I love the internet. I love the online and offline communities that I’ve become involved with since I first went online.
However some people’s use of the internet makes me very sad.
I first went online in 1994 when I was in first year in UL. Back then the internet was a very different place.
To start with it was a hell of a lot “smaller”.
It was also a lot safer.
Spam wasn’t an issue.
Phishing wasn’t an issue.
Cybercrime wasn’t an issue.
Of course all of those “wonderful advances” came along and grew as the internet grew.
It is in everyone’s interest to stop spam, phishing and other forms of internet abuse. If we all had to spend our days wading through thousands of spams etc., nothing would ever get done and it would be really hard to introduce people to the internet.
Unfortunately one of the biggest internet companies in the world is actually helping criminals.
Google’s Gmail may have a nice frontend, but it allows criminals to hide their identities.
If you post a comment on this site or on a forum the administrator can see your public IP. Public IPs are unique. They maybe shared by many users eg. when you have a number of people sharing the same internet connection, but you can still learn a lot about who was connected to a site from their IP address. In some cases it’s very easy for someone to see which company that person works for, or which educational institution’s connection they are using, while in other cases you might have to get a court order to gain access to their ISP’s records. However, no matter which method you use it is always possible to trace the IP back to a person. It might take work, but it is possible. You will probably have to contact your local law enforcement agency to get assistance, but you can still do it.
GMail facilitates this.
Whereas Hotmail and Yahoo! are responsible ‘net citizens and include the sender’s “real” IP in the email headers, Gmail does not. In layman’s terms Gmail helps to anonymise your email.
Want to delve in a little extortion? Use Gmail
Want to send threats? Use Gmail
Want to spam? Gmail makes it easy!
Sure, they might argue that they take abuse seriously etc., etc., but any mention of Google’s abuse team in antispam circles is of how unresponsive they are.
If you use Google Apps for your domain you are sending mail anonymously.
Privacy advocates might find this attractive, but what of the downside?
If you receive a threatening email from someone hiding behind gmail what are your options?
If someone tries to extort you using a gmail address where can you go?
In case you think I’m some kind of nut job that makes this kind of stuff up:
Gmail, End User Privacy, and Harassment
Gmail is too creepy
Google is a hard thing to avoid in this Internet day and age and I too am suspicious of them in many cases, but they offer so many useful services it’s difficult to move away from them. I use them for ads, gtalk and the super useful browser sync.
Short of blocking gmail posters on blogs there is very little that can be done to stop this. Google won’t change that easily, Blogger is quite a large part of the blogging world and they offer so many pro’s to the average user they don’t care about the con’s.
Tom
Hi michele. it quite hard for me to accept the fact about google which you have told about gmail. well i do use gmail for chatting with friends.
but you have clearly mentioned how Google is helping Criminals through Gmail, this is really making me shock.
I wonder how long it will be before they start putting adverts in Google Talk!
Good point, Firesafety member.
Let us hope that you are not made to shock of a sufficient watt-voltage to short out your vast supply of smoke detectors and burn your row of tents to the pile of cinderings.