Losing the email would be a disaster since the decentralized web is now relying on a centralized email system.
Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work
191–200 of 457 posts
Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work
#192The fact that every single comment in this thread amounts to "should have backed up" makes me a little sad. Is this really what we want to expect from companies like Google? Is this acceptable? Is it just a "force of nature" that I should consider beyond the ken of man? What happened here is the abrogation of human responsibility onto algorithms, TOS, with no apparent human oversight. A very disturbing trend, and I t…
Definitely. My dad, a now-retired programmer, was dealing with an error at his bank in the 80s. It was a bunch of work and frustration. At some point he asked why a thing happened and the rep said, "Oh, the computer just does that." He didn't say anything to her, but he was still mad when he talked about at dinner that night. "Computers don't just do things! People make computers do things. Every thing a computer doe…
I don't think the problem is software necessarily, it's scale. Software allows for scale but it's not the underlying cause. Google is responsible for the content of maybe hundreds of millions of people; if even a small fraction of them have issues that's overwhelming. At that scale it's impossible for you to be anything other than nothing to them.
Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Brilliantly said. I think everyone, unless they intend to be a digital hermit, should have his or her own personal domain. I know people are not routinely educated about these things, and that is a problem; but when an otherwise serious person tells me that his email address is joe12345@stupidmail.com, a red flag about his competence is raised somewhere in the back of my mind, at least.
Personal domains won't help you if the state releases laws which enables providers to silence whole domains against unwanted opinions. What we need is a new decentralized Internet. We need not only open source software (for security reasons), not only open hardware (for security reasons) but also a new open non-commercial Internet which cannot be censored.
Could you elaborate on the non-commercial aspects of this proposed solution? I think it's especially important to make it clear where the money will come from.
Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
Better way to put this is to pay for the service if you're relying on it as a source of income or advertising yourself to the world.
It's not just income, it's speech and association (which are capitalized words in the US Constitution).
"Association" doesn't appear in the Constitution at all.
"Speech" appears twice, but is only capitalized when referring to legislators' speeches:
"and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place"
"or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hm, I've spoken to gmail's lead developer for imap many times over the years and never detected even a hint of hostility. What have I missed?
I'll elaborate a little. The impression I have formed is that gmail will have whatever features google's gmail-for-businesses product needs. If a considerable percentage of customers (ie. the ones who pay per month and user) use a particular feature, then that feature stays and is maintained.
Does not the ol' Don't-Be-Evil corporation owe it to society to maintain features that support the common good?
I know from my experience in hwops that plenty of people on the corp domain DO believe that they are working towards a better world--and that making more money will only accelerate progress towards that goal.
The question is: are they wrong? Has Google lost its way?
Let's look not just at this IMAP issue but also at the OP as we ponder that.
Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work
#196From Reddit: "I've read a few of Cooper's books and the short answer is yes, pedophilia is a common theme in his writing (as is incest and necrophilia)." [1]
I'm calling it now. It was child porn. Google doesn't like to go around deleting people's stuff. When this has happened in the past it's been child porn, which Google is obligated by governments everywhere to delete with extreme prejudice. And of course they're not going to go around publicly accusing the guy of having child porn, even if he did, so they will remain silent. Neither will they tell someone who had child porn which exact piece of child porn tripped their child porn detector, for obvious reasons. This is not a Google issue; this is a law enforcement issue.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/4sx9aa/dennis_cooper...
Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely feel vindicated, it's the 3-2-1 rule 3 copies 2 different forms of media 1 offsite
Can you qualify what "2 different forms of media" means? I'm assuming one physical, one cloud. Do you consider two separate external HDD's with the data on it to fail that test because they are the same form? When my music collection was smaller, I had everything backed up onto an external as well as had them all physically burned onto like 50 DVDs. Since my collection has grown beyond a terabyte, however, I haven't…
A few examples I can pull off the top of my head - DVD, Disk (HDD), Disk (SSD), Disk (Flash.. maybe?), Tape, Cloud
So Disk (HDD) and Cloud is fine. Two HDDs (spinny platter style) would indeed fail the test. If you want to argue it you could probably get away with different manufacturers or different batches but I'd prefer my backups to play nicely with the rules rather than try to avoid them! Far-fetched as it is but lets say for example you have a power surge that takes out your external disk (is that even possible?). Chances are high whatever did that would also do that to your other disk. Or maybe a wall caves in and decimates your PC (or you just sweep the desk somehow and knock everything off it. Maybe the desk has collapsed) - The spinny disks may be destroyed if they are both hit hard enough. Mixing an HDD and SSD, the SSD would probably be more hardy against shock damage.
From another comment I made in this thread somewhere "I consider "cloud" as its own media type to avoid the pedantics of me storing files on a spinning disk and the cloud provider does too. Chances are they have server grade disks and their own backups [so it's different to just a raw disk]"
Edit: I use too many brackets here. I am going to attend my next available parenthesis anonymous support group.
Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, blaming the victim, always easy. Turn it around, though: if Google feels like it's not responsible for anything it hosts, shouldn't it say so, loud and clear? Say, a banner that says, "Hey, we'll delete your stuff any time we feel like it," at the top of every Gmail page? Google's users aren't parasites. There is both a relationship and an exchange of economic value. That's why Google has worked very hard to be t…
> Ah, blaming the victim, always easy. Typing out words on a forum and hitting "reply" is easy regardless whether you support the victim or not. Don't see your point?
Most services, but especially Gmail, promote themselves as something you can safely go all-in on. I recall an advertisement for Gmail where a father left messages to his just-born child, with the idea that when they were an adult they would be able to read them. The archive (vs delete) feature in gmail similarly reinforces that "we'll always have your stuff for you", as does the fact that they want your mail to stay on their servers, rather than fetched with IMAP/POP.
Sure, the TOS says "we can delete it whenever"/"no promises", but the advertising and general pitching of the product have heavily indicated otherwise. I don't see the service going away, and when you have so much identity tied to your email, it's pretty shocking to realize that it could all disappear in a flash.
If Google were to kill my email accounts, I would be _seriously_ disadvantaged.
Saying that only fools trust Google to keep your things forever is true, but also lacks empathy.
Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work
#199The hindsight-prescriptive comments here focus on backing up, and that's a sensible practice. But there was another kind of damage done here, to the man's identity, location and voice. His blog and his email address were his public persona. He used his blog and his address as identity, and as his channel of communication with followers, other artists, and I assume most of his general online communication. That person…
> Using your own domain is not absolute protection, because you don't really own your domain, you rent it. Good point; your domain can be seized for various sorts of percieved IP violation.
Or by mistake or fraud, or other reasons that you the renter had nothing to do with.
Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work
#200The fact that every single comment in this thread amounts to "should have backed up" makes me a little sad. Is this really what we want to expect from companies like Google? Is this acceptable? Is it just a "force of nature" that I should consider beyond the ken of man? What happened here is the abrogation of human responsibility onto algorithms, TOS, with no apparent human oversight. A very disturbing trend, and I t…
Definitely. My dad, a now-retired programmer, was dealing with an error at his bank in the 80s. It was a bunch of work and frustration. At some point he asked why a thing happened and the rep said, "Oh, the computer just does that." He didn't say anything to her, but he was still mad when he talked about at dinner that night. "Computers don't just do things! People make computers do things. Every thing a computer doe…
>"Computers don't just do things! People make computers do things. Every thing a computer does is something humans are responsible for."
I think the angle your father was coming at this was, computers are deterministic. There are lots of times when computers don't act deterministicly, flipped bits for one, also edge cases like Race Conditions etc