|
|
|
|
|
|
by HerraBRE
2513 days ago
|
|
|
Unless your adversary has a time machine, deleting from the server protects your past e-mails from any server-side compromise. That's not nothing. :-) But you're right there are trade-offs. If you don't have good backups, you are indeed increasing the odds of data loss by managing the data yourself. That is also true of encryption of data at rest, you are increasing the odds of data loss to buy some protection against unauthorized access. There are always trade-offs. I had grand visions for how Mailpile could help mitigate such issues by encrypting the mail and re-uploading back to an IMAP server. But I haven't gotten that written, so for now it's just an idea. Someday, I hope. Disclaimer: I wrote Mailpile. :-D |
|
|
I'm going to go out on a limb, and assert that THE most common attack performed against peoples' e-mail, is a jealous person who knows their partner's password logging on to their e-mail and reading their mail.
I know people who have done this. You probably do too.
People trust each other, people routinely tell their loved ones their passwords. And relationships routinely fall apart and trust is routinely violated.
Deleting from the server mitigates this problem and greatly reduces the window of opportunity for the attacker.
The privacy cost/benefit ratio for routinely deleting from the server probably beats every other privacy enhancing technique out there. Super simple, super effective.
Techies too often forget that privacy isn't just about the NSA, APTs and TLAs. The fact is, the people most interested in violating your privacy are the people who know you personally...