E-mail Privacy
An Illusion At Work And At Home

Contributed by Sheri Graves

Most legal scholars agree that the so-called “Right to Privacy” is little more than an illusion. That was true before 9-11 and certainly is true now, during the age of the Patriot Act.

It is particularly true when it comes to e-mail. Any information sent into cyberspace can be intercepted at various points along its route to its final destination. In fact, interception of the information is part of the system.

Here’s how most email works:

• You call up a blank e-mail form from your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and write a message.
• You click Send, and your e-mail enters your ISP’s Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).
• Your e-mail message is formatted by a Mail Transfer Agent (MTA), which breaks the message down into a collection of small “packets” that get forwarded from one computer to another until reconstituted as a whole at the final destination.
• Each computer along the transfer route stores the packets in memory and determines where to send them.
• At any number of points along the way, the packets may be reassembled to form your original message, which is copied and repackaged for the next leg of the journey.
• Once your e-mail arrives at your recipient’s ISP, it connects to that ISP’s Post Office Protocol (POP3) where the message is routed to the recipient’s electronic mailbox.

Usually, all of these things happen in a matter of seconds. But, any number of things can cause an e-mail to be held in storage for later delivery. There is no point along this electronic road where your e-mail message is encrypted for privacy.

There are at least five discrete stages at which an e-mail message can be intercepted and its contents divulged to an unintended receiver:

• At the terminal or in the electronic files of the sender;
• While being communicated;
• In the electronic mailbox of the recipient;
• When printed into hard copy; and
• When retained in the files of the electronic mail companies used for the transmission or receipt.

American law addresses privacy issues in connection with e-mail at two junctures–“in transit” and “in storage.” However, even legal scholars and appellate court judges are in disagreement as to what existing law actually means.

In general, law offers little or no protection against potential intrusions into what many people believe is their private communication. Nor can any individual country’s laws impact the way e-mail is handled on the international level. Cyberspace, after all, exists on a plane beyond the concept of sovereign nations.

Nevertheless, the United States and other nations continually wrestle with the conflict between rapid technological advancements and the grindingly slow pace of enacting or enforcing new law to cover the circumstances created by new technology.

In the workplace, it is accepted law that an employer’s e-mail system does not grant privacy to employees who use it. In other words, don’t write an e-mail on company computers if you don’t want your boss to read it.

You’re not any safer when writing e-mail on your home computer, particularly if you use a free e-mail system. Keep in mind that nothing is free. You pay for the service by leaving yourself wide open for electronic invasion by the ISP that has granted you a free e-mail address.

It isn’t just spammers who capture traveling e-mails to log either the information or the e-mail address for future use. The FBI uses an email harvesting program called Carnivore to scan cyberspace in search of key words and phrases that may indicate drug trafficking, terrorist activity or other criminal behavior.

Before choosing a program that encrypts e-mail for privacy, it’s a good idea to check out the software training course or software tutorial available to help you understand how the program works and how to use it successfully. Some are more complicated than others.

It’s also a good idea to keep in mind that what can be encrypted for privacy today may be subject to electronic invasion tomorrow. We live in a networked world where stunning technological advances occur daily and nothing really disappears by simply using the delete key. No matter what precautions you take, be aware that e-mail is perhaps the most insecure form of communication since the advent of human speech.

About the Author:
Sheri Graves is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Rosa, California.

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