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Lea Kissner's job is making sure Google products protect the privacy of users

gizmodo.com

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Re: Lea Kissner's job is making sure Google products protect the privacy of users

#11

Post by nielsbot »

confounded wrote: post #5

> The fundamental challenge... is making computing systems that people feel comfortable using. “They don’t feel safe, they don’t feel trust... Does this company have my best interests at heart at all?..” Making users feel good about surrendering data, defined as “protecting privacy”. Google’s positioning on the current furor is pretty interesting. Specifically the preferred corporate definition of ‘privacy’ to mean..…

I find the [x] button on Google's ads annoying. I click the [x] to mean "remove this ad" but that is not one of the options presented. Wouldn't it be better for users and Google if clicking [x] actually removed the ad from the page?

Re: Lea Kissner's job is making sure Google products protect the privacy of users

#12

Post by grimskin »

Well, they definitely do fail at the very core. For the non-enterprise Gmail accounts, there is basically no way for account owners to reattain control over an account if it was hijacked. Google product forums full of people blocked from the recovery of their account by sudo-AI recovery form and all the support they get is repeated "use recovery form" from some kind of "google community volunteers" (or something like that).

E-mail account is basically a concentration of personal data and doing so little to protect that negates everything else.

Re: Lea Kissner's job is making sure Google products protect the privacy of users

#13

Post by kerng »

dogecoinbase wrote: post #3

This will probably go about as well as Alex Stamos protecting the private data of Facebook users (and, I suppose, Yahoo users before that).

Interesting, I noticed as well that Alex Stamos has a record of data breaches that he leaves behind. What's his next gig? Does anyone know? Will be curious to follow.

Re: Lea Kissner's job is making sure Google products protect the privacy of users

#14

Post by confounded »

grimskin wrote: post #12

Well, they definitely do fail at the very core. For the non-enterprise Gmail accounts, there is basically no way for account owners to reattain control over an account if it was hijacked. Google product forums full of people blocked from the recovery of their account by sudo-AI recovery form and all the support they get is repeated "use recovery form" from some kind of "google community volunteers" (or something like…

You make an excellent point, but I’d say the bigger problem with Gmail from a privacy stand-point is that your contacts and email contents are surrendered to an ad-surveillance company, and deliberately stored in plain-text, for any international government that fancies a look.

Even if you accept that that’s a price worth paying for the service, you’re “snitching” on all your friends you exchange numbers/emails with. If you avoid Gmail, they still have all your email, just from the other end.

Re: Lea Kissner's job is making sure Google products protect the privacy of users

#15

Post by sametmax »

So no PRISM ? And analytics and google font don't collect my data when I'm not on a google site ? And no scanning of my gmail messages ? And I can install updates for my Android apps easily without linking my personal email to my phone ( and risking cloud contact/photo sync if I didn't do this right) ? And ads don't get personalized to my profile according to all those data ?

Re: Lea Kissner's job is making sure Google products protect the privacy of users

#16

Post by throwaway84742 »

theDoug wrote: post #9
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #6

It's interesting to me that the article mentions Yonatan Zunger, since he left Google in July 2017. Before working in the Privacy team (as a Distinguished Engineer), he was Chief Architect for G+. His short stint in Privacy (8 months) before quitting Google for a startup makes me nervous. But maybe I'm reading too much and he just needed to move on from Google after 14 years. https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger ht…

You can always ask him directly, rather than work in imagination. He is a friendly person.

> He is a friendly person

Having read many of his internal rants at Google that’s not the epithet I would use. He certainly is a solid engineer though.

Re: Lea Kissner's job is making sure Google products protect the privacy of users

#17

Post by Buge »

grimskin wrote: post #12

Well, they definitely do fail at the very core. For the non-enterprise Gmail accounts, there is basically no way for account owners to reattain control over an account if it was hijacked. Google product forums full of people blocked from the recovery of their account by sudo-AI recovery form and all the support they get is repeated "use recovery form" from some kind of "google community volunteers" (or something like…

Whenever you make the recovery process easier, you make it easier for attackers to "recover" victims' accounts.

Switching from pseudo-AI to humans isn't necessarily better. I had an attacker successfully social engineer a support person into changing the email associated with one of my videogame accounts which had some valuable items.

Preventing attackers from getting my password is something I can do myself. Preventing attackers from "recovering" my account is not something I can do myself. So I prefer services to have difficult recovery.

Re: Lea Kissner's job is making sure Google products protect the privacy of users

#19

Post by [deleted] »

sametmax wrote: post #15

So no PRISM ? And analytics and google font don't collect my data when I'm not on a google site ? And no scanning of my gmail messages ? And I can install updates for my Android apps easily without linking my personal email to my phone ( and risking cloud contact/photo sync if I didn't do this right) ? And ads don't get personalized to my profile according to all those data ?

[deleted]

Re: Lea Kissner's job is making sure Google products protect the privacy of users

#20

Post by [deleted] »

sametmax wrote: post #15

So no PRISM ? And analytics and google font don't collect my data when I'm not on a google site ? And no scanning of my gmail messages ? And I can install updates for my Android apps easily without linking my personal email to my phone ( and risking cloud contact/photo sync if I didn't do this right) ? And ads don't get personalized to my profile according to all those data ?

[deleted]
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