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Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

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Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#291

Post by XalvinX »

iainmerrick wrote: post #10

One thing I find strange about this is why Google is so keen to get this government business in the first place. They’re amazingly profitable already, one of the most successful companies of all time; is defense work really something that could become another major revenue stream? Given the obvious conflicts with their company culture (obvious to rank and file employees, anyway) it doesn’t seem like a very appealing…

FWIW, Eric Schmidt is a member of the Bilderberg Group....AND the Trilateral Commission too.

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#292

Post by v_lisivka »

dirtshell wrote: post #136
inglor wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Israeli, I believe that US intervention in the long term and the fact we were stuck in a proxy of the cold war did us mostly harm. While we see the US as an ally here - we haven't traditionally been at war with Arab countries and I think a big part of it was the influx of military equipment from the US to Israel and from the USSR (and later Russia) to the surrounding countries. (This is an oversimplification bu…

"While we see the US as an ally here - we haven't traditionally been at war with Arab countries" Literally since the founding of the state of Israel the country has been at war with the Arab nations. Could you expand on what you mean by this?

Hi tries to blame USA for mistakes of his own country.

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#293

Post by XalvinX »

mark_edward wrote: post #13
dev_dull wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want them to have these contracts because I want the smartest people on the planet working to defend our country. This is such a weird and controversial concept to so many people here.

Maybe "many people here" feel that what our military does has little to nothing to do with defending our country, and often puts us at more risk and/or makes the world a worse place. This is such a weird and controversial concept to so many people here.

The one time our country was attacked in recent memory was on 9/11/2001 and despite our ridiculously large "defense" we couldn't even get a F-16 or two scrambled to protect our biggest and richest city after the first plane hit? It was like 45 minutes later, and > .... Our military is simply not lined up around the border defending our country one bit, it is much too busy building and defending an empire around the world that, honestly, doesn't do that much for Main Street, USA.

And I suppose you think that our invading soveriegn nations and causing civilian deaths in the 6-figures doesn't piss off the next generation and lead to more terrorists? Oh, and we have a bad habit of losing weaponry in countries all over the world too...what happens to all that, whose hands does it fall into? I could go on. and on. and on. and on.

What is weird about these logical thoughts?

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#294

Post by wolfgke »

pixl97 wrote: post #282
wolfgke wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you've taught kindergarten or middle school, you've probably helped raise a soldier. I believe that on HN you perhaps talk to the wrong audience for this argument. If the teacher really had the "hacker spirit" in teaching, the pupils will be too freethinking (as in hacker) to be suitable soldiers.

Ah, HackerNews' other greatest sin "If someone's freethinking, they'll think exactly like me"

> "If someone's freethinking, they'll think exactly like me"

I claim that my point nevertheless stands. I was explicitly talking about "hacker spirit". If you read up on the hacker ethics

> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hacker_ethic&oldi...

you will find many points that will make such a person a really unsuitable soldier, for example "Mistrust authority — promote decentralization", which is at least in my worldview quite the opposite of the life as a soldier, where obedience, chain of command etc. are central.

The same holds for "All information should be free", which is quite in the spirit of Snowden and Assange, but quite the opposite of the values of being a soldier, where military secrets are (for good or bad) of importance.

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#295

Post by pixl97 »

allegedganon wrote: post #79

The many stories that have been appearing recently on Google's deep cultural changes point to a very basic fact of life: organizations, and even more so, their culture, aren't forever. As a matter of fact, organization cultural changes can happen very quickly, at the whim of leadership changes. The trust their users/customers extend these organizations ( way too much in the cast of Google) rarely takes this basic fac…

A TL;DR of this

>Any data you give to a company, even if it is ethical now, will be used against you in the future.

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#296

Post by aurailious »

oldcynic wrote: post #187
slavik81 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how things are done today. Military technology is shared widely among allies. If we cannot trust our friends, we are doomed. There might be national secret-sauce here or there, but the major military contractors are all international. Lots of projects involve R&D spread across multiple nations. Things mostly get dicey when looking at nations that are too unstable to trust (Egypt, Pakistan, etc.), or those…

Isn't it the case that the only nation getting an F35 comparable to the US version is the UK? It's unclear if even that version is the same. Everyone else seems to be getting some sort of F35 lite export version, including Australia, Italy and possibly others. Is that trusting one's friends or are they too unstable to trust?

The US generally does not export its most advanced defense technology. Almost all fighter aircraft exports over the past century have have limitations on its equipment. Generally the receiving country replaces some equipment with their own domestic variants. Israel and Japan do this with their US fighter aircraft.

Trusting an ally with any version of the F-35 is a big thing. The base F-35 is still going to be a very great fighter aircraft.

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#297

Post by v_lisivka »

jopsen wrote: post #185
derping_hacker wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current era of peace between world powers is unprecedented in human history and is only possible because the power of the US military makes it pointless for anyone to start a war. The US military also makes your welfare state in Sweden possible, we've spent 10s of trillions over the last 70 years protecting Europe for free, the least you could do is show some appreciation. I look forward to the day America Shrugs…

Peace is because everybody agrees that war is despicable, borders shouldn't move, prosperity is achieved through technology not conquest. 150 years ago the British was the dominant military power. That didn't stop European countries from starting an avg. of 2 wars per year. US military dominance is not without positive effect, but the main driver of change is public opinion.

All that is gone in 2014 when Russian Federation started war in Ukraine to move borders.

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#298

Post by JoeAltmaier »

rayiner wrote: post #261
6ue7nNMEEbHcM wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen that kind of thinking in the past and it's pretty popular view. I'm just not so sure about this moral aspect. Why do you think it's more moral/ethical to abstain of supporting military? Maybe you won't do this but be sure that in some other country some similarly talented people will. If you (and many others) abstain from it on similar basis you and closest people you know may be in danger of being affected…

It's ironic on so many levels. The first level is, of course, the irony of refusing to do military work at a company that only exists because of defense contractors working on a military project (ARPANET). More generally, the irony is that the U.S. military has made a far greater positive contribution to the world than Google. Under the Pax Americana , we have seen the greatest number of people rise out of abject pov…

The best the military does is keep stability. Google changed everything. One is static; the other, change. I don't see them as comparable at all.

Anyway I've heard it said that the container ship has done more to lift the world standard up, than all the political action of the last 1000 years. By distributing goods to all the corners of the world at a cheap price.

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#299

Post by wolfgke »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #275
wolfgke wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but at the end of the day that liberty is protected by the US military. I think the citizens in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria etc. are quite happy that their liberty is protected. :-(

Sure, I bet Afghanis sit around at night reminiscing of the good old days under the taliban... However this is completely irrelevant to the point. The question was why do we need to have a superior military to our adversaries, and the answer is because our adversaries are real, and if we care about our liberty we need to take them seriously. To say otherwise is either laughably naive, or is an outright rejection of l…

> Sure, I bet Afghanis sit around at night reminiscing of the good old days under the taliban...

Who were strongly financially supported (and thus in some sense "enthroned") by the CIA:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taliban&oldid=846...

"A while later, the U.S. CIA and Saudi Arabic General Intelligence Directorate (GID) funneled funding and equipment through the PakistanI Inter-Service Intelligence Agency (ISI) to the Afghan mujahideen."

Re: Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

#300

Post by XalvinX »

gaius wrote: post #52
manigandham wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police != military. Those principles don't really apply here as they are different forces both in duty and power. A military can only act as a deterrent if it has the capability to actually pull off what it claims, otherwise it very quickly loses standing. It's far better to have the ability to defend and never need it then to be wishing you had it when something goes wrong. There is no such world where you don't dep…

A military can only act as a deterrent if it has the capability to actually pull off what it claims Consider that the US military has lost every war since it was one of the victors of WW2 along with the UK and Russia. And it didn’t make any difference. All those wars were entirely optional and the consequences of losing them were nonexistent. So what’s it all for, really?

Well, it's not "all for" opium, but let's face it, it is an important trade......
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