Volume of encrypted email rising amid spying fears
By Michael Liedtke, AP, Jun 3, 2014
SAN FRANCISCO (AP)--The volume of email cloaked in encryption technology is rapidly rising as Google, Yahoo, Facebook and other major Internet companies try to shield their users’ online communications from government spies and other snoops.
Google and other companies are now automatically encrypting all email, but that doesn’t ensure confidentiality unless the recipients’ email provider also adopts the technology.
In an analysis released Tuesday, Google Inc. said that about 65 percent of the messages sent by its Gmail users are encrypted while delivered, meaning the recipient’s email provider also supports the technology. That’s up from 39 percent in December. Incoming communiques to Gmail are less secure. Only 50 percent of them encrypted while in transit, up from 27 percent in December.
Encryption reduces the chances that email can be read by interlopers. The technology transforms the text into coding that looks like gibberish until it arrives at its destination.
Google and other Internet services rely on a form of encryption known as Transport Layer Security, or TLS. Security experts say that encryption method isn’t as secure as other options. But encryption that is tougher to crack is also more complicated to use.
Gmail, with more than 425 million accounts worldwide, was one of the first free email services to embrace TLS. Yahoo, Facebook and AOL also are encrypting their email services. Microsoft Corp., whose stable of email services includes the Outlook, MSN and Hotmail domains, has started encrypting many accounts as part of transition that won’t be completed until later this year.
The Google report comes a year after the first wave of media reports about the U.S. government’s intrusive techniques to monitor online communications and other Internet activity.
After lashing out at the government spying, Google and other Internet companies began encrypting email and other online services in an attempt to reassure users worried about their privacy. The Internet companies are hoping their efforts to thwart government surveillance will make Web surfers feel comfortable enough to continue to visit their services. The companies make more money from online ads if their audiences keep growing.
Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked documents revealing the online espionage, is among critics who believe the encryption methods deployed by Google and it peers are inadequate. In a March appearance at a technology conference, Snowden described TSL encryption as “deeply problematic” because U.S. government operatives merely needed to obtain a court order or hack into data centers to obtain users’ emails and other information.
