by Charles Miller

Last week I teased that an explanation of the dark web was coming. The dark web is that secretive and mysterious part of the internet that consists of hidden sites that are private and off limits to traditional search engines. Hackers and cybercriminals lurk there. Search engines such as Google cannot find content on dark websites, and access to the dark web is restricted to those who know what is there. The dark web can be used for both legitimate purposes and illegal activities; and right now you are already among those who are using it. Your email is part of the dark web because your private correspondence is not open to the public and only available to you personally when you have the correct password.

Being located on the dark web, your personal emails as well as your calendar and contacts are not being indexed by search engines or by Artificial Intelligence. That is both because your private correspondence is supposed to stay private, and because email databases are not in a compatible format for AI to read. It should be noted that Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and other providers of free email are already reading your mails in order to monetize your personal information. Of course you already knew that is why those companies provide you free email, right?

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is software that can enable Artificial Intelligence to provide enhanced abilities, and email is one good example. If AI has permission to read and index all of your emails then it will be able to provide instant answers to any information in your emails. Anyone who has spent an hour looking for an old email you remember receiving from someone several years ago can appreciate AI being able to find that email instantly based on your description of what you are looking for.

As with other developing technologies, MCP provokes complex questions that are both legal and ethical. Your personal correspondences whether it be in the form of email or text messages or social media are not supposed to be for public consumption. For now, your correspondence is locked away on the dark web, and you are supposed to be the only ones with the password.

But your correspondence could be stored on computer servers owned by companies that might have different views on privacy. For example, the "Terms of Service" for Google, the document on which you clicked that [I agree] button gives them broad rights to use your data for their purposes. Google has stated they do not use the content of your personal emails to train their public AI, but the terms you agreed to do permit Google to use your personal data for "developing, improving, and personalizing" their products and services. Whether any email provider has the legal right to do this depends on your legal jurisdiction (the GDPR statute in Europe is much stricter than US law), and the specific wording of the document to which you clicked on [I agree!] might be considered.

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) was introduced by Anthropic in November 2024 to standardize the way Artificial Intelligence systems acquire and integrate data, therefore giving AI access to much more data. MCP adoption is still quite early and limited. Email appears to be where MPC can be put to good use, and there will be more online services that will find beneficial ways to deploy AI on their websites. It is probably wise for all of us to be alert and watch for updates announcing that MPC is being added to websites we use.

It remains to be seen how other websites we use might implement MCP. We can hope that the email provider that offered its customers the option to allow or disallow AI to index their personal data will be the norm. There are legitimate privacy concerns that come with allowing AI to access your personal banking medical, shopping, transportation, and other data. Right now all that information is on the dark web, protected by a password and beyond the reach of AI, search engines, and the general public. That is a part of the dark web that some users might prefer to keep dark., so if a website you use pops up an offer to enable a slick new AI "feature" you might want to think twice before clicking on [I agree.]

**************

Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant with decades of IT experience and a Texan with a lifetime love for Mexico. The opinions expressed are his own. He may be contacted at 415-101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.

Discover Lokkal: Mission

Visit SMA's Social Network

Contact / Contactar