Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? - Printable Version
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Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by nod32 on 12-30-2006 at 12:23 PM
If it is not possible to see what other people is saying it possible for microsoft to use wlm to see waht you are talking about and other things like email skype and other things. 
RE: WLM by mezzanine on 12-30-2006 at 12:31 PM
Technically, it is possible. But that would require way too much effort and no one from Microsoft would even bother reading users' conversations. Unless there's some legal issues. Read their privacy policy for more information.
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by nod32 on 12-30-2006 at 03:09 PM
ok but that means we are not safe?
RE: RE: WLM by ChatMaster on 12-30-2006 at 03:12 PM
quote:
Originally posted by mezzanineUnless there's some legal issues. Read their privacy policy for more information.
But that would mean they have to be reading it to see that there is legal issues.
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by Plik on 12-30-2006 at 03:39 PM
quote:Theoretically no, but in realitly they arn't going to read what your talking about. Why are you so worried anyway, unless your talking about something dodgylymegaevil it wont mater anyway
Originally posted by nod32
ok but that means we are not safe?
quote:No. For example if the police had a warrent to record your chats they could go to microsoft and ask them. Thats the only real time they would listen in.
Originally posted by ChatMaster
But that would mean they have to be reading it to see that there is legal issues.
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by CookieRevised on 12-30-2006 at 04:25 PM
... but they wouldn't use WLM for it, like nod32 suggested...
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by Funness on 12-30-2006 at 04:32 PM
You never know, a bot could be looking out for keywords for the NSA... The only thing that will save you is a TFH
But seriously, I doubt MS keeps logs of every users convo's "just incase". E-mails are a different story, because they are kept on the server. If someone with a warrent forced MS to hand over the e-mails they just may. Or they could fight it like google did when the NSA tried to get search terms people had used.
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by Fuse on 12-30-2006 at 05:08 PM
if microsoft are loggong your chats/emails it will probablly be for something serious: and if your doing something serious you shouldnt be so stupid to openly admit to the thing.
by serious i mean terrorism. im sure i could email 500 people: im robbing every petrol station.. and nothing would happen.
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by Nathan on 12-30-2006 at 05:30 PM
I thought that your Internet Provider can,
because you're sending the message from your pc to the ISP then to the WLM's Server's so thereotrically the ISP has it (if they keep record of everything!)
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by nod32 on 12-30-2006 at 05:48 PM
Microsoft has being hacked several times, sombody can hack it then find out what we are saying.
9. Privacy.
We consider your use of the service to be private. However, we may access or disclose information about you, your account and/or the content of your communications, in order to: (1) comply with the law or legal process served on us; (2) enforce and investigate potential violations of this contract; including use of this service to participate in, or facilitate, activities that violate the law; or (3) protect the rights, property, or safety of Microsoft, its employees, its customers or the public. You consent to the access and disclosures outlined in this section.
We may use technology or other means to protect the service, protect our customers, or stop you from breaching this contract. These means may include, for example, filtering to stop spam or increase security. These means may hinder or break your use of the service.
In order to provide you the service, we may collect certain information about service performance, your machine and your service use. We may automatically upload this information from your machine. This data will not personally identify you. You may read about this information collection in more detail in the privacy policy at http://privacy.microsoft.com.
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by CookieRevised on 12-30-2006 at 06:52 PM
quote:
Originally posted by nod32
Microsoft has being hacked several times, sombody can hack it then find out what we are saying.
no they can'tWhat you call "Microsoft" consists of extremely many servers, computers, webpages, etc... What has been hacked are some webpages. This has absolutely nothing todo with reading stuff which might! be stored on servers which aren't even accessable from the net.
And what is stated in paragraph 9 of the privacy terms is that they have the right to give law inforcement the information they need to investigate or presecute offenses...
You talking to your girlfriend is not something MS is going to bother reading, let alone store for later use against you...
don't be so paranoid...
In fact, you are given far more information about yourself out in your dustbin than you would on the net... OH NOOOOSS!!!1111!!! the garbage men are reading my bills and keeping track of how rich I am... And some poor dude in search for some plastic bags is reading that complaint letter I got from the library for not returning those (porn) books...
^^ although sarcastic, it is far more realistic that this happens than that somebody in a small dark room in Redmond is watching your conversations.
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by Adeptus on 12-30-2006 at 08:32 PM
quote:Any Internet communication can be observed and potentially recorded by a number of parties. This includes your ISP, the other person's ISP, server operators of a client-server application (e.g. Microsoft for WLM) and any number of Internet backbone operators in between.
Originally posted by nod32
If it is not possible to see what other people is saying it possible for microsoft to use wlm to see waht you are talking about and other things like email skype and other things.
Recently, a number of countries either have or are trying to pass legislation mandating service providers to log retain data for certain amount of time. For example, they might like your email provider to keep copies of your email, even after you think you have deleted it from the servers.
One doesn't have to be up to anything illegal to find that undesirable. It's a matter of principle -- many people regard privacy as an inalienable right. It can also bite in a number of ways, not the least of which could be discovery in civil lawsuits, if you are ever involved in one.
While you can't do anything about possible monitoring and logging, you can encrypt most forms of communication, making the logged data worthless. That is what you should be doing if you wish to have some assured privacy.
For instant messaging (and more specifically, WLM) you can use OTR and Simp. For email, I can suggest GPG, for which you can easily find plugins to integrate it with most email clients.
This only works if the people you communicate with use the same encryption software -- although OTR and Simp both detect it when your IM conversation partners don't have the software, and simply don't encrypt those conversations.
quote:While someone obviously finds the notion very funny, thieves often go through garbage looking for credit card numbers and personal information.
Originally posted by CookieRevised
In fact, you are given far more information about yourself out in your dustbin than you would on the net... OH NOOOOSS!!!1111!!! the garbage men are reading my bills and keeping track of how rich I am...
That is one reason why, in recent years, stores have switched to printing only the last digits on receipts and no one takes card imprints anymore. Also, at least in the US, it is quite easy to obtain new credit (in form of credit cards or instant financing of large purchases) using someone else's stolen personal information. It is called "identity theft".
So, that is not at all a laughing matter, and everybody ought to own one of these:
![[Image: 20659800.JPG]](http://img.products.howstuffworks.com/cctool/PrdImg/images/pr/177X150/00/01/3b/3e/58/20659800.JPG)
RE: RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by CookieRevised on 12-30-2006 at 09:07 PM
quote:Absolutely, and that is indeed the exact reason why I posted that. Although it is funny, such stuff poses much more risc to your privacy than an ISP logging data traffic in a genuine way for legit reasons.
Originally posted by Adeptus
quote:While someone obviously finds the notion very funny, thieves often go through garbage looking for credit card numbers and personal information.
Originally posted by CookieRevised
In fact, you are given far more information about yourself out in your dustbin than you would on the net... OH NOOOOSS!!!1111!!! the garbage men are reading my bills and keeping track of how rich I am...
That is one reason why, in recent years, stores have switched to printing only the last digits on receipts and no one takes card imprints anymore. Also, at least in the US, it is quite easy to obtain new credit (in form of credit cards or instant financing of large purchases) using someone else's stolen personal information. It is called "identity theft".
And the problem is quite often that people shout about their stuff being logged by an ISP, while that is perfectly legit and in 99,99999% cases done in a very secure way and for proper reasons taking the law in account etc, but they don't take care of what they throw away in their bin everyday.
Identity theft is something which happens way more than someone reading what you write to someone.
Heck, even take all those hotmail accounts which are hacked, aka password and identity stolen. The amount of those dwarfs the amount of people actually being able to read what someone else is writing.
Simply because that is where privacy issues begin, your identity. Privacy issues don't begin with an ISP logging your chats for legit reasons.
Take that other thread for example where a script was created which shows to others who you are talking to. This is a blunt breach on the privacy of the people I'm talking to. Yet it was apparently seen as 'normal' and no issue, while on the other hand people are affraid that an ISP can see that you've chatted 2 hours with the girlfriend of your friend... I mean
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by foaly on 12-30-2006 at 10:11 PM
quote:
Originally posted by CookieRevised
Absolutely, and that is indeed the exact reason why I posted that. Although it is funny, such stuff poses much more risc to your privacy than an ISP logging data traffic in a genuine way for legit reasons.
that depends what you see as a risc to your privacy. Your chats are automaticaly saved and can be read by government officials (that may not be the correct term) up to 3 (more or less) years...
Well that doesn't happen to your trashcan...
but doesn't mean we all have to become paranoid...
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by CookieRevised on 12-30-2006 at 10:49 PM
It doesn't depend on what you see as a privacy breach. Think about it logically: the risk that the things logged by the goverment (if logged at all in the first place... many stuff like this is more dictacted by paranoid people than it is based on some truth) is abused by the goverment is extremely small if not non-existant..., whereas the simple stuff people leave around all the time (and I'm talking about passwords and even simply emails for example) can easly be abused by people who do not care about the law.
Again, what on earth is so bad about the goverment knowing that you've chatted 2 hous with that girl? A goverment who needs to stick to the law and which will stick to the law...
I think, in all honesty, that the stuff you leave around and/or throw away, which is accessable by anybody and which can reveal a hell of a lot is extremely more riskier than that. And this 'system' is used by burgulars, thiefs, hackers, all the time, just because it is that easy and just because everybody thinks as if it is minor and no much can be done with it....
They who are concearned about their chat being logged (which nobody ever even wants to read in all honesty), should better worry about what they throw away each day or leave around in their handcases when they go to school or work or whatever... eg: I have found more than once ID cards, and even credit cards in the street, lost by somebody. While I have never been able to break in into one of Microsofts thousands mainframes which supposidly contain the chatlog of my friend.
IMHO, a 15 year old being worried about the big brother goverment watching how he tries to chat up with that girl, is just stupid and only the result of this extremely paranoid information age, watching too much conspiricy movies, etc.
I don't care if my ISP logs my chats, there is nothing of any importance in it, I'm not a terrorsit or whatever. And I do trust them to handle that data with care (if they handle it all that is). But I do care very much if my email is showed to strangers because that can extremely easy be abused for all sorts of things by people who do not follow the laws.
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by andrewdodd13 on 12-31-2006 at 12:04 PM
I have a feeling (thought it's just a feeling) that it's unlikely that any ISP will passively log MSN conversations. It is also unlikely that they'll do it deliberately without telling people.
To try and understand what I mean... if your ISP monitored *all* traffic coming from your PC, then it would take an *immense* amount of storage. My ISP gives us a 40gb bandwidth limit per month. They've maybe got a million clients. That's a theoratical 40 * 10 ^ 15 gb per month of storage they'd require.
Usually, unless requested to otherwise (by the police, or whoever), I'd expect ISP will only log connections, not actual data transmitted - for this reason. Hence while using MSN Messenger all that'll be logged is your connection to the server - not even who you're talking to! (Unless of course you send a file, in which case a direction connection will be made between your computers).
With a computer, I'd be more worried about a key logged monitoring my every keystroke rather than my ISP maybe reading my chats.
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by Lourix on 12-31-2006 at 01:56 PM
It is worth thinking about though, the infomation on the servers could be used in a bad way. If it were in the hands of corrupt people. The same can be said for the goverment, they could have a warrant and check any infomation they wanted. Though they may look for certain people they could find any infomation. It is shocking that the world is becoming more like what George Orwell said a big brother world, though that is probably going off the subject.
RE: RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by WDZ on 12-31-2006 at 11:03 PM
quote:But they could do some filtering and traffic analysis to narrow things down, and only monitor the protocols and/or connections that they're interested in. Also, compression is an amazing thing... they could compress the data and archive it on a 500GB hard drive, which costs like $170...
Originally posted by andrewdodd13
To try and understand what I mean... if your ISP monitored *all* traffic coming from your PC, then it would take an *immense* amount of storage. My ISP gives us a 40gb bandwidth limit per month. They've maybe got a million clients. That's a theoratical 40 * 10 ^ 15 gb per month of storage they'd require.
quote:But you have complete control over that. If your system is secure, nobody can install a keylogger, and if they do, you can detect it. With an ISP, you kinda have to blindy trust them.
With a computer, I'd be more worried about a key logger monitoring my every keystroke rather than my ISP maybe reading my chats.
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by Steven on 12-31-2006 at 11:31 PM
My school, wants everyone to believe, that if you cyberbully someone over MSN, or some other IM client, the victim prints the log, and shows the school, is enough proof to get them to talk to your isp and to pull your internet from your home. Or they said there isp will find your chat log with a special code that only they know, called an IP address. 
the whole school said ahhh when she said it, as if its like a wholy grail. AS long as you don't upload any piracy, you will be fine.
RE: RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by ryxdp on 01-01-2007 at 06:11 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Steven
a special code that only they know, called an IP address.
Yeah, plus you...and possibly your friends and family...
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by vaccination on 01-01-2007 at 01:25 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Steven
Or they said there isp will find your chat log with a special code that only they know, called an IP address.
LOL.
someone should slap them silly.
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by Steven on 01-01-2007 at 01:46 PM
quote:
Originally posted by vaccination
quote:
Originally posted by Steven
Or they said there isp will find your chat log with a special code that only they know, called an IP address.
LOL.
someone should slap them silly.
Yeah really. They had this "computer expert" (so they say) come in, to educate us on the danger of bulling, and how with their knowledge of IP's could remove internet, even if your parents need it. I asked him a question, i said "do you guys remove dynamic IP's" He said "next question"
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by CookieRevised on 01-01-2007 at 08:14 PM
quote:But why? IF they log the chats themselfs (highly unlikely), then yes, they can indeed, and of course, find the log by comparing the IP addresses
Originally posted by vaccination
quote:LOL.
Originally posted by Steven
Or they said there isp will find your chat log with a special code that only they know, called an IP address.
someone should slap them silly.
It is the ISP which provides the IP addresses and IF they log anything, they at least log who (physical address) has given what IP at what time... This information is used for example when someone reports abuses, spam, etc..
I think some other people need to be slapped a bit for not paying attention and misunderstanding what is been said in class
EDIT:
quote:yeah... true... bit dodgy
Originally posted by vaccination
no no no no..i was lol'ing at the 'a special code that only they know' bit.
quote:So? What you probably though was a good question to trick him or something, is actually not...
Originally posted by Steven
I asked him a question, i said "do you guys remove dynamic IP's" He said "next question"
Even if you have a dynamic IP, they can remove your connection... The dynamic IP is given by your ISP, nor by your router or whatever. And they can also invalidate it and cutting your current connection at any time or decide to not give you a dynamic IP anymore, so you would need to search and contact another ISP.
I would say "next question" too on such smartass questions like that
j/kRE: RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by vaccination on 01-02-2007 at 12:19 AM
quote:
Originally posted by CookieRevised
quote:Why? IF they log the chats themselfs (highly unlikely), then yes, they can indeed, and of course, find the log by comparing the IP addresses
Originally posted by vaccination
quote:LOL.
Originally posted by Steven
Or they said there isp will find your chat log with a special code that only they know, called an IP address.
someone should slap them silly.
It is the ISP which provides the IP addresses and IF they log anything, they at least log who (physical address) has given what IP at what time... This information is used for example when someone reports abuses, spam, etc..
I think some other people need to be slapped a bit for not paying attention and misunderstanding what is been said in class
no no no no..i was lol'ing at the 'a special code that only they know' bit.
not the fact ISP's could be using IPs to compare the logs and whatnot.
EDIT:
quote:
Originally posted by CookieRevised
EDIT:yeah... true... bit dodgy
a bit
RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by Adeptus on 01-02-2007 at 01:59 AM
quote:Just because there are other things one should be concerned about (such as identity theft and account security) does not, in any way, shape or form, mean that people should not be concerned about privacy of their online communications. You are sending completely the wrong message there.
Originally posted by CookieRevised
Identity theft is something which happens way more than someone reading what you write to someone. Heck, even take all those hotmail accounts which are hacked, aka password and identity stolen. ... Privacy issues don't begin with an ISP logging your chats for legit reasons.
quote:First of all, it is quite simply not the government's business to know. They are not entitled. This is a matter of principle, not necessarily of practical consequence.
Originally posted by CookieRevised
Again, what on earth is so bad about the goverment knowing that you've chatted 2 hous with that girl?
Secondly, there are many scenarios where existence of such logs is undesireable to an individual, which do not involve the individual breaking any laws. Let's take the example you like -- talking to your girlfriend -- and imagine that we are not talking about a 15-year-old, but rather a married man in the middle of a contested divorce. If it is well known that there are logs of electronic communications, a subpoena can be issued for those logs in a civil case.
quote:No. They should encrypt their communications, then worry about all the other things you mention.
Originally posted by CookieRevised
They who are concearned about their chat being logged (which nobody ever even wants to read in all honesty), should better worry about...
quote:That is correct. The concern there would be about MSN logging and retaining conversations. The concern with ISPs is primarily email.
Originally posted by andrewdodd13
I have a feeling (thought it's just a feeling) that it's unlikely that any ISP will passively log MSN conversations.
The original poster (nod32) has perfectly valid and warranted concerns. I think it is regrettable that instead of focusing on what he can do to address those, majority of the responses are downplaying their significance.
RE: RE: Can Microsoft/email providers see what we are saying? by ryxdp on 01-02-2007 at 08:35 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Adeptus
...quite simply not the government's business to know. They are not entitled.
Basically nobody is.
