Trilight Zone

[digital8]

An individual with nothing to hide may well be an individual with nothing to offer."
The internet provides one of the easiest communications tools ever afforded mankind. It is quick, convenient, cheap....and as insecure as it is quick, convenient, and cheap.
But you ask, "Why should I worry about privacy and security? I'm not a criminal or a terrorist; I've got nothing to hide." If you really think that helps, you probably shouldn't be here after all.
Show me an e-mail user who has no financial, sexual, social, political, or professional secrets to keep from his family, his neighbors, or his colleagues, and I'll show you someone who is either an extraordinary exhibitionist or an incredible dullard. Show me a corporation that has no trade secrets or confidential records, and I'll show you a business that is not very successful.

A variety of different elements weaken your email privacy and while some are widely known - such as email viruses - others tend to be ignored. Emails carrying confidential information can not only create immense inconvenience and expense for a person but remain on an ISP's server or in a backup, and be easily retrieved by anyone who knows how to do so. The same goes for spammers who use the email systems to send thousands of unsolicited email messages. And what about the vast damage and time-loss caused by email viruses, which seem are making ever more frequent appearances these days?

Email-related threats to your security
The threat of information leaks
Most electronic mail is notoriously UNPRIVATE. E-mail is less secure, and in many ways more dangerous, than sending your personal or business messages on a postcard. Internet e-mail is child's play for some people to intercept. Your typical e-mail message travels through many computers. At each computer, people can access your personal and business correspondence. It's a safe bet that administrators (not to mention hackers) on Bulletin Board Systems, college campus systems, commercial information services, and Internet hook-up providers can read your e-mail. Of course most snoops will deny they're reading your e-mail because they want to continue doing.
Many Internet providers and network administrators "archive" (store) your incoming and outgoing mail on a computer disk for six months or more AFTER you think that you've deleted your mail. If someone sues you (for example, in a divorce), he or she may be able to subpoena and READ your previous correspondence (Whether you consider his actions right or wrong, Oliver North provides a good example of how old messages may come back to haunt you. His erased messages were recovered some six months later and used against him in legal proceedings.) Of course, unauthorized snoops might choose to read your archive for their own reasons. This may be just an administrator of your ISP or your office intranet, with no malice intended. Or it might be a competitor, legal foe, or government agency, with much more serious intentions. Information is power. Snoops want power.