Chris Knadle wrote:
> On 9/15/2011 8:32 AM, Joseph Apuzzo wrote:
>> A friend of mind turned me on to https://www.google.com aka to have an
>> encrypted conversation with Google.
>> I've been using it, since I like as much crypt-o traffic on the net as
>> possible.
>>
>> But why? Anyone have any intelligent toughs on the subject, I would like
>> to hear your take on the service and what it's good for.
> 
> 1.  Your search results are valuable.  People can be recognized for who
> they are based on what they search for.  (There have been articles on
> that.)
> 
> 2.  More important than your search results are your logins to Google
> such as for GMail and other services.  You would probably not appreciate
> finding out later that someone was secretly getting CC:ed on every email
> you send and receive, and used this information in order to change the
> ownership on your domain name(s) via email while you were away on vacation.
> 
> 3.  A natural extension of the combination above is "if it's going over
> the 'net, it should be encrypted if possible."  So if there's an
> encrypted version of the same service available, use it.
> 
> 4.  Have a quick look at DuckDuckGo as an alternative to Google.
>     https://duckduckgo.com/
> 
>     And read about what Google does that they don't tell you.
> 

My original request for SSL on a mail server was from a user who, after
I explained how one shouldn't rely on SSL to keep messages encrypted via
e-mail, explained to me that he and I had completely different
perspectives.  I was looking at it from an Internet perspective, he was
looking at it from the "nosy neighbor" perspective, which is a perfectly
valid concern that last-hop SSL does indeed address.

Google has, more than Apple or Microsoft, a vested interest in the
Internet both being more secure and appearing to be more secure than it
is well-known to be.  So I think there's that also.  If "The
Cloud"/Web2.0/etc. collapses as it has every other time its been tried,
Microsoft and Apple have something to fall back on, Google not so much.

- Ron
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