

DOJ abandons warrantless attempt to read e-mail - metamemetics
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20002722-38.html

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ck2
What I don't understand is cops usually have no problem finding a judge to
sign any kind of warrant, no matter how crazy or wide the scope.

So exactly how wild of a goose-chase are they doing that they can't even find
a judge to give them a warrant that they feel the need to skip the process
entirely?

Also very bothersome, Yahoo gave them a great deal of info already without any
warrant, they just didn't want to give them email that were less than 6 months
old.

The emails they want must have been internal to yahoo's system (yahoo to yahoo
account) because there is no way you could convince me that the government
doesn't have a copy of every email sent via pop3/smtp since 9/11 because they
are completely in plain text.

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wdewind
'The emails they want must have been internal to yahoo's system (yahoo to
yahoo account) because there is no way you could convince me that the
government doesn't have a copy of every email sent via pop3/smtp since 9/11
because they are completely in plain text.'

Maybe I'm just being naive but can someone comment on how accurate this
actually is?

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dublinclontarf
Very, any email that does not stay on the same network (i.e. yahoo to yahoo,
gmail to gmail etc.) is usually transmitted in plaintext and will pass through
any one of a number of routers that the NSA is using to sniff traffic.

Shameless plug- a rant by me on the topic of little to no security when
communicating on the net, even when using encryption.

[http://my.telegraph.co.uk/dublinclontarf/blog/2010/04/13/cry...](http://my.telegraph.co.uk/dublinclontarf/blog/2010/04/13/cryptography_has_failed)

~~~
wdewind
No no I don't mean the feasibility of it I mean the actual accuracy of it: do
we have any reason to think the NSA etc. is SAVING every email sent? Beyond
sniffing etc.

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ck2
They cannot possibly process that much email in realtime and terabytes of
storage is dirt cheap (especially on an endless government spy budget) hence
the storage.

I am betting gmail poses a real problem for them because so many people use
it, but since one of the google founders has ties to the CIA, you can be sure
they have an official backdoor.

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wdewind
'but since one of the google founders has ties to the CIA, you can be sure
they have an official backdoor.'

Source? Never heard that...

So they are realtime STORING all that stuff, but not processing it? DOesn't
this mean it's constantly growing and eventually will become impossible to
process unless they really speed up the processing right?

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Vivtek
That was quick.

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groaner
Sure, but it feels a lot more like the DoJ is backpedaling to avoid the PR
fallout (or worse, from their perspective, legislative reform) if they keep
charging ahead with this. It's only a temporary victory.

------
ewams
You believe this?

~~~
Semiapies
Well, they abandon an _above-board_ attempt to do this, certainly. As to
whether they're doing it anyway, we can't tell.

------
davidmurphy
YAHOO!!!! (HOORAY!)

