Do you mind that government can read your emails/chats?

[Knolan]

(TL; DR at the end)

Hello there, I wanted a few opinions on this topic.
So, my friend and I were discussing about data access and information privacy other day. The scenario is that in our country the government can ask to wiretap any user without it being noticed and, AFAIK, this holds true to most countries in the world.

We both own a B. S. in computer science and we like a lot the cryptography area. So we were discusting some strategies of email extensions that would encrypt your emails. The result would be that even if someone could have access to your files, it wouldn't be able to retrieve the actual content of it.

This is not hard to achieve by using a public-key approach, which basicaly works like this:
You have a public and a private key, you keep your private key on your system and send the server the public one.
When someone wants to mail you, he asks your public key (that would be stored in the server), and then encrypts the email with the public key.
With your private key (and with it only), you could decrypt the email and read it.

The disadvantages are that you wouldn't be able to retrive the email if you ever lost the private key (this can be avoided by using some other encryptions and a password), you would need a program to read your email (e.g.: couldn't open it on a browser) and that everyone you email would need to have a public key (bigest problem here, I think people simply don't care enough to have a key).

So the question is:
(and the tl; dr):

1) Do you mind that government can read your emails/chats?
2) Would you have extra troubles trying to send your emails knowing that they would be encrypted in the server?

[Immitis]

doesnt matter if the person you email doesnt use the same methods

[Rabian]

I have nothing to hide so they can read through my stuff all they want. I always assume that anything I send on a phone or email is stored in a database somewhere so yeah...doesn't really bother me it's just a part of the modern world. If it helps catch terrorist plots, etc, then that's awesome.

[Nillah]

Not really. I never send emails to begin with, but I certainly don't have things to hide.

[TheWerebison]

Insofar as I am not plotting attacks against anyone, not really. If someone honestly wants to read about my humdrum life, I couldn't give less of a shit.

I'd feel bad for anyone that actually HAD that job, having to read all the stupid jokes, awful spelling, and "shock" humor that runs rampant on the internet. I hope they're paid well.

[Landin55]

Yes let Obama see all my junk mail and the occasional ping from Facebook saying someone liked my link!
I don't have anything to hide like at all. I don't even clear my browser, thats how clean I am.

[Knolan]

doesnt matter if the person you email doesnt use the same methods

Yep, that is the main problem =/

I don't have anything to hide either, but the idea of having less freedom on the internet is one that really gets me mad, probably because I started using it long ago and I havd it for granted. Thanks for the inputs so far guys =D

[Deleted]

I have nothing to hide so they can read through my stuff all they want. I always assume that anything I send on a phone or email is stored in a database somewhere so yeah...doesn't really bother me it's just a part of the modern world. If it helps catch terrorist plots, etc, then that's awesome.

Nothing more I add to this to express how I feel.

[Immitis]

Insofar as I am not plotting attacks against anyone, not really. If someone honestly wants to read about my humdrum life, I couldn't give less of a shit.

I'd feel bad for anyone that actually HAD that job, having to read all the stupid jokes, awful spelling, and "shock" humor that runs rampant on the internet. I hope they're paid well.

a highly doubt its an actual person doing it, they arent just reading what americans email/call/search ect but what EVERYONE does. its most likely some automated system that searches for keywords or something like that

[Deleted]

Not much, have nothing to hide and its most likely a automated system scanning for keywords, meaning all my messages gets trashed.

[Goadian]

There are two ways to look at this:
If I have nothing to hide, why should i care? and the flip side: Even IF I have nothing to hide, personal communications are personal.

I personally don't care one way or another as long as innocent people aren't being interrogated or brought up on completely false charges just because someone forgot to have breakfast that morning and is in a bad mood. If it keeps the majority of the population safe, then have at it.

The second it interferes with a legitimately innocent person due to baseless claims and assumptions, we need to re-evaluate the algorithms and what is proper and not proper. This is in reference to number 2 of course. There is no amount of hassle i would mind going through to send e-mails through a safely encrypted outlet to ensure i won't be wrongfully incriminated when I am just going about my business as a lawful citizen. This is of course assuming it goes over the line. Until that line is crossed the government is free to use my information as they see fit.

[serenka]

A bit indifferent on it, on the one hand 99.9% of all the emails and stuff they save/keep will probably never be seen by anyone as I guess they are scanned for keywords and then flagged for someone to read, but then I also do not like the fact that the government is allowed into my personal life that much.
But also, if savaging my emails to a server stops some terror attacks or what ever I don't mind them doing that.

If it got a stage where all emails we send have to go through a government server and be checked before the other person received it, I wouldn't be ok with that.

[Baracuda]

I'd let them read all my mail if I they could stop spam to my mail, feel sad for the person who reads em, like 99% of my mail :s

[Deleted]

Don't care, I'm not interesting enough to be worried about. Must be so much fun to see me talking about daily occurences such as it being too warm, what games to play, what I'm going to do later in the day, mails with my job coach, mails to school where I'm gonna start studying at autumn. I don't believe I'm interesting enough to be worried about it.

[inboundpaper]

I don't like it, at all.

[TheWerebison]

a highly doubt its an actual person doing it, they arent just reading what americans email/call/search ect but what EVERYONE does. its most likely some automated system that searches for keywords or something like that

Oh, sure, but even with filters that look for specific words, you're still gonna get a metric crapton of immaturity. And just imagine how many danger words there could be. What would be flagged? A person who tweets about how they would kill for a piece of lemon meringue pie? A grandmother e-mailing a recipe for stroganoff that is to die for? Or someone putting a post on Facebook about how Justin Bieber is the bomb (assuming people still say that...I'm rather old). :P

[Knolan]

A bit indifferent on it, on the one hand 99.9% of all the emails and stuff they save/keep will probably never be seen by anyone as I guess they are scanned for keywords and then flagged for someone to read, but then I also do not like the fact that the government is allowed into my personal life that much.
But also, if savaging my emails to a server stops some terror attacks or what ever I don't mind them doing that.

If it got a stage where all emails we send have to go through a government server and be checked before the other person received it, I wouldn't be ok with that.

Well, I believe it will hardly stop anyone as you can send an encrypted text file attached if you really want to, it is not something hard to do (every encryption algorithm is public), just take a few minutes to download the tools (also, they come by default if you use linux).

[Giants41]

No i don't really care i don't have anything to hide. They can read all they like as long as they aren't taking my Credit card info

[Deleted]

Does it bother me? Not really, it should more than it does but I've always partly assumed that someone was up to that somewhere anyway.

[cFortyfive]

Don't feel like sharing intimate dialogues/calls/whatever with anyone it doesn't concern. Especially not with foreign countries.