Beware of email snoops
The curious case of adulterous CIA director David Petraeus brings the question of cyberprivacy into focus all over again. The ease with which the US authorities snooped on the highly-decorated war hero’s emails should open the eyes of all users as there is really no such thing as a secure, private form of communication any more, not unless it is face-to-face in a secure place that has been swept for bugs.
While most law-abiding citizens going about everyday lives have little to fear from such intrusions of privacy — except when personal relationships are at risk due to inadvertent and unwanted disclosures — those in exalted positions might have to get paranoid about guarding their privacy. New technology has made trawling through terabytes of data a minute’s job for those equipped with cyberspace-raiding gear that would make World War II codebreakers seem an ancient and bumbling lot.
An innocent citizen with nothing to fear from authority is, however, under grave threat from cyberthieves, for whom cracking a password is a moment’s work, with programs that can try a few million combinations of alphanumeric codes in under a minute. Passwords are virtually passé as we find out every day from electronic thefts happening from the collection of bank account details and other personal data, and skimming/cloning of credit cards. Apparently, even two-factor authentication with a numeric code sent into mobile phones is no more safe as eavesdropping extends to the world of cellphones as well. Cyber communicators must definitely take care.
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