone intrested in buying informations extracted from this kind of data. Even worse it is that a lot of people, unfortunately, including some of my friends, send very sensitive data (e.g. passwords, PESELs, ID numbers, scans of the ID card) via facebook messenger or other IM. When I put any of my files in the cloud, send them via email etc., I always treat them as a potentially available to the public. This way I can easily decide if I really want to do this with that particular piece of data.
Unknown said…
Honestly I don't see much problem here nor am I surprised. If I really want something to stay private I either use advanced encryprtion methods and use private channels of communication. The other thing is that it's impossible to process the huge amount of data they gather. Your data still has a very large probability of being just 'skipped'.
To be honest I'm not surprised by the title of this article. I suspect that such actions are done on almost daily basis. Some time ago I heard that when FBI wants to get a hold of some emails they just present the order in which it is stated that the company giving away information can not tell publicly that is doing so. Maybe that's why two out of three sources were ex-Yahoo employees.
Wojtek Kania said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wojtek Kania said…
The more we are in Internet, the less we can feel safe. But it’s nothing new that companies are spying us. Social neworks were created to keeping information about us. In this way it’s easy to manipulate That’s why we must be careful on the Internet.
Michał Pycek said…
Ever since we started using online technologies, e-mails, social media, online accounts, payments and so on, we are no more anonymous and there is always somebody having the access to our data. I am not really surprised by this aspect, since it is likely that most of the companies we interact with, not only have access and gather the data, but also use the information about us in the way they find helpful and useful for their business.
The clue could be not to give such personal pieces of information, but unfortunately it would not be so easy, since we store lots of information online. The only thing we could do, would be watching out what kind of things we release in our emails and social media, so we do not show more than necessary.
Unknown said…
In my opinion the idea of scanning through e-mail accounts in order to prevent terrorist attacks is not that outrageous. However I don't think that it is always used in that kind of way. It might be used for example to compromise a politican or some other public figures or can even enable insider trading.
Moode said…
This news doesn't surprise me at all, because it's obvious that all our emails, SMS, even your locations are tracked and scanned.
And you can't do nothing about it))
There no privacy at all nowadays.
Adam Nowak said…
Orwell thought that our privacy will be taken with brutal force, i'm sure that he wouldn't even believe everyone nowadays will have a spy device in their pockets and be glad about it...
Unknown said…
Unfortunately, this is nothing new. Today nobody is anonymous on the internet. Every time we login to any application, we agree for our personal information to be stored and exchanged, our Facebook pictures are not our property, everything we write online can be checked one day - all you need is the "terrorist threat" argument. I don't think we can escape this, but it's wise to be aware of what's going on.

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