[tor-talk] Google and Gmail

[Marsh Ray]

On 09/10/2011 10:22 PM, Andre Risling wrote:
> I've noticed a lot of people that are concerned about privacy and
> security are using Gmail accounts.
>
> Do you really trust Google not to read your email and tell THE MAN what
> you've been saying?

No.

But technologies like Tor are general purpose and useful for many 
things. Sometimes other people in the world have different instances of 
"THE MAN", maybe theirs might be expected to not have the same access to 
Gmail.

Accessing Gmail from within a network which is trying to block or 
intercept it is a easy to explain and realistic scenario. That type of 
example is useful for discussing the general security properties of a 
system.

It also happens to be a service under active attack right now, providing 
a case study for attackers and defenders alike. This is historic: in the 
almost two decades of web security history, this is the first time a 
certificate issued by a widely trusted root CA has been detected in use 
in large scale man-in-the-middle attacks.

- Marsh