"Messages are copied all along the route.... can sit on the server for years.... e-mail companies make regular backup copies of the stored messages, usually onto cheap magnetic tape cartridges....
But somehow the Bush e-mails disappeared.
E-mail isn’t the only trace we leave.... Web searching... photo sharing, word processing, blogging.... collect data about the users. This data may be retained indefinitely.... all that collected data has considerable economic value"
Thanks for reading, fascistas; learn anything?
"Lessons learned on e-mail; When it comes to messages, some traces can linger" by Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff | October 7, 2009
.... It’s very difficult to wipe out all traces of the e-mails we send. And it’s not just e-mail. Millions of us post personal information on social networking sites like Facebook, display photographs at Flickr, or load videos on YouTube. And once that data has been published online, it’s virtually impossible to erase it....
Yeah, right -- unless the fascist censors want it gone.
Messages are copied all along the route, not just on the sender or recipient’s hard drive. E-mail providers use server computers to handle the messages. A copy of each message is stored on the outgoing server used by the sender, and the incoming server used by the recipient. Those stored messages can sit on the server for years. And to make sure no messages are lost during a catastrophic computer breakdown, the e-mail companies make regular backup copies of the stored messages, usually onto cheap magnetic tape cartridges....
And BLOGS make things VIRAL -- something that has cone in handy a time or two!
:-)
E-mail isn’t the only trace we leave. Internet companies like Google, Yahoo Inc., and Microsoft Corp. offer a host of online services - Web searching, of course, but also photo sharing, word processing, blogging, and many more. With each interaction, these companies collect data about the users. This data may be retained indefinitely. Any information published online is likely to be stored in multiple forms and at multiple locations.
Like BLOGS mirroring other bloggers' work?!?
Finding and deleting all of it can be costly and time consuming. Yet because of the falling price of computing hardware, it costs little to keep the data indefinitely, so much of it remains on hard drives and on backup tape cartridges. “It is cheaper to save this stuff than to throw it away,’’ said Bruce Schneier, inventor of a popular data encryption system and author of multiple books about computer security.
Besides, all that collected data has considerable economic value. Internet companies analyze stored information about users’ Internet searches and e-mail messages to craft custom-tailored advertisements.
So that explains the funky ads popping up on blogger after I post!!!
Sites like Facebook will show visitors customized advertisements, chosen according to personal information that users have published at the site. Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, a former faculty affiliate at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, worries about the long-term consequences of an Internet that never forgets.
In his new book, “Delete,’’ Mayer-Schönberger cited a man who was barred from entering the United States in 2006, because an Internet search revealed that he had consumed illegal drugs during the 1960s. “Not only must we be aware that anything we do and say will be noticed by anybody out there, but by anybody in the future,’’ he said. Mayer-Schönberger thinks Internet businesses should voluntarily limit the data they collect, and how long they keep it....
Then HOW COME THERE is NO CHANGE, 'eh?
--more--"
Related: The U.S. Government is Reading Your E-Mail, AmeriKa!
