Petraeus, Allen and the wrath of email

The Two Generals

What is so utterly unbelievable about the Generals Petraeus and Allen is their apparent naivety.

Here they are experts at secure communications. Here they are intelligent and capable military officers. What could ever overcome them to believe that any communications on the open net is secure and undiscoverable? These firms actually do a lot of data mining, well beyond most of our comprehension. (Just use your favorite search engine on any topic. You will get thousands of hits. Imagine the computing power this requires. During the nights when few are hitting on searches, these servers do not rest. ) Anything appearing interesting is flagged. Even I know this. This is why it is good advice never post anything of any salacious, sensitive, or derogatory nature through these messengers.

But if you must... Use a messenger that supports encryption, such as PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), very difficult, no incredibly difficult, to decrypt. Make certain your messenger does not support (unknown to you) built in key-stroke software - always kind of a mystery. This goes well beyond virus software detection. It does that using them implies a certain trust. Do you have it?

At this point, I feel certain that what ever company was the email provider has the complete transcript of the communications. So much for security.

It is simply inconceivable these guys have been doing this. While Petraeus and Allen are great patriots, warriors, and consummate generals, actually how dumb can they get? Can it be that the good general was used as needed, then fired and discarded? We may never know, though Petraeus does.

I do feel bad for them and the country (mine) that may lose their services - they are phenomenal public servants. However, we the people are the bigger losers in this game of mayhem and indiscretion.

I am astonished.

P.S. All this includes texting.

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