Shoutbox

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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.

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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.

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.

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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...

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While someone obviously finds the notion very funny, thieves often go through garbage looking for credit card numbers and personal information. 

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: