Love and terror in the draft email folder

  • by:
  • 08/21/2022

The Associated Press clears up a little misunderstanding about the Petraeus scandal.  The CIA Director and his mistress Paula Broadwell weren't sending racy emails to each other.  Oh, no, they were much too clever for that.

FBI agents traced the alleged cyber harassment [of Tampa socialite Jill Kelley] to Broadwell, the officials said, and discovered she was exchanging intimate messages with a private Gmail account. Further investigation revealed the account belonged to Petraeus under an alias.

Petraeus and Broadwell apparently used a trick, known to terrorists and teenagers alike, to conceal their email traffic, one of the law enforcement officials said.

Rather than transmitting emails to the other's inbox, they composed at least some messages and instead of transmitting them, left them in a draft folder or in an electronic "dropbox," the official said. Then the other person could log onto the same account and read the draft emails there. This avoids creating an email trail that is easier to trace.

(Emphasis mine.)  Do the terrorists and teenagers routinely practice this clandestine shared-account communication on the world's most popular web mail service?  Wouldn't it have made more sense to open an account on a much smaller service with less aggressive data tracking policies?

Image:
ADVERTISEMENT

Opinion

View All

British schoolchildren more violent due to lockdown–causes developmental delays: BBC study

Nearly one in five teachers at schools across England reported being hit by a student in the past yea...

London features 'Happy Ramadan' lights throughout city over Easter weekend

The lights have drawn criticism from prominent conservatives who insisted that the council ought to s...

Polish foreign minister claims US was aware of Nord Stream pipeline attack but 'did not prevent it'

Radoslaw Sikorski suggested it was done by "someone who had a vested interest in it."...