EMAIL

During the last couple of days, I have been devoting some time to deleting old emails from my inbox and elsewhere. I generally delete emails as they arrive, but they nonetheless seem to accumulate at a rapid rate. A long time ago, I came to the conclusion that no email communication can ever be deemed private. However, it never occurred to me that emails I deleted were not actually being deleted. As I proceeded to delete the emails, I noticed that after the first two sets of deletions, only two percent (2%) of the emails entered into the "deleted mail" box. It seems that someone realized that I was deleting emails and decided that they would capture virtually email I deleted.

My emails contain nothing of interest to the average hacker who is looking for government top secret documents, corporate merger documents, and similar information. The only entity who might be interested in capturing my deleted emails is Israel, especially given their technological advancements. Assuming that the culprit was Israel, my email provider has a major security issue.

​If every email deleted by a government agency, a military operation, a corporation's counsel, or the President of a company is fair game and capable of being captured and the information used for the benefit of others, I shudder to think of what might be looming around the corner or over the horizon. Deleted emails should not be treated as discarded thrash, openly available to anyone who seeks to mine it for information. Email providers should be required to install virtual shredders so that private and confidential information remains private and confidential, even after it has been deleted.