First off, there is zero security online. ZERO. Anything you type into a computer can come back to haunt you. The General and his mistress knew that sending emails could cause problems, so they created an email account and wrote drafts to each other- and then both signed into the same account.
Had they done this at public libraries, and been in a disguise each time, it might have worked, but they used their own computers- hooked into the internet via the same IP addresses – which made it possible to trace.
You’d think we’d be able to stop spammers easily- because we can track them down via their IP- but even spammers are smart, they try to get many computers at different IP addresses to do their sending for them. The general and his girlfriend could have used some of the anonymous IP browsing tools available, but even then, you have to be careful about what else is on your computer because things like Java or Flash can help id you.
A really good tip for all of us, is to have multiple browsers on our computer, with one like Firefox or Chrome for general browsing, but then only using Safari for anything requiring a password or secure transaction.