Yahoo allows NSA to access all their emails

[Litargirio]

Though this happened back in 2015, Yahoo has now admitted to having secretly built a backdoor into their email service, a software to allow the US government (specifically NSA and FBI) to search through their emails.

 

Quote

 

It is not known what information intelligence officials were looking for, only that they wanted Yahoo to search for a set of characters. That could mean a phrase in an email or an attachment, said the sources, who did not want to be identified.

 

Reuters was unable to determine what data Yahoo may have handed over, if any, and if intelligence officials had approached other email providers besides Yahoo with this kind of request.

 

"Yahoo is a law abiding company, and complies with the laws of the United States," the company said in a brief statement in response to Reuters questions about the demand. Yahoo declined any further comment.

 

Some speculate that Google and Microsoft may have been coerced to handing over their data too, but after being asked about this both companies responded negatively:

Quote

 

Experts said it was likely that the NSA or FBI had approached other Internet companies with the same demand, since they evidently did not know what email accounts were being used by the target. The NSA usually makes requests for domestic surveillance through the FBI, so it is hard to know which agency is seeking the information.

 

Alphabet Inc's Google and Microsoft Corp, two major U.S. email service providers, separately said on Tuesday that they had not conducted such email searches.

 

"We've never received such a request, but if we did, our response would be simple: 'No way'," a spokesman for Google said in a statement.

 

A Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement, "We have never engaged in the secret scanning of email traffic like what has been reported today about Yahoo." The company declined to comment on whether it had received such a request.

 

 

Also, some top person quit Yahoo as a result of this:

Quote

According to two of the former employees, Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer's decision to obey the directive roiled some senior executives and led to the June 2015 departure of Chief Information Security Officer Alex Stamos, who now holds the top security job at Facebook Inc.

 

Yet another reason to not use Yahoo. Good job, as always.

 

Souce:

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yahoo-nsa-exclusive-idUSKCN1241YT

[Litargirio]

And though the keen among you might notice that this is just an isolated incident, there is no proof that this was in fact just an isolated incident, since Yahoo did not want to comment much on this topic.

[Murasaki]

What to use then? Certainly not Gmail due to its crappy page layout.

[Litargirio]

1 minute ago, ModuleLFS said:

What to use then? Certainly not Gmail due to its crappy page layout.

Gmail is love. Gmail is life.

 

<3

[VerticalDiscussions]

1 minute ago, Litargirio said:

-snip-

[AresKrieger]

Well I wouldn't be surprised if google did the same thing tbh, and we know MS policies on privacy are crap so welcome to a world where the government things arbitrary spying will help them more than profiling.

[dragosudeki]

15 minutes ago, AresKrieger said:

Well I wouldn't be surprised if google did the same thing tbh, and we know MS policies on privacy are crap so welcome to a world where the government things arbitrary spying will help them more than profiling.

I understand that some companies would have to comply and probably respond to requests for information, but I think (and really hope) that they did not build a backdoor for the US gov.

 

Then again, I don't understand why the US gov would want to know about all the spam that are sent to the millions of dead yahoo accounts. Maybe they are looking for that Nigerian prince...

[captain_to_fire]

I use Gmail for personal use and Exchange for work.

[Monte_Carlo]

NSA has access to my yahoo accounts... so does have the damn world since 20-whenever they got breached last. 

[Tech_Dreamer]

Yahooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..oooohoooooooohhh

                                                                                               -  NSA Probably

[79wjd]

I would care.....if the government didn't already have (legal) access anyway. After 180 days any email stored on a public server/service is basically freely accessible to the government. 

[nuttytechy]

I use GMX mail. I use gmail for odds and sods but GMX is my main email client I use. 

[ThinkWithPortals]

1 hour ago, Litargirio said:

 

Bastards.