Pericles - That challenge was partially overcome years ago with ECHELON which worked on an upside down pyramid principal.

The more words you used per email that, were targeted words examples bomb, kill, president, obama etc the closer you came to the base of the pyramid and your emails etc would be forwarded to an investigating officer.

Using less targeted words you were safe until you over time progressed up the pyramid. OR unless you were in communication with someone already at the top of the pyramid.

http://www.intelligencesearch.com/ia142.html

Petricles is trying to gloss over the gravity of the situation. Many businesses use Microsoft programs and are unaware of this reality. Suspicions may have existed in the past but now it seems to be a reality. The NSA can use this info to corrupt politicians and CEOs of major corporations.

Microsoft have a huge interest in this not becoming common knowledge or else they'd be totally trashed. For any of us to consider that this should be OK or the norm, we'd have to have rocks in our head.

I agree with Pericles. If you don't want your data to be available for others to look at, don't put in the Window(s). Alternatively, don't attach it to a machine connected to the internet and certainly don't use "cloud" storage.

however, as pericles points out, there is an enormous impedance mismatch between the one generating the data and the ones intercepting it. Personally I reckon its a storm in a teacup.

It's always amused me that it's perfectly acceptable to stand beside people to use a urinal, but a criminal offence to relieve yourself beside the car on the highway. The only difference is that Mrs Grundy has no authority in the men's dunny, but she rules the world outside it. The act of micturation is the same and much more likely to be observed at the urinal.

Our culture creates people who are far too concerned about what others might think and not concerned enough about thinking for themselves. If you're worried that other people might not approve, you probably shouldn't be doing it, either because it's a bad thing, or because you're not adult enough to exercise judgement.

Antiseptic - Quote "Personally I reckon its a storm in a teacup."
Try my experiment posted about and watch the teacup descend upon your house.

put a few words in an email like kill, bomb, plans, president obama etc (make it sound convincing) and see how long before the federal police turn up at your house on the behest of the American Secret Service.

Just ask the Iranians what happened to the centrifuges.

Ask the Iraqi's what happened with there military command and control centers during the war.

Any business that needs the internet can potentially have there whole system compromised.

Phillip S, you've just used those words. Do you think Graham Y should be watching his back?

However, I'll take your advice and I'll avoid communicating with any of my Jihadi mates via email. thanks...

Sheesh, seriously mate, if you're worried about that then see my post above. The NSA collects lots of data about where the data goes and if data goes to or from a suspected terrorist they monitor it. If they come up with a suspect by intelligence gathering they might go back over stored data from whatever period the cached data covers. they don't gather, store and sort evrything, there's simply too much of it, as Pericles' "Elint for Dummies" book says.

A most intriguing experiment, Philip S...

"...see how long before the federal police turn up at your house on the behest of the American Secret Service."

Since you've used those keywords a few times now with an associated threat and it is apparently so easy for the forces of evil to take you by the backdoor, can we safely assume that if we don't hear from you again then you and Arjay are exonerated.

But if we do ever hear from you again then you've disproved the both of you?

I'm not sure which would qualify as a win-win outcome... for the rest of us.