Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America • Hacker News Board

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#31

Post by theklub » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 10:24 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #4

rasz_pl wrote: post #3

Romania, and parts of Poland where new Fiber networks are laid out have ~$35-40 1Gbit unlimited internet. Meanwhile people in US wonder how much Google is losing on $100 per 1Gb clients? :)

According to Akamai's State of the Internet report for Q1, the US has an average broadband speed of 11.9mbps. Romania is 12.8mbps, Poland is 9.8mbps. By comparison France is 7.5mbps, and Germany is 10.2mbps. Based on the median household income in Romania being 16% that of the US, if 1gbps Internet access there costs $35-$40, you're paying the US equivalent of $210-$240.

That's all pretty good. Especially considering the size of the US.

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#32

Post by jzwinck » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 10:26 AM UTC

omurphyevans wrote: post #29

Elepsis wrote: post #18

This is just mentioned as an aside in the article, but is this accurate? "Even now, the schools in Kansas City, Missouri, are effectively segregated, with almost all white children at private schools. Just nine per cent of pupils in the state system are white. Almost 90 per cent are on free lunches." That statistic was totally shocking to me. Are there any other places in the U.S. where there's such a dramatic dispar…

There was a recent This American Life episodes about this. Apparently the best way to raise poor black children's scores is to remove segregation, but white communities don't want it: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/t... I'm from the UK and was genuinely shocked. While there are disparities and issues over here, they're on a different scale compared to the US.

Yes, the US has race disparities above and beyond what the UK has. Part of this is because the US brought slaves to its own shores, whereas the UK kept them far afield and ultimately denied them citizenship.

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#33

Post by pdkl95 » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 10:31 AM UTC

Elepsis wrote: post #18

This is just mentioned as an aside in the article, but is this accurate? "Even now, the schools in Kansas City, Missouri, are effectively segregated, with almost all white children at private schools. Just nine per cent of pupils in the state system are white. Almost 90 per cent are on free lunches." That statistic was totally shocking to me. Are there any other places in the U.S. where there's such a dramatic dispar…

> That statistic was totally shocking to me.

Then I suggest you start catching up by reading this article, which does a very good job of explaining how racism and segregation didn't just end with the Civil Rights movement, even though that has been a popular myth among people with privilege (often not intentionally, which is yet another reason to always check your assumptions).

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case...

[if you only read one of my links, read this one]

> Are there any other places in the U.S.

Yes, many of the larger cities have grown even more segregated over time thanks to redlining.

http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/03/24/10-of-the-most-segreg...

> public school

Public school has always been the battleground for racial issues. After Brown v Board of Education, VA (and other states) circumvented the integration orders in what is known as the Massive Resistance[1]. This was the purpose behind the modern idea of "school vouchers": to get around an order to integrate public schools, vouchers were issued to give white people the "freedom of choice" to send their kids to a private school (aka "segregation academies"[2]), while minorities had to attend the (often deliberately underfunded) public school. We still see these ideas today, just with more obfuscation. The damage done to the public school system is going to take a long time to fix.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_resistance

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_academy

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#34

Post by yummyfajitas » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 10:36 AM UTC

jpatokal wrote: post #30

pdkl95 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am always amazed when people can't figure out that google is doing this because their business model is based on "targeted advertising", which necessarily requires gathering as much personal information as possible. All of their products are designed to give them different kinds of data, and being the man-in-the-middle to the entire internet on a per-household basis gives Google an incredibly fine-grained picture o…

Genuinely curious here: what additional data would Google get as an ISP that it doesn't already get via search, Gmail, ads, etc? Or do you mean "man-in-the-middle" in the cryptographic sense, and you think Google is playing mini-NSA and start spoofing Facebook certs so it can eavesdrop on SSL connections or something? See also Google Fiber's privacy policy: Other information from the use of Google Fiber Internet (suc…

MITM attacks. Verizon currently injects tracking headers into HTTP pages.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/verizon-x-uidh

A variety of ISP's (Comcast, MTNL, IDEA) also run MITM attacks and inject ads in pages, sometimes on behalf of law enforcement. I imagine they inject tracking as well.

https://blog.ryankearney.com/2013/01/comcast-caught-intercep...

https://medium.com/@sushubh/delhi-police-is-literally-doing-...

Google could either do these things or block others from doing them.

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#35

Post by stephenr » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 10:45 AM UTC

jpatokal wrote: post #30

pdkl95 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am always amazed when people can't figure out that google is doing this because their business model is based on "targeted advertising", which necessarily requires gathering as much personal information as possible. All of their products are designed to give them different kinds of data, and being the man-in-the-middle to the entire internet on a per-household basis gives Google an incredibly fine-grained picture o…

Genuinely curious here: what additional data would Google get as an ISP that it doesn't already get via search, Gmail, ads, etc? Or do you mean "man-in-the-middle" in the cryptographic sense, and you think Google is playing mini-NSA and start spoofing Facebook certs so it can eavesdrop on SSL connections or something? See also Google Fiber's privacy policy: Other information from the use of Google Fiber Internet (suc…

with your consent - when's the last time you actually read a the terms and conditions of your account?

Honestly even if you take that as meaning they won't ever track history of internet access to a google account, why would you assume they need to do that, just to have more information on you?

It's not like you escape their privacy invating antics if you just use google search (or a site with google ads) without an account.

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#36

Post by xienze » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 10:51 AM UTC

jpatokal wrote: post #30

pdkl95 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am always amazed when people can't figure out that google is doing this because their business model is based on "targeted advertising", which necessarily requires gathering as much personal information as possible. All of their products are designed to give them different kinds of data, and being the man-in-the-middle to the entire internet on a per-household basis gives Google an incredibly fine-grained picture o…

Genuinely curious here: what additional data would Google get as an ISP that it doesn't already get via search, Gmail, ads, etc? Or do you mean "man-in-the-middle" in the cryptographic sense, and you think Google is playing mini-NSA and start spoofing Facebook certs so it can eavesdrop on SSL connections or something? See also Google Fiber's privacy policy: Other information from the use of Google Fiber Internet (suc…

Well the problem with info gathered via search, GMail, etc. is that they can only capture info about things that go through their servers. With access to the Internet connection you can gather info about other sites the user visits, when they're typically online, how long they spend playing XBox, etc.

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#37

Post by pdkl95 » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 10:58 AM UTC

jpatokal wrote: post #30

pdkl95 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am always amazed when people can't figure out that google is doing this because their business model is based on "targeted advertising", which necessarily requires gathering as much personal information as possible. All of their products are designed to give them different kinds of data, and being the man-in-the-middle to the entire internet on a per-household basis gives Google an incredibly fine-grained picture o…

Genuinely curious here: what additional data would Google get as an ISP that it doesn't already get via search, Gmail, ads, etc? Or do you mean "man-in-the-middle" in the cryptographic sense, and you think Google is playing mini-NSA and start spoofing Facebook certs so it can eavesdrop on SSL connections or something? See also Google Fiber's privacy policy: Other information from the use of Google Fiber Internet (suc…

While they certainly can pull a man-in-the-middle in the cryptographic sense (DJB gave an outstanding talk[1] that discusses this problem), you seem to be assuming a lot. Google doesn't get much data from me at all (spyware like google analytics is blocked at the router, and I started blocking ads before Firefox existed). Even if you ignore that, there is a lot of traffic that Google normally doesn't have access to that they would be able to log as the ISP.

They get some of this already when people choose to hand Google their DNS traffic, but being the ISP makes this complete. You may want to also watch Aral Balkan's talk posted just above DJB's at the same URL; he does a better job than I can at describing how Google (and Facebook, etc) are using surveillance-as-a-business-model.

> Google Fiber's privacy policy

The risk of a national security letter (which the part you quoted includes as an exception) is already enough of a reason to limit how much personal data is in a single database, that's not the main problem. That policy isn't a binding contract. Do you really think it won't be changed the moment someone at Google decides it would be profitable?

They promised "Nest" data would stay separate, too, which quickly changed to sharing "limited" data. Sorry, but promises not to snoop don't mean much when the promise contradicts their business model.

[1] https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html...

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#38

Post by gopowerranger » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 11:15 AM UTC

chrisrogers wrote: post #20

Elepsis wrote: post #18

This is just mentioned as an aside in the article, but is this accurate? "Even now, the schools in Kansas City, Missouri, are effectively segregated, with almost all white children at private schools. Just nine per cent of pupils in the state system are white. Almost 90 per cent are on free lunches." That statistic was totally shocking to me. Are there any other places in the U.S. where there's such a dramatic dispar…

St. Louis has a similar disparity, especially vs its MSA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Public_Schools#Demog... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis#Demographics

Like most people, your links confuse people by combining St. Louis city with St. Louis county. However, St. Louis county is not part of St. Louis city. The statistics, such as this and the too often ballyhooed crime stats, are falsely skewed. It's like taking the crime stats of the baddest part of your town alone to represent the crime (or education) of your city as a whole.

Here's another example. The City of St. Louis has a population of under 300K. The County of St. Louis has a population of over one million! And that does NOT include St. Louis city. It's both fair and unfair to not include St. Charles City in this (for reasons I won't go into) which includes another 300K. So most stats you read about St. Louis are based on 300K out of a total population of 1.6 million! And the city is the baddest part of town.

Not that I don't agree that there is disparity but, as someone else pointed out, it's by choice, not anything the government does. That's another story, a truth, that no one on HN wants to believe and would downvote me into oblivion if I stated it.

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#39

Post by IshKebab » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 11:46 AM UTC

pdkl95 wrote: post #37

jpatokal wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious here: what additional data would Google get as an ISP that it doesn't already get via search, Gmail, ads, etc? Or do you mean "man-in-the-middle" in the cryptographic sense, and you think Google is playing mini-NSA and start spoofing Facebook certs so it can eavesdrop on SSL connections or something? See also Google Fiber's privacy policy: Other information from the use of Google Fiber Internet (suc…

While they certainly can pull a man-in-the-middle in the cryptographic sense (DJB gave an outstanding talk[1] that discusses this problem), you seem to be assuming a lot. Google doesn't get much data from me at all (spyware like google analytics is blocked at the router, and I started blocking ads before Firefox existed). Even if you ignore that, there is a lot of traffic that Google normally doesn't have access to t…

You are not typical.

Re: Google in Kansas City: A Tale of Two-Speed America

#40

Post by Asbostos » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 12:02 PM UTC

Either something's missing from the report of Vogl's argument, or she's trying to do something purely destructive in shutting down the startup offices. This seems to be the entirety of her case:

- The workers use up too many parking spaces.

- They're richer than us.

- They think we're poor.

- They commute to work instead of living in the office.

- They're untrustworthy because they're outsiders.