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Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

chicagotribune.com

41–50 of 447 posts

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#41
On the flip side of the loss of privacy: location and similar data can be used as a solid alibi if you are accused incorrectly.

How many people have been silently tagged as innocent because of their data stored?

That said, ersonally I find the loss of privacy abhorrent, especially because I have fuck all rights in the US (not a citizen, so the US government and US corporations can abuse my personal information with very little recourse from me or my own government).

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#42
post #18

I (rhetorically) wonder why the title does not contain the "actor's" name. But then again, we all know why that is.

The title is "Jussie Smollett investigation: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of the actor’s data as part of special prosecutor probe" which seems to include the the actor's name?

But then again, we all know why that is.

I don't know who Jussie Smollett is (other than this story) and I'm completely in the dark what this is supposed to be implying.

Maybe you are seeing headline optimisation? Is that what this is implying?

Edit: Or do you mean the HN headline? The current headline here is "Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data" which seems completely reasonable given the length restrictions.

Again - what are you implying? Is there some legal restriction on knowing his name?

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#43
post #3

I (and we should all) act as if this could happen to anyone. Essentially that the state can deputize any company to snitch on the digital ephemera that constitutes our daily lives, but especially those that we are deeply engaged: Google, Facebook, Lyft, Amazon. As such, we should not self-censor, but instead disengage from these proxy-cops and move to more distributed spaces.

Queue the Google alternative posts. This is some terrifying stuff. > not just emails but also drafted and deleted messages; any files in their Google Drive cloud storage services; any Google Voice texts, calls and contacts; search and web browsing history; and location data.

Keep in mind that instant messages and voicemails, for instance, get produced in court all the time, and that has nothing in particular to do with Google. Calls made from jail are another thing that comes to mind.

(I am not a lawyer but) AFAIK there's no particular form of communication that's immune to discovery but for Google.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#44
post #41

On the flip side of the loss of privacy: location and similar data can be used as a solid alibi if you are accused incorrectly. How many people have been silently tagged as innocent because of their data stored? That said, ersonally I find the loss of privacy abhorrent, especially because I have fuck all rights in the US (not a citizen, so the US government and US corporations can abuse my personal information with v…

It should be up to the falsely-accused to allow their siphoned data to be release to create an alibi.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#45
post #16

at what point does this projection of judicial power against individuals in the name of safety (whose safety? whats really at stake here even?) become terrorism?

At the time when libertarian lunatics figure out how to convince enough people to change the accepted meaning of the word "terrorism"? I mean... you obviously don't like this, and many people agree, on very reasonable grounds. But it just is not terrorism. It's sort of how boiled mushrooms are not "death", even though I have equal affinity to both concepts.

its not civil to call people lunatics because of their beliefs. and yeah, i said terrorism because it is a completely fickle, undefined term yet governments can use it to instill all kinds of violence. but when ordinary people use it they "have to define it". i can see the double standard.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#46
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Queue the Google alternative posts. This is some terrifying stuff. > not just emails but also drafted and deleted messages; any files in their Google Drive cloud storage services; any Google Voice texts, calls and contacts; search and web browsing history; and location data.

> Queue the Google alternative posts. How would that help? They'll just get a warrant for those. > This is some terrifying stuff. You have a strange definition of terrifying. This is how the law is supposed to work. You do realize they can also go in his house and search through his things? Or order his friends to talk? That's what search warrants are.

> How would that help? They'll just get a warrant for those.

In terms of e-mail, any service that encrypts at rest and doesn't maintain the key can only hand over encrypted data. ProtonMail would be one example.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#47
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Queue the Google alternative posts. This is some terrifying stuff. > not just emails but also drafted and deleted messages; any files in their Google Drive cloud storage services; any Google Voice texts, calls and contacts; search and web browsing history; and location data.

> Queue the Google alternative posts. How would that help? They'll just get a warrant for those. > This is some terrifying stuff. You have a strange definition of terrifying. This is how the law is supposed to work. You do realize they can also go in his house and search through his things? Or order his friends to talk? That's what search warrants are.

>How would that help? They'll just get a warrant for those.

If the business is not based in the US, it will make getting a search warrant much more difficult. Your (e.g.) Protonmail account is less likely to be subpoenaed than your Gmail.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#48
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quality of the record keeping is vastly higher. Imagine a subpoena for every paper mail you sent in a year. You can't get that from the US Postal service.

USPS has been storing images of all envelopes delivered for many years now. Prior to that, it was possible to have that information manually logged. If you corresponded with people in a Warsaw Pact country in the 1960s, that mail was recorded and sometimes opened.

Knowing a letter was delivered by USPS doesn't yield the contents. The state would have to subpoena each individual recipient - and they may have destroyed or lost the letter.

It would only be equivalent if every letter was opened and recorded so that all the contents would later be available because this subpoena covers not just emails but also drafted and deleted messages; any files in their Google Drive cloud storage services; any Google Voice texts. This isn't metadata the government is coming for, it is the full content.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#49

Is this different in any practical sense to an old fashioned request for physical paper documents? The only difference I can think of is traditionally documents are destroyed after they are no longer needed. Now they can see “deleted” documents and document change history. i.e. emails stored locally on a personal or company server can be permanently destroyed. Traditional email systems won’t have a change history of…

No. The only difference is that you typically don’t put papers in the custody of a third party. My dad at one point was an inspector general at a government agency. They would use records and “physical metadata” like building logs and receipts for the purposes of their work. The difference today is that your allowing many third parties to gather that data. That’s the key thing. If you store data in the custody of a t…

Well, people do typically put papers in the custody of a third party. Always have.

Pretty much every paper that is involved in discovery is classified by the "custodian". Also of course, all the digital information, but traditionally it's paper.

If you use and/or have a dispute with a lawyer, a doctor, a contractor, an accountant, whatever, they're going to have papers pertaining to you.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the state can deputize any company to snitch on the digital ephemera that constitutes our daily lives this is not true, but in the way that makes your point much, much worse. In the US, case precedent is already set that digital data that you don't physically own is not yours. IANAL, but my understanding is that the standards for digital search-and-seizure are lower for cloud services, not equivalent or (god-forbid)…

Right. But I suppose the thing is under it is conveniently (for the prosecution) consolidated under one company's umbrella, so I don't think it totally invalidates OP's point. What about companies such as Proton Mail? Would they just hand over all their data? I don't know. Honestly asking.

ProtonMail could, but it looks like just raw IP logging and most everything else is encrypted by design. I dunno if turning over those IP logs killed or maimed their warrant canary in the process.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/biusm7/transpar...

Edit: obv PM’s canary is public and has disclosed they’ve released data to the Swiss courts, but it’s pretty much as advertised; ip logging is raw but the rest is encrypted.

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