Yahoo introduces new encryption methods to protect users from spying (article)

http://rt.com/news/yahoo-encryption-methods-security-017/

 

And the EFF were the ones that even got them to even start implementing even basic stuff: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/yahoo-mail-makes-https-available


"26 individuals and organizations sent a letter to Yahoo! asking for HTTPS support for Yahoo! Mail."
https://www.eff.org/document/letter-marissa-mayer

 

If yahoo was really serious they would not require you mobile number for verification during sign up

Ms hotmail do the same thing, but few years ago both did NOT.

 

http://receive-sms-online.com/

 

thanks that is a great alternative

 

Is Yahoo “too big to encrypt”?

 

Hmm, now if Yahoo would enable GPG by default, store people's emails on their servers encrypted, stop spying on people's emails themselves for advertisting purposes, and create a web app that encrypts emails in the browser before they go to Yahoo's servers so even Yahoo can't read them, maybe it would be something of a private system.

In any case, it's clever of Yahoo (and Google) to focus on NSA spying as a way to divert attention from their own spying (which is far far more intrustive).

 

Even if Yahoo would enable GPG/web app encryption, they would probably only be able to do it between Yahoo users, and they would to store the encryption keys or it wouldn't user friendly if users have to exchange themselves offline. With encrypted storage they would have the keys as well, maybe also decrypt it temporarily for advertising.
If you want to have privacy, don't use Yahoo. With all the news about NSA spying there are a lot of encrypted communication alternatives coming up and internet giants like Yahoo feel the competition and start enabling encryption. However a lot of services don't use end-to-end encryption and give a false sense of security/privacy.

 

Yes, I was being sarcastic about the news story in the OP, about how Yahoo's encryption of communication between their own servers doesn't give people that much privacy, and about how by focusing people's attention on the way they are "protecting" their users from NSA spying they are really deflecting attention from their own spying and how not-private their email system remains. I do not expect Yahoo to enable the sort of protocols I described, if they did I still wouldn't trust them, and besides it would undermine their business model (hence Google also would never do anything like that).

What Yahoo really should have said with the announcement was: We are working out hardest to ensure that no one bulk spies on our users email except us and any third party marketing agencies we've contracted with (as well as the occasional properly warranted government agency).

 

Indeed

 

Their POP and IMAP servers still don't support TLS1.1/1.2 and Forward Secrecy.

 

How do they say. Fool me once?


A totally unrelated link: security theater.

 

Few days ago I have signed up for a yahoo email account ; giving any mobile phone number was not mandatory, as it is with Gmail.