{"id":1881,"date":"2012-02-17T15:48:59","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T15:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/it\/?p=1881"},"modified":"2012-03-26T18:22:04","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T18:22:04","slug":"holy-toledo-would-you-copy-all-your-emails-to-a-random-stranger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/it\/holy-toledo-would-you-copy-all-your-emails-to-a-random-stranger\/","title":{"rendered":"Holy Toledo: Would You Give all your Personal Emails to Your Boss?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Man<\/a>

Your Most Private Emails were just Posted . . .<\/p><\/div>You’d never give your Password to someone you don’t know, right?<\/p>\n

But would you give a copy of all your emails to a random Stranger? How about a secret person who doesn’t like you – that jealous co-worker, your angry neighbor?<\/p>\n

You may already have done this if you use Gmail, Twitter or Facebook – and have tried out Apps for backup services, email utilities, inbox organizers, or productivity apps. <\/p>\n

That includes apps like TripIt, Greplin, Rapportive, Xobni, OtherInbox, Unsubscribe, Backupify, Blippy, Threadsy, How’s My Email, Email Game, Boomerang, Kwaga, Mozilla F1, and Cloudmagic.<\/p>\n

I was alerted to this with an excellent article “The Perpetual, Invisible Window Into Your Gmail Inbox”<\/a> by Andy Baio about a new technical feature called “0Auth<\/a>.” Andy warns about a potential for a “privacy meltdown.” (nice phrase)<\/p>\n

He points out that this is not as big a problem for Twitter users because most Twitter posts are public. Facebook is a bigger problem (but then, by now you’re used to Facebook exposing your private photos and notes – kind of on a regular basis<\/a>).<\/p>\n

However, now imagine giving access to ALL your Gmail emails to your ex, your boss and oh yeah – that guy\/gal who slanders you behind your back.<\/p>\n

They can get every email sent by and to you if your allow Apps access to your Gmail “to help you.”<\/p>\n

Privacy Meltdown<\/u><\/p>\n

Andy raises the giant serious and valid concern that thousands or millions of people’s authentication tokens could be leaked (or lost to a hacker) by a service that simply isn’t careful. <\/p>\n

And then each of your most private emails will be exposed for all time.<\/p>\n

Bottom line – Don’t give any App access to your Gmails.<\/p>\n

Remedy: If you’ve already given access to your Gmails, Facebook or Twitter – change your password right now. <\/p>\n

Here’s where you can get genuinely strong passwords – for free as a public service (Gibson Research):
\nhttps:\/\/www.grc.com\/passwords.htm
\n<\/a>. If you are worried that the generators have your password too, you can modify the password they give you. Since they are so long, you can arbitrarily delete or edit a single letter – and you will be 99.9999999 percent safer than everyone else.
\nstrong<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You’d never give your Password to someone you don’t know, right? But would you give a copy of all your emails to a random Stranger? How about a secret person who doesn’t like you – that jealous co-worker, your angry … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[66,65,64],"class_list":["post-1881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-privacy","tag-email-game","tag-mozilla-f1","tag-privacy-meltdown"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1881"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2013,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881\/revisions\/2013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}