Ask Leo! #609 – More Windows 10, Https for Everything, Saving that Free Upgrade, and more…

Why do you need my email address? To sell it? It's "required" but won't be "published"?

Ha ha ha.

What ever happened to free speech?

I need it in case I need to contact you about your comment, and to encourage you to be responsible for what you post. Since you did not use a real email address (as some choose to do), I can't contact you (you may not care) and it's one more data point that I use when deciding whether or not to allow your comment to stand.

Free speech simply doesn't apply when you post a comment on someone else's web site. It's my site, and I set the rules, period. That's true for every website on the planet - the owner sets the rules. Free speech may apply (depending on an assortment of other factors, not the least of which is where you live) if you set up your own web site. You can say whatever you want on your own web site. That's free speech.

My email used to be handled by the university I used to work for. Around the time I retired, the university farmed out its email to gmail. (The U generously allows us retirees to keep our University email accounts.)

There is no way the University would have farmed out the handling of email if there was a significant risk that University email was not properly backed up, and/or properly available. Maybe I can't trust "the cloud," but I do trust "the university" to do due diligence on the way its email is being handled.

Gmail keeps deleted email for a month. Me "accidentally" deleting my email, *and* failing to realize I've done that for more than a month, is a risk I am willing to take. I'm not backing up my email, and I have no intention of starting to do so. (Noting that my email in regard to the charity I work with is archived on yahoo as well as being in gmail. This enables anyone on the staff to see all the mail on the topic of the charity. I believe that is "backed up" even to your satisfaction. :-) )

Do you think I'm being cavalier about this? I just can't see it as a risk. If the university doesn't regard it as a risk, for all of those people still working at the U and doing business in their email, I can't see the risk as significant. ??

On the other side of the coin -- my dad has copies of zillions of emails he's sent and received over the years on his Mac. It's my impression it's a headache to back up, and I would bet the farm that he couldn't find a particular email even if he wanted to look for it. There are downsides to keeping everything on your desktop as well as upsides, I think.

If someone hacked your account, and deleted everything in it (permanently and immediately so the 30 day thing wouldn't apply), would you be able to get it back from Gmail and/or the University? If the answer is a definite "yes", then I'm relatively happy. However if the answer is "I think so", or less, I'd start backing up right away.

Also, I'm not suggesting you need to keep it all IN your desktop/backup email program forever. I have email going back over 20 years, but the older stuff isn't directly accessible from my Thunderbird, for example. I have to take steps to access it.