Displaying items by tag: Gmail

The news that a feature in Gmail that shows a verification check mark for a sender is being abused by attackers should come as a surprise to no one. After all attackers have coopted, code singing certificates, legitimate web sites, and more as part of their attack processes, why wouldn’t a simple blue check mark be difficult? The new feature was introduced last month and, on the surface, looks like a great idea. Show that the sender of an email is who they say they are.

A couple of days ago Google started pushing encryption for e-mail. No, we are not talking about the typical https connection required for Gmail. We are talking about actually encryption of email as it moves from server to server using TLS (Transport Layer Security). In simplest terms this method creates connections between servers using a secure tunnel to each other for the purposes of transmitting the message. Once the message has been passed to the destination server the tunnel closes. However, despite the length of time TLS has been around not many companies use.

Users who do not want or simply do not have enough room on their Android devices for attachments that they received via Gmail service, can now save their attachments via new options. The new version of the Gmail application for Android devices will be able to directly store attachments received via Gmail in Google's data storage service - Google Drive.

A few users noticed that Google is testing a new interface for its popular Gmail service. Good people from Geek.com have snagged a few screenshots from the test phase of the new website, and have shared them with the public.

Users of Gmail Android app until now could sent as an attachment only photos and videos, but with the new version 4.7 Google has finally allowed sending of other file types. The new version of Gmail allows sending of zipped files which can also now be downloaded directly to the Android device.

In life, there are many things that we all take for granted. These are everyday things that always just seem to be there and are only conspicuous when they are absent. In the last week two of these items have shown that they are not as enduring as many might have thought. Google and Amazon have both had major outages to their services that impacted internet traffic. These two mysterious outages have caused some concern about the reliability of both companies as well as the possibility of a larger issue (perhaps a potential attack). However, neither Google nor Amazon are coming clean about these incidents making many even more nervous.

Google has made the statement that users of Gmail not only have consented to any electronic snooping and scanning of their communication, but have no reasonable expectation that their mail will remain private anyway. The revelation comes through a brief filed by Google to dismiss a data-mining suit against them. In it they describe the act of sending email through their services as if you are handing your letter to someone else. They seem to forget that letters are processed by the post office (or other carrier) and during transit cannot legally be opened. This makes the analogy very inaccurate indeed.

Google has announced their financial results for the second quarter of 2013. They reported total revenues of $14.11 billion (an increase of 19% compared to the same period last year), of which $12.1 billion came directly from advertising services. Operating profit was also impressive, $3.23 billion U.S. dollars, compared to 2.79 billion from the last year.

As they say on Google's official blog, every day our inboxes are bombarded with different types of emails - messages from friends, notifications from social networks, newsletters, automated email which serve to confirm the registration on a web site, etc.

Google wants to force all new users upgrade to the new (well, now is not so new) message editor in Gmail. For those who have not (willingly) switched to the new editor, in the next few days they will be moved to a new editor force, if they have not already. During that transfer Gmail will walk them through a short course where they explain where they can found all the things they use.