The Online World resources handbook

Electronic mail, telex, and fax http://home.eunet.no/~presno/bok/7.html
you in the process.
Privacy
The level of online privacy differs by network, service, and application. Whatever a
service may claim, always expect that someone, somewhere, can watch, even record.
All mailbox services have at least one person authorized to access your personal
mailbox in case of an emergency. Most of the time, they do not have a right to read your
mail without your permission, but they can.
In some countries, mailbox services may let outsiders (like the police) routinely
read your private email to check for 'illegal' contents. Here, email is not safer than
ordinary mail.
The good news is that most 'inspectors' and 'sysops' are good, honest people. On the
other hand, it is useful to know the situation.
It is not safe to send sensitive information (like credit card details) by private
electronic mail. True, the chance of an outsider getting hold of and take advantage of
such information is very small, but it is not safe.
On the Internet, it is child's play for someone to intercept your mail. The typical
email message travels through many computers. At each computer, people may access
your personal and business correspondence.
On the other hand, with so much mail traveling the network, it is highly unlikely
that they will, but they can.
Encrypt your email to protect sensitive information. Encryption will also
guarantee the identity of the sender of a message, a most useful attribute
when financial transactions are involved.
The PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) software has become the Internet standard for
encryption of email and files so snoops cannot read them. For more information on
encryption, check
http://world.std.com/~franl
http://www.isoc.org/internet/issues/encrypton/
http://www.chem.swin.edu.au/~graeme/pgp.html
Sometimes, we need to be certain that a message was written by the sender quoted in the
mail's message header. As it is child's play to send an Internet message carrying other
people's return email address, and name, you may want to use PGP to make sure the
correspondence is authentic.
For this reason, be very skeptical if you ever get a message purportedly from your
Internet access provider telling you to change your password to "k00l/d00d!"
One simple trick to check if correspondence is authentic: If in doubt, investigate the mailer
header. It shows step by step how an incoming mail has travelled through the net, with a time
stamp at each level. If it seems to come from somewhere else, be sceptical. You will not be
able to track all jokers in this way, just the more obious cases.
Privacy is also a concern when talking in the open. Always assume that someone is
recording all that is being said in online conferences, chats, and other interactive social
gatherings. In chats, anyone using a personal computer as a terminal can log the
conversation, or use screen dump to capture 'interesting parts'.
Many PC users can scroll back the screen. They can wait and decide whether to
save the conversation in a file until after the conversation has taken place. With these
capabilities widely available, users of chats and talk should always assume that their
conversations are being recorded.
Do not say indiscreet things in small, informal discussions. Others may record and
repost it under embarrassing circumstances. An unauthorized forward of your private
correspondence is extremely easy, and completely outside your control!
Some people routinely use anonymous remailers when sending email to Usenet
newsgroups or persons to make sure that the recipient (and snoops) cannot tell their real
name or email address. Personally, I never use these services, but note that some do.
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