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A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

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Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#91

Post by xj9 »

ddlatham wrote: post #52
rayiner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no reason that stuff can't be done on the client side. Outlook works just peachy searching my GB's of emails and attachments from its local replica, using the internet only to sync.

Not true - there are reasons not to do it on the client instead. Consider a web email client instead. It's not feasible to login to the site, download a full archive of your email, decrypt it, and index it before being able to do a search.

IndexedDB[1] sort of makes that a non-issue, doesn't it?

[1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/IndexedDB_A...

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#92

Post by roflchoppa »

soylentcola wrote: post #31

"There’s irony in any tech company confronting the government on privacy matters, considering how much heat many take for mining their own customer information and using it for advertising and other profitable purposes." See, I don't find this very ironic. In fact, my only real issue with data mining and analysis by these sorts of companies is the way governments can demand this info without my approval. If Microsoft…

Hey man people always bring up this point, does anyone have MORE information about how that infrastructure works? I made a Facebook account for my class the other day, with nothing but my name and email. Now I'm 50 friends deep with old classmates // co-workers. Creepy. But HOW intrusive is this system?

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#93

Post by Filligree »

guelo wrote: post #69
wvenable wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fourth Amendment seems to be pretty merky when it comes to data about you belonging to and stored with other entities.

The "3rd party doctrine" is a bullshit interpretation and it needs to die. When I go through the trouble of coming up with a long complicated password and setup two factor authentication it's pretty obvious that I have "an expectation of privacy". Maybe what the tech companies need to do is have a checkmark on sign up that says "I expect my data to be private".

It sounds like a joke, but would this work?

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#94

Post by fauigerzigerk »

morninj wrote: post #87
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also wouldn't make any money from advertising and the government would pretty soon outlaw the practice.

Some actors in the US government have been trying to outlaw consumer cryptography for decades, and so far they haven't succeeded. See, e.g., the Clipper Chip battle from 1994.

Exactly, but that's because so few people are actually using end to end cryptography. Now imagine the internet giants had petabytes of encrypted data in their data centers. Apart from the fact that it's completely impractical because that data can't be used for anything other than downloading, it would give a huge boost to those in the government (or governments actually) who want to outlaw it.

From a somewhat elitist perspective I actually prefer the status quo. At least, today, we have backup services like SpiderOak or tarsnap and we can use encrypted email (I don't) or other communications software.

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#95

Post by [deleted] »

soylentcola wrote: post #31

"There’s irony in any tech company confronting the government on privacy matters, considering how much heat many take for mining their own customer information and using it for advertising and other profitable purposes." See, I don't find this very ironic. In fact, my only real issue with data mining and analysis by these sorts of companies is the way governments can demand this info without my approval. If Microsoft…

[deleted]

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#96

Post by mindslight »

soylentcola wrote: post #31

"There’s irony in any tech company confronting the government on privacy matters, considering how much heat many take for mining their own customer information and using it for advertising and other profitable purposes." See, I don't find this very ironic. In fact, my only real issue with data mining and analysis by these sorts of companies is the way governments can demand this info without my approval. If Microsoft…

It seems like you're perfectly content for Googappazon to turn around and voluntarily sell "your" data to governments.

Given that it's really their data about you, they don't even need to disclose this in the TOS. The best you could hope for is for companies to loudly prevent themselves in their contracts. Of course they could end up going through commercial third parties, or any other plausibly justifiable loophole when they get serious about increasing earnings. Even if they wholeheartedly break your contract and you provably find out, what was your consideration actually worth - a few dollars? You'd be in an even weaker position to show damages than you are now with the NSA.

The ability to consent/decline is indeed a powerful distinction between corporations and government - I believe our world would be much better if every association were voluntary and we could opt out of things we found harmful. But juxtaposing governments/corporations and arguing against one by wholesale endorsing of the other, especially for something as slippery as data, is a Faustian bargain.

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#98

Post by Klathmon »

xj9 wrote: post #91
ddlatham wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true - there are reasons not to do it on the client instead. Consider a web email client instead. It's not feasible to login to the site, download a full archive of your email, decrypt it, and index it before being able to do a search.

IndexedDB[1] sort of makes that a non-issue, doesn't it? [1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/IndexedDB_A...

I don't want GBs of emails on my phone, desktop, laptop, wife's laptop, work PC, and anywhere else that I want to use email.

And I don't want to waste power and time syncing all that data between those devices just so i can do the same things i can now but less efficient (and with still more drawbacks)

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#99

Post by warfangle »

harrumph wrote: post #47

Agreeing "for once"? Hardly. Apple and Microsoft are already on record as agreeing to fix wages, creating a cartel affecting a million tech workers. https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage...

And because tech workers see unions as evil....

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#100

Post by JupiterMoon »

x0054 wrote: post #80
alan_cx wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the UK, no idea where you are. I don't trust my government one bit with my data, or any one elses. The US so called justice system literally scares the hell out of me. From a UK perspective, its terrifying. Unfortunately for UK subjects, the UK government willingly hands our data over to the US government, and equally willingly allows us to be extradited on little more than a request. Being a European Citizen…

Out of curiosity, which aspect of the US leal system scares you so much? I was under the impression that UK has a rather similar legal system in many respects, and has a number of problems as well. Personally I am a little scared of the French and German legal systems. And last year I read a very scary article about the Swedish legal system on HN. US is doing a lot of things wrong these days when it comes to privacy,…

By European standards prison sentences in the US are very very long. There is also a perception that in the US the system is loaded against people who don't have enough money to pay for a good lawyer.
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