"As for Petraeus, he may have been careful but in spite of his counter-terrorism knowledge and clever tricks in going under the radar, ultimately there was a weak link in the security chain -- and no matter how far you go to try and cover your tracks, often it always falls down to two things: human error, or sex."
That was the conclusion of Zack Whittaker's article...
Yes, the FBI and CIA can read your email. Here's how
http://www.zdnet.com/yes-the-fbi-and-cia-can-read-your-email-heres-how-7000007319/
Highlights of the less techy parts:
What caught Petraeus out was, of all things, his usage of Google's online email service, Gmail.
The 'save as draft' trick
Petraeus set up a private account under a pseudonym and composed email messages but never sent them. Instead, they were saved in draft. His lover, Paula Broadwell, would log in under the same account, read the email and reply, all without sending anything. The traffic would not be sent across the networks through Google's data centers, making it nigh on impossible for the National Security Agency or any other electronic signals eavesdropping agency (such as Britain's elusive GCHQ) to 'read' the traffic while it is in transit.
Saving an email as a draft almost entirely eliminates network traffic, making it nigh on impossible for intelligence agencies to 'traffic sniff.'
But surely IP addresses are logged and noted? When emails are sent and received, yes. But the emails were saved in draft and therefore were not sent. However, Google may still have a record of the IP addresses of those who logged into the account.
There's no such thing as a truly 'anonymous' email account, and no matter how much you try to encrypt the contents of the email you are sending, little fragments of data are attached by email servers and messaging companies. It's how email works and it's entirely unavoidable.
The system is remarkably similar to the postal system. You can seal the envelope and hide what's inside, but it contains a postmark of where it came from and where it's going. It may even have your fingerprints on it. All of this information outside the contents is "metadata."...
Link
That was the conclusion of Zack Whittaker's article...
Yes, the FBI and CIA can read your email. Here's how
http://www.zdnet.com/yes-the-fbi-and-cia-can-read-your-email-heres-how-7000007319/
Highlights of the less techy parts:
What caught Petraeus out was, of all things, his usage of Google's online email service, Gmail.
The 'save as draft' trick
Petraeus set up a private account under a pseudonym and composed email messages but never sent them. Instead, they were saved in draft. His lover, Paula Broadwell, would log in under the same account, read the email and reply, all without sending anything. The traffic would not be sent across the networks through Google's data centers, making it nigh on impossible for the National Security Agency or any other electronic signals eavesdropping agency (such as Britain's elusive GCHQ) to 'read' the traffic while it is in transit.
Saving an email as a draft almost entirely eliminates network traffic, making it nigh on impossible for intelligence agencies to 'traffic sniff.'
But surely IP addresses are logged and noted? When emails are sent and received, yes. But the emails were saved in draft and therefore were not sent. However, Google may still have a record of the IP addresses of those who logged into the account.
There's no such thing as a truly 'anonymous' email account, and no matter how much you try to encrypt the contents of the email you are sending, little fragments of data are attached by email servers and messaging companies. It's how email works and it's entirely unavoidable.
The system is remarkably similar to the postal system. You can seal the envelope and hide what's inside, but it contains a postmark of where it came from and where it's going. It may even have your fingerprints on it. All of this information outside the contents is "metadata."...
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