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Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

theintercept.com

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Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#261

Post by grey-area »

lugg wrote: post #236
jo2ie wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the depressing part for me is I have seen good friends, extremely smart people who have no sane reason to be working on shady shit, fall down the rabbit hole. And I really haven't found effective ways to do anything about it... There are two issues at play 1. Not everyone is prepared mentally to turn down big payouts. I have seen this happening up and down the food chain. You only understand how hard this is aft…

> Not everyone is prepared mentally to turn down big payouts Nobody is prepared for racial profiling and genocide either.

I think the OP is explaining, not attempting to justify.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#262

Post by snaky »

summerlight wrote: post #211
snaky wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think so? Yandex has 2% search market share in South Korea, that's not big but Baidu has less than 5% there, so it's comparable.

I am not aware of any single South Korean who has used either Yandex or Baidu. They don't even support Korean at all, so why would any Korean bother to use them? Very interested in the source of your statistics, which I guess completely incorrect. http://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/sou... https://www.opensurvey.co.kr/blog/trendreport/sns_2018/ http://www.internettrend.co.kr/trendForward.tsp As f…

https://medium.com/@SearchDecoder/global-search-engine-marke...

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#263

Post by kkarakk »

ychen306 wrote: post #227
int_19h wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the rumors, Dragonfly goes far beyond censorship, in that it has provisions to identify specific people from search queries. So it's not just that searching for "Tiananmen Square" wouldn't give any useful results, but it'd also let the Big Brother know who was inappropriately curious. Combine this with their upcoming social credit system, and you can easily see how this is proactively helping build an au…

> but it'd also let the Big Brother know who was inappropriately curious. This changed my opinion. I thought the controversy was unwarranted; after all it's what many people in China wants. It's good that Google doesn't follow through.

people in china don't get a say. many are already irritated by the new points system but are afraid to speak out. china spins every further towards implosion

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#264

Post by abc-xyz »

sir_bearington wrote: post #259
abc-xyz wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really shouldn't be a dilemma unless you're morally bankrupt. Would you sell a gun to a Neo-Nazi that you knew intended to use it to murder innocent people? After all if you refused (and continued to do nothing to stop him) then he would just buy from your competitor.

The fact that you compare China with fascism is it's own can of worms, but even your comparison with selling armaments falls short. China already has search engines, Google wants to sell them a better one. Sure, it'll be censored but there's nothing to indicate Google China would be any more or less censored than Baidu. How does a China with Google become any more dangerous than a China without Google? I suppose bett…

Fine, the Neo-Nazi already has a pistol but you want to sell him an AK-47. Sure, it'll be used to murder innocent people, but there's nothing to indicate he would have kill more with your gun than the gun he already has.

Google is technologically superior to Baidu, and well, basically every company in the world. Less people using VPN = more people exposed. Superior tech = can imprison/murder more innocent people. More companies and governments supporting China with tech + billions = they'll become evermore powerful and continue to do great evil. Google becoming financially dependent on China will give their government more leverage to force Google to share data and add backdoors to their other applications, and they'd be more likely to help build other tools that will help their government build a dystopian surveillance state.

Do I boycutt all Chinese goods? No, but I do avoid everything "Made in China" whenever it's possible (e.g. clothing, DSLR camera, etc.), and I try to discourage other people and companies from doing business with China, as well as protect their online privacy.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#265

Post by jacobush »

grey-area wrote: post #261
lugg wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not everyone is prepared mentally to turn down big payouts Nobody is prepared for racial profiling and genocide either.

I think the OP is explaining, not attempting to justify.

Yep - difference between empathy (explaining) and sympathy (justifying).

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#266

Post by int_19h »

yourbandsucks wrote: post #202
int_19h wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's definitely interesting that Chinese nationals were almost universally for dragonfly and yet the "progressive" activists didn't care at all Human rights are not subject to a simple majority rule. And this whole thing isn't about what Chinese want. It's about what Americans are okay with helping Chinese do. If the majority of Chinese support labor camps for ethnic minorities, that's one thing; but when American…

Dragonfly is a search engine project. It's nothing to do with the situation in Xinjiang other than being in the same country. The US has our own issues, and I'm not comparing or trivializing anything, but you'd be nuts to say that Google should boycott America over them.

Dragonfly is a search engine with the ability to track people who use it, said ability being there for the express purpose of cracking down on political dissent.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#267

Post by int_19h »

srkmno wrote: post #200
int_19h wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the rumors, Dragonfly goes far beyond censorship, in that it has provisions to identify specific people from search queries. So it's not just that searching for "Tiananmen Square" wouldn't give any useful results, but it'd also let the Big Brother know who was inappropriately curious. Combine this with their upcoming social credit system, and you can easily see how this is proactively helping build an au…

It's what all companies there are required to do and the Chinese people accept it, and a lot of them welcome the social credit system (according to reporting on the program) it's arrogant to to presume we know what's best for them.

> it's arrogant to to presume we know what's best for them

Demanding that Google withdraw from this project is not about "what's best for them". It's about what we are okay with. There's nothing stopping China from implementing the same stuff without help from American corporations, and they're not in any way entitled to such help, so withholding it doesn't presume anything.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#268

Post by ionised »

fipple wrote: post #251
reimertz wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

It would completely set up my family and children for life. I’d get to quit my job and spend all day with my kids. If some people I don’t know get fucked over for that, whatever. And that kind of thinking is why the world is such a wretched place. But I can’t say I wouldn’t jump at the opportunity.

> It would completely set up my family and children for life.

This isn't as good an excuse as you think it is.

You might want to ask yourself if there is anything you believe in or care about beyond your own genetic code.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#269

Post by ionised »

jeron wrote: post #173
redisman wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too bad there are so many people like Manafort who are happy to take on that job for a quick buck. Sure people are being hunted down but check out the ostrich jacket!

for every company that refuses, there'll be one that will take it on for the right price...

The Mantra of Greed.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#270

Post by eitland »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #156
burtonator wrote: post #148

True story... I run a web crawling company named Datastreamer where we license data to social media monitoring firms. We're very white hat... Don't even like to mess around with grey hat areas as we don't want something like the Cambridge Analytica situation coming back to bite us in the ass. About 1.5 years ago we were contacted by a 3rd party firm which we eventually found out was a cut out for Saudi Arabia. The de…

Sounds similar to what Moxie experienced: https://moxie.org/blog/saudi-surveillance/

This quote is interesting in a historic context (WhatsApp uses Moxie's encryption now.):

> More to the point, if you’re in Saudi Arabia (or really anywhere), it might be prudent to think about avoiding insecure communication tools like WhatsApp and Viber

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