That's frigging opsec 101 ! You're breaking a story about Google using your Gmail account.. How the hell did this seem a "normal" thing to do ? Especially from a guy working at TechCrunch ! (Tech savvy).

I would imagine he thought Google would never read a journalist's e-mail.

Being naïve is a luxury a journalist can't afford. Not when the identity of his source and his career are at stake.

Assumptions are forbidden. Trust that a company he just wrote about won't read his e-mails is beyond comprehension.

And that cost someone their job and, probably, he's burned: Any employer will phone Google to get their opinion. I don't know if they agreed to keep it secret, but I'm pretty sure there will be a part where you'll have: "Off the record ? We fired him/her because he/she leaked a story to TechCrunch" in that phone call.

And yes, I'm pissed.

I mean, just ask yourself .. If you were Google and someone broke a major story about you, and he uses Gmail .. Wouldn't you want to sneak a little peek ?

I wouldn't do that if I were a child. That's just like invading a country, and using its postal services to transmit sensitive information: It is just ... I can't picture that.

"I mean, just ask yourself .. If you were Google and someone broke a major story about you, and he uses Gmail .. Wouldn't you want to sneak a little peek ?"

No, I wouldn't but I guess I was taught differently. On a business note, it is a clear signal to everyone that gmail is not a service you can use if you have ANY business dealings with Google. If you are tempted by this then you would be tempted to look behind the scenes of anything involving Google.

Maybe you wouldn't. But you can't risk your source's identity because you assume everyone was brought up in a good house. It's good to be good. It may be okay to be naïve if you're the only one involved, but if there's someone's job at stake, it's your duty to be a parnaoid son of a bitch. If not for yourself, then for the other person you try to protect.

A cop in a dark alley with a shady guy won't think :"I'm a good guy who's been well raised. I don't stab or shoot people.. This fellow citizen must be an upstanding one, let me just turn my back to him". If a cop thinks that way, he chose the wrong profession. I used the word naïve, but at that level of naïveté, it's being a stupid person or someone who doesn't want to live.

That's only half of the equation though. What if his potential sources are using gmail? He says he wasn't willing to share this important information because he didn't want to scare away sources. In doing so he prevented sources from taking the same security steps he was taking himself.

I would imagine most sources don't just blurt out the information. I would expect some back and forth which would probably give him the time to warn the other person.