Friday, November 9, 2007

Criminals beware, secure may not be secure !

If you thought you could hide your nefarious activities by signing up with one of the numerous "secure" email account sites, such as Hushmail, then you are wrong. Take the case of Tyler Strumbo who just got busted in a large DEA sting posed against him in the much publicized nationwide effort to stop steroid distribution. Mr. Strumbo had been for the past year selling large quantities of steroids over classified ads and making a decent income from it.

Mr. Strumbo however did not keep a legit job on the side and the IRS and other feds got involved. Tyler was smart enough to use a e-mail service that would hide his illicit business deals and contacts the Hushmail service. After setting him up by making buys of the roids and tracing a UPS mailbox to his name, they swooped in and grabbed him and in the process got access to his e-mail.

Hushmail, to their credit does admit that if you use their web-based email system it is less secure, by way of Hushmail themselves having your password and being liable to a federal subpoena. Mr. Strumbo would have only had to have maintained using his Hushmail Java applet and the evidence would have been much thinner. Instead the feds have a whopping 12 CDs worth of e-mail, Ouch!

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