Five Ways You Could Be Snooped On In 2014
EMAIL INTERCEPTION
People worry a lot about this, but it's actually not so easy for the Indian government to do this legally.
Most popular email services are U.S. based, with servers located outside India, and do not fall under Indian jurisdiction.
There is no easy way to intercept a Gmail message you send from a web browser. (The US agency NSA taps directly into those servers under the Prism program)
This does not mean your email is safe. The problem of "phishing" (acquiring login, password, credit card and other details) is so rampant that most Indians will lose an email, banking, or other account to hackers, at some point. You get an email supposedly from Gmail or your bank, saying you need to validate your account. You enter your login and password, and someone steals your account.
India is the fourth most phishing-attacked nation globally. A recent survey by EMC says phishing scams cost Indian firms $53 million in just July-September 2013.
So can the Government take over your email account this way? Not legally. But, yes, rogue individuals could "phish" and break into your email.
The only people safe from Government snooping are terrorists. They use encryption, making it difficult to crack their messages. More and more people now will begin to do the same thing.
The people most vulnerable to targeted phishing attacks are Government officials who, in India, tend to use Gmail and Hotmail extensively, and are simply not trained in security.
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