Can MI5 read all our e-mails?

[carvell]

This was a question put to computer detective, Nein Barrett in this months FHM. He's one of the people that the police give computers to to look for evidence of paedophile stuff, things like that.

It's an interesting interview all about how computers delete files, about how even if each byte of a file has been over written 100 times - he can still get the original information back.

FHM asked "Can MI5 read all our e-mails"?, he replies,

"Yes, and here's a little test for you. Turn on your computer at work and send two messages to yourself at home. On the first one, put the subject heading as 'Blair/Bush assassination attempt" and on the second one put 'Dinner at seven'. Send the Bush/Blair e-mail first, count to ten then send the second one. When you get home, you'll see that they've arrived the other way round"

One would assume that this is because GCHQ or whoever trap the bush/blair one and have a computer automatically check it over, thereby holding up the mail. I wouldn't be surprised if a copy is taken, too.

Give it a go, see if it works.

He advises people to use a 'hushmail' account for e-mail - it's encrypted so it's the most secure e-mail service. With internet explorer, limit your browser history to one day, delete cookies frequently and install something called a PGP disk, which creates an encrypted pretend disk on your computer.

None of the above will stop anyone who isn't just a passing kiddy 'hacker', so the most important advice he gives is don't ever do anything on your computer that you wouldn't put on a postcard.
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Yamaha TDM 850

[Kickstart]

Hi

Fairly certain they can read emails. I would also be dubious that they could read a hard disk with any reliability after it has been overwritten a few time (of course they could get at fragments that had not been overwritten due to the way that operating systems allocate storage).

I don't think that the order emails arrive will be greatly affected by whether they are intercepted. From my understanding a single copy of the email is not sent out to a single target, as that would be hideously unreliable.

All the best

Keith
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[dainesefreak]

Shit, when I was talking about England annihilating Ireland at the weekend it was only the rugby honest!

[Crazy Manx Man]

I'm going to give that a go!

[Crazy Manx Man]

No delay or shit there. We'll see if I get arrested within the coming months, I'll update this thread.

[Kickstart]

[Hex]

To my limited knowledge, sending an email means that one email message can reside on a few different servers before it reaches its destination.

These servers are regularly backed up and its possible that your simple email was part of that back up, and as such end up stored for years!

As for data recovery/data forensics - its a lovely world that we as a company have dealings in. The been able to read data that has been over written a few times comes from the tolerances of the head on the disk position (I believe) though its highly possible there are other methods too.

Personally I really don't care, if people want to see whats on my drive they can.
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The BCF's very own Party boy! Though he's getting old and feeling it!
Monkey hanger, Born and bred
My little photo portfolio

[Korn]

[Ste]

Doesn't work.

Although I think someone has broken out mail server as no mail is going out at the moment.

If people want to read my e-mail I don't really care. And a letter is no more secure than a postcard; it's not hard to open and reseal and envelope.