Links between different email services - Page 2

Tsunami · 11 Apr 2011, 06:17 AM

But there is a big difference between one mailbox collecting the emails received in another mailbox, or having an option (after signing in to LuxSci) to really navigate into the Safe Mail account. If a mailbox collects the emails from different accounts, this is still something different than actually navigating into that other account as if you'd sign in with its username and password. It's the latter scenario that I'm worried about. Not sure if fetchmail (or any other option in the interface) could actually do that?

xmailer · 11 Apr 2011, 06:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsunami

But there is a big difference between one mailbox collecting the emails received in another mailbox, or having an option (after signing in to LuxSci) to really navigate into the Safe Mail account. If a mailbox collects the emails from different accounts, this is still something different than actually navigating into that other account as if you'd sign in with its username and password. It's the latter scenario that I'm worried about. Not sure if fetchmail (or any other option in the interface) could actually do that?

I've never heard of, nor ever seen any evidence of, any email service ever doing anything like this, so I'm not sure where you fears that LuxSci "might" do so may derive from. If I correctly understand your concern, in all honestly your fears about this might seem to at least border on paranoia.

But on the (probably) extremely remote possibility that this could happen, I would think that a very brief bit of trial and error, and/or a message to LuxSci support inquiring about it, might be the quickest and easiest way to assuage any such fears.

marcus0263 · 11 Apr 2011, 06:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xmailer

I've never heard of, nor ever seen any evidence of, any email service ever doing anything like this, so I'm not sure where you fears that LuxSci "might" do so may derive from. If I correctly understand your concern, in all honestly your fears about this might seem to at least border on paranoia.

But on the (probably) extremely remote possibility that this could happen, I would think that a very brief bit of trial and error, and/or a message to LuxSci support inquiring about it, might be the quickest and easiest way to assuage any such fears.

With myself being a long time customer of LuxSci I also say his concerns are "paranoia"

Tsunami · 11 Apr 2011, 06:47 AM

They're not paranoia, they're anxiety disorder. Which in some cases overlaps, maybe

but in all honesty it isn't a pleasant disorder to have. I don't want to lament about it though, just opened this topic to know if I should be worried or not.

I also didn't insinuate LuxSci would be accessing the account, I'm just enquiring if it is possible to sign in and then navigate into the Safe Mail account without providing the password for the latter mentioned as well. If that would be possible you cannot exclude the option of pressing the wrong button yourself (whereas I do remember with 100% certainty to not have navigated to Safe Mail from any work computer, only having signed in to LuxSci).

Now I normally try to ignore fears because that's the only way to deal with anxiety disorder: not giving in to fears. However, when it's something quite important (and this is such issue) I rather enquire than to just assume it's an irrational fear.

xmailer · 11 Apr 2011, 07:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsunami

They're not paranoia, they're anxiety disorder. Which in some cases overlaps, maybe

but in all honesty it isn't a pleasant disorder to have. I don't want to lament about it though, just opened this topic to know if I should be worried or not.

I also didn't insinuate LuxSci would be accessing the account, I'm just enquiring if it is possible to sign in and then navigate into the Safe Mail account without providing the password for the latter mentioned as well. If that would be possible you cannot exclude the option of pressing the wrong button yourself (whereas I do remember with 100% certainty to not have navigated to Safe Mail from any work computer, only having signed in to LuxSci).

Now I normally try to ignore fears because that's the only way to deal with anxiety disorder: not giving in to fears. However, when it's something quite important (and this is such issue) I rather enquire than to just assume it's an irrational fear.

While I can't claim to understand all the technical issues surrounding your question, at least on the face of it the possibility that something such as you've suggested could happen might seem to imply either some sort of "malware" in the LuxSci interface software itself or on the computer through which you access it. While I won't try to claim neither is a (at least theoretical) possibility, it might certainly seem extremely risky for any email service to enable such a thing without clearly informing its users of it. And I find it hard to imagine a service which is actually making money through honest means would want to take such a risk to their business when it would serve no advantage to them that I can think of.

Tsunami · 11 Apr 2011, 06:45 PM

Very true, and LuxSci have been very reliable and helpful ; it's not like I insinuate they'd access other mail accounts. I think the "anxiety disorder" part is the key term in my question ; as said I don't want to lament about a disorder I happen to have, I wouldn't consider it worth mentioning on a forum irrelated to this, except for the fact that in this question the disorder is what causes the concern. The anxiety feeds me with insecurity on daily basis that I would be making mistakes with serious consequences myself. However if the thing I am afraid of is technically not possible, then I would know I worry for no reason ; if the concern would be theoretically realistic I'd see what I can do to avoid the hassle I fear in the first place.

My concern is not that any mail host would get into other accounts of myself themselves ; the fear is that I would have made the mistake myself by signing into an account from a work computer or public terminal, not realising there is an option in the interface that gives access to the Safe Mail account I used for signing up to LuxSci. In this case, if it would be realistic that one can navigate into the interface/account of Safe Mail without entering the password of that mailbox too, then I would be the one having made a very stupid mistake because the next user of this computer could navigate into my Safe Mail mailbox which is one I only open from my own home computer. I am not sure if it is possible at all to navigate from one inbox into another without providing the password, but if it were then this is an option I would not like to see other people use to get into my email accounts. Hence it would have been a stupidity of mine to sign in from another computer than my own if such option would exist.

marcus0263 · 11 Apr 2011, 11:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsunami

Very true, and LuxSci have been very reliable and helpful ; it's not like I insinuate they'd access other mail accounts. I think the "anxiety disorder" part is the key term in my question ; as said I don't want to lament about a disorder I happen to have, I wouldn't consider it worth mentioning on a forum irrelated to this, except for the fact that in this question the disorder is what causes the concern. The anxiety feeds me with insecurity on daily basis that I would be making mistakes with serious consequences myself. However if the thing I am afraid of is technically not possible, then I would know I worry for no reason ; if the concern would be theoretically realistic I'd see what I can do to avoid the hassle I fear in the first place.

My concern is not that any mail host would get into other accounts of myself themselves ; the fear is that I would have made the mistake myself by signing into an account from a work computer or public terminal, not realising there is an option in the interface that gives access to the Safe Mail account I used for signing up to LuxSci. In this case, if it would be realistic that one can navigate into the interface/account of Safe Mail without entering the password of that mailbox too, then I would be the one having made a very stupid mistake because the next user of this computer could navigate into my Safe Mail mailbox which is one I only open from my own home computer. I am not sure if it is possible at all to navigate from one inbox into another without providing the password, but if it were then this is an option I would not like to see other people use to get into my email accounts. Hence it would have been a stupidity of mine to sign in from another computer than my own if such option would exist.

There isn't

Tsunami · 12 Apr 2011, 07:10 PM

Fetchmail involves collecting mails from another mailbox but without option to just navigate into that mailbox without knowing the password? Or do I still misunderstand this?

marcus0263 · 12 Apr 2011, 09:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsunami

Fetchmail involves collecting mails from another mailbox but without option to just navigate into that mailbox without knowing the password? Or do I still misunderstand this?

It can't retrieve the email from the other account unless it knows the password. As I said before unless you set it up with the proper mail servers "and" password there is no way it can

Tsunami · 12 Apr 2011, 10:23 PM

But even if one would have set this up (which I cannot remember ever having done so, as I wouldn't know how to trace Safe-Mail's server addresses) ; do I understand correctly that fetchmail would only collect the emails from the other account but not give any option to navigate directly into the interface/inbox of that same account it collects emails from?

communicant · 21 Jun 2011, 06:03 AM

This question is not directly connected to the previous posts in the thread, but it seemed best to put it here rather than starting a separate new thread, for the question does deal generally with an uneasy concern about whether separate accounts can "connect" in odd ways that might raise privacy concerns.

In this scenario, let's say that a family member has an account of fairly long standing at Ovi.com, an account that was created long before the affiliation with Yahoo. Now that Ovi is "powered" by Yahoo, logging on to an Ovi account presumably creates a record of some sort in a Yahoo database, especially since an Ovi user can log on to an Ovi account directly through Yahoo, using the Ovi.com address instead of a Yahoo userID. Now let's say that a second family member has accounts at Yahoo that are used for things that have nothing at all to do with the online interests or activities of the family member who has the Ovi account, but the two people often make use of the same computer.

I know that an IP address is tied only to a machine and not to any individual user, but I still wonder if there now exists, somewhere in the Yahoo database, a connection between the Ovi.com account and the Yahoo accounts, a connection which did not exist before the Ovi affiliation with Yahoo.

Data mining and online profiling have progressed to such frightening levels that no worry now seems too farfetched. In this case the concern is mostly just on general principles, but it would still be troubling if, for example, a profile of the Yahoo account holder's interests (as inferred, say, from membership in Yahoo groups, various site visits, and so on) were to be conflated in some way with the entirely different interests of the Ovi.com account holder. I have always wondered how the data miners handle such allocations (or more likely fail completely to do so!) when a shared IP address serves multiple users on a stable and continuing basis, especially in a small group like a family. (Obviously I am not referring to a public computer in a library or café, which would have hundreds or even thousands of different users over time.)

This is not an idle concern, because it can have serious practical consequences. To take a related "Real World" example, when a retail establishment tracks purchases with a loyalty card or discount card, all purchases on any one card are attributed and allocated to the profile of a single shopper, no matter how many other people he or she may actually be shopping for, so if a wife buys a box of cigars for a husband (or for visiting Uncle Harry), or loads up the cart with junk food for some other family members or guests, those purchases will become part of her consumer profile and she might later be tagged as a smoker or a poor nutrition risk when applying for health or life insurance. Precisely this sort of thing has been reported as actually occurring and it is not merely hypothetical, so I presume the same possibility exists with an IP address and online profiling. Might all activity on that machine be funneled into an erroneous profile of whoever can most easily be identified as the likely owner of the machine (such as the person who pays the ISP bills), regardless of whether the information really applied to that person?

And that brings me back to the original email question. Should the person with the Ovi.com account be concerned that the Yahoo affiliation might result in some sort of erroneous linkage being made between the Ovi account and pre-existing Yahoo accounts which log on from the same machine but which belong to a different person and are put to quite different uses?

xmailer · 21 Jun 2011, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by communicant

Might all activity on that machine be funneled into an erroneous profile of whoever can most easily be identified as the likely owner of the machine (such as the person who pays the ISP bills), regardless of whether the information really applied to that person?

And that brings me back to the original email question. Should the person with the Ovi.com account be concerned that the Yahoo affiliation might result in some sort of erroneous linkage being made between the Ovi account and pre-existing Yahoo accounts which log on from the same machine but which belong to a different person and are put to quite different uses?

While it may be a hypothetical possibility, I suspect that the obvious great room for error might make its lack of practical usefulness obvious enough to Yahoo to prevent them from "exploiting" it extensively purely in their own self-interest. That is, what value would inaccurate data have to them?

(In fact, I seem to recall you bringing up essentially the same issue with regard to Google/ Gmail in the (sub)forum for that service awhile ago.)

communicant · 21 Jun 2011, 07:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xmailer

While it may be a hypothetical possibility, I suspect that the obvious great room for error might make its lack of practical usefulness obvious enough to Yahoo to prevent them from "exploiting" it extensively purely in their own self-interest. That is, what value would inaccurate data have to them?

(In fact, I seem to recall you bringing up essentially the same issue with regard to Google/ Gmail in the (sub)forum for that service awhile ago.)

What an extraordinarily good memory you have, xmailer! Yes, I recall that I did raise a similar point some time ago, about the association by IP of regular Gmail accounts and Gmail clones that are "powered" by Gmail in other countries. Given Google's voracious and indiscriminating appetite for data, whether cooked or raw, that was not an unreasonable concern, nor do I think it is unreasonable in the case that I cited above regarding Yahoo. The fact that some course of action does not seem profitable to a logical mind such as yours need not lead one to infer that a huge corporation will apply the same degree of logic in making its decisions. Companies every day do things that seem to run against even their crass self-interest, and for which there is no obvious or evident justification. This may occur because of greed, or stupidity, or simple lack of cogent thought, none of which is in short supply in the corporate world.

21 Jun 2011, 06:03 AM	#26
communicant Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 879	privacy concern: Ovi.com and Yahoo acc'ts associated by IP? This question is not directly connected to the previous posts in the thread, but it seemed best to put it here rather than starting a separate new thread, for the question does deal generally with an uneasy concern about whether separate accounts can "connect" in odd ways that might raise privacy concerns. In this scenario, let's say that a family member has an account of fairly long standing at Ovi.com, an account that was created long before the affiliation with Yahoo. Now that Ovi is "powered" by Yahoo, logging on to an Ovi account presumably creates a record of some sort in a Yahoo database, especially since an Ovi user can log on to an Ovi account directly through Yahoo, using the Ovi.com address instead of a Yahoo userID. Now let's say that a second family member has accounts at Yahoo that are used for things that have nothing at all to do with the online interests or activities of the family member who has the Ovi account, but the two people often make use of the same computer. I know that an IP address is tied only to a machine and not to any individual user, but I still wonder if there now exists, somewhere in the Yahoo database, a connection between the Ovi.com account and the Yahoo accounts, a connection which did not exist before the Ovi affiliation with Yahoo. Data mining and online profiling have progressed to such frightening levels that no worry now seems too farfetched. In this case the concern is mostly just on general principles, but it would still be troubling if, for example, a profile of the Yahoo account holder's interests (as inferred, say, from membership in Yahoo groups, various site visits, and so on) were to be conflated in some way with the entirely different interests of the Ovi.com account holder. I have always wondered how the data miners handle such allocations (or more likely fail completely to do so!) when a shared IP address serves multiple users on a stable and continuing basis, especially in a small group like a family. (Obviously I am not referring to a public computer in a library or café, which would have hundreds or even thousands of different users over time.) This is not an idle concern, because it can have serious practical consequences. To take a related "Real World" example, when a retail establishment tracks purchases with a loyalty card or discount card, all purchases on any one card are attributed and allocated to the profile of a single shopper, no matter how many other people he or she may actually be shopping for, so if a wife buys a box of cigars for a husband (or for visiting Uncle Harry), or loads up the cart with junk food for some other family members or guests, those purchases will become part of her consumer profile and she might later be tagged as a smoker or a poor nutrition risk when applying for health or life insurance. Precisely this sort of thing has been reported as actually occurring and it is not merely hypothetical, so I presume the same possibility exists with an IP address and online profiling. Might all activity on that machine be funneled into an erroneous profile of whoever can most easily be identified as the likely owner of the machine (such as the person who pays the ISP bills), regardless of whether the information really applied to that person? And that brings me back to the original email question. Should the person with the Ovi.com account be concerned that the Yahoo affiliation might result in some sort of erroneous linkage being made between the Ovi account and pre-existing Yahoo accounts which log on from the same machine but which belong to a different person and are put to quite different uses? Last edited by communicant : 21 Jun 2011 at 06:17 AM. Reason: correction and addition

11 Apr 2011, 06:17 AM	#16
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	But there is a big difference between one mailbox collecting the emails received in another mailbox, or having an option (after signing in to LuxSci) to really navigate into the Safe Mail account. If a mailbox collects the emails from different accounts, this is still something different than actually navigating into that other account as if you'd sign in with its username and password. It's the latter scenario that I'm worried about. Not sure if fetchmail (or any other option in the interface) could actually do that?

11 Apr 2011, 06:47 AM	#19
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	They're not paranoia, they're anxiety disorder. Which in some cases overlaps, maybe but in all honesty it isn't a pleasant disorder to have. I don't want to lament about it though, just opened this topic to know if I should be worried or not. I also didn't insinuate LuxSci would be accessing the account, I'm just enquiring if it is possible to sign in and then navigate into the Safe Mail account without providing the password for the latter mentioned as well. If that would be possible you cannot exclude the option of pressing the wrong button yourself (whereas I do remember with 100% certainty to not have navigated to Safe Mail from any work computer, only having signed in to LuxSci). Now I normally try to ignore fears because that's the only way to deal with anxiety disorder: not giving in to fears. However, when it's something quite important (and this is such issue) I rather enquire than to just assume it's an irrational fear.

11 Apr 2011, 06:45 PM	#21
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	Very true, and LuxSci have been very reliable and helpful ; it's not like I insinuate they'd access other mail accounts. I think the "anxiety disorder" part is the key term in my question ; as said I don't want to lament about a disorder I happen to have, I wouldn't consider it worth mentioning on a forum irrelated to this, except for the fact that in this question the disorder is what causes the concern. The anxiety feeds me with insecurity on daily basis that I would be making mistakes with serious consequences myself. However if the thing I am afraid of is technically not possible, then I would know I worry for no reason ; if the concern would be theoretically realistic I'd see what I can do to avoid the hassle I fear in the first place. My concern is not that any mail host would get into other accounts of myself themselves ; the fear is that I would have made the mistake myself by signing into an account from a work computer or public terminal, not realising there is an option in the interface that gives access to the Safe Mail account I used for signing up to LuxSci. In this case, if it would be realistic that one can navigate into the interface/account of Safe Mail without entering the password of that mailbox too, then I would be the one having made a very stupid mistake because the next user of this computer could navigate into my Safe Mail mailbox which is one I only open from my own home computer. I am not sure if it is possible at all to navigate from one inbox into another without providing the password, but if it were then this is an option I would not like to see other people use to get into my email accounts. Hence it would have been a stupidity of mine to sign in from another computer than my own if such option would exist.

12 Apr 2011, 07:10 PM	#23
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	Fetchmail involves collecting mails from another mailbox but without option to just navigate into that mailbox without knowing the password? Or do I still misunderstand this?

12 Apr 2011, 10:23 PM	#25
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	But even if one would have set this up (which I cannot remember ever having done so, as I wouldn't know how to trace Safe-Mail's server addresses) ; do I understand correctly that fetchmail would only collect the emails from the other account but not give any option to navigate directly into the interface/inbox of that same account it collects emails from?