Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 198 posts

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#71

Post by a_large_rat00 »

stickfigure wrote: post #57
icarus_gh wrote: post #38

As a person neither leaning East nor West who is an avid HN reader it's always interesting to read the comments under such topics where the collusion between US private companies come up. Comparing it to the reactions when tenous connections between Chinese companies and the CCP are characterised as a threat to freedom and human rights. It reminds me to be wary of my own biases. Because from where I stand they are al…

Courts in the US are generally quite independent of the political process. Abuse of the court system is prosecuted fairly heavily. This is "rule of law". On the other hand, courts in China do whatever the CCP tells them. These are not equivalent.

Where is this judicial fantasyland you live in with apolitical judges and independent laws? They're written, passed, judged, and enforced by heavily partisan actors, now more than ever. You're kidding yourself, and no one else, if you think the US judicial system is politically independent.

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#72

Post by Mikeb85 »

ziddoap wrote: post #66
Mikeb85 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the record, I have no issue with Protonmail (or other tech companies) following the law. But their claim was always that email was encrypted and they "don't track you" which was always nonsense. Just like Apple's privacy promises. In the end all tech companies either track you, have the ability to track you, and have to give you up to the relevant authorities.

> For the record, I have no issue with Protonmail If this was the case, you would have given the full context in your earlier comment. There is a significant difference between tracking by default and tracking only when issued a court order.

> There is a significant difference between tracking by default and tracking only when issued a court order.

Is there? Either your data is on their server or it isn't. As if they can't give data created before a court order to a government after a court order...

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#73

Post by AlexandrB »

stickfigure wrote: post #57
icarus_gh wrote: post #38

As a person neither leaning East nor West who is an avid HN reader it's always interesting to read the comments under such topics where the collusion between US private companies come up. Comparing it to the reactions when tenous connections between Chinese companies and the CCP are characterised as a threat to freedom and human rights. It reminds me to be wary of my own biases. Because from where I stand they are al…

Courts in the US are generally quite independent of the political process. Abuse of the court system is prosecuted fairly heavily. This is "rule of law". On the other hand, courts in China do whatever the CCP tells them. These are not equivalent.

I think this depends on what you define as "abuse". Many suspects are railroaded into plea-bargains to avoid bankruptcy or the risk of more severe charges regardless of actual guilt[1]. There are also abuses like civil asset forfeiture or false DMCA takedowns that rarely see any punishment.

I think it's possible to get justice in the US court system if you have money. This isn't really "rule of law" as one might commonly think of it though.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocen...

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#74

Post by ziddoap »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #72
ziddoap wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the record, I have no issue with Protonmail If this was the case, you would have given the full context in your earlier comment. There is a significant difference between tracking by default and tracking only when issued a court order.

> There is a significant difference between tracking by default and tracking only when issued a court order. Is there? Either your data is on their server or it isn't. As if they can't give data created before a court order to a government after a court order...

I can't believe I have to argue that there is a difference between always tracking everything by default and only turning on tracking once a warrant arrives.

In one case, you track everything.

In the other case, you don't track everything. But you have the ability to turn on logging when required (like, for example, with a warrant).

>As if they can't give data created before a court order

This is surprisingly simple. You just don't track the data until you have to because of a warrant. Then you say "Sorry, I don't have data before your warrant arrived because we do not track it".

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#75

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

ziddoap wrote: post #67
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #15

Argh. Clickbait article header. The header sounds like a "blanket trawl," which, I suspect, would require an NSA-grade computer to manage (which they have, so it's not beyond belief). They were sending warrants to people that searched for particular names, addresses, etc. Not news. We all know this has been going on for many years. It's fairly standard, in many "capital crime" cases.

> Not news. We all know this has been going on for many years. Who is the 'we' here? Many people may have assumed this is happening... But according to the article itself, there's less then a handful of these specific warrants being recorded/unsealed/reported in the news. Do you have access to sources which Forbes does not where more of these warrants are documented? From the article: > Before this latest case, only…

You have a good point.

File this under “proof of what everyone already knew, but couldn’t verify.”

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#76

Post by a_large_rat00 »

icarus_gh wrote: post #38

As a person neither leaning East nor West who is an avid HN reader it's always interesting to read the comments under such topics where the collusion between US private companies come up. Comparing it to the reactions when tenous connections between Chinese companies and the CCP are characterised as a threat to freedom and human rights. It reminds me to be wary of my own biases. Because from where I stand they are al…

One can be against heavy-handed authoritarianism both at home and abroad, while still seeing the (quite distinct) shades of gray between the US security apparatus and the CCP, or between the CCP and North Korea, or between the US and the EU. Different governments and processes give different weights to due process and human rights vs bureaucratic efficiency and national security.

It should not be controversial to say that the CCP is more heavy-handed when it comes to government reach into private lives. That doesn't exonerate the US by any stretch; our government does a ton of shady shit, much of it arguably unconstitutional or extrajudicial, from warrantless wiretaps to drone executions of US citizens. But these make the news, which indicates 1) at least there is a relatively free press and 2) they are unusual enough as to be noteworthy, as opposed to commonplace and not discussed.

China doesn't share the same values as the West. The individual is deemphasized for the collective good, as defined by the current CCP elite of any decade. That doesn't mean their political system is inferior or superior -- our fragile "democracy" is threatening to devolve into civil war and take down the whole country, if not world with it -- but it IS a very different government on a different part of an authoritarianism libertarianism continuum. It's not useful to equate them in this context just because the West does shady surveillance on its own citizens too.

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#77

Post by [deleted] »

ziml77 wrote: post #34
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #15

Argh. Clickbait article header. The header sounds like a "blanket trawl," which, I suspect, would require an NSA-grade computer to manage (which they have, so it's not beyond belief). They were sending warrants to people that searched for particular names, addresses, etc. Not news. We all know this has been going on for many years. It's fairly standard, in many "capital crime" cases.

I got the same impression from the title. The request is limited to searches for a couple specific people over a short timeframe. They had legitimate reason for it. There's no issue here.

[deleted]

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#78

Post by trutannus »

ziml77 wrote: post #34
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #15

Argh. Clickbait article header. The header sounds like a "blanket trawl," which, I suspect, would require an NSA-grade computer to manage (which they have, so it's not beyond belief). They were sending warrants to people that searched for particular names, addresses, etc. Not news. We all know this has been going on for many years. It's fairly standard, in many "capital crime" cases.

I got the same impression from the title. The request is limited to searches for a couple specific people over a short timeframe. They had legitimate reason for it. There's no issue here.

The headline in the post has been modified too from the original. The original is Exclusive: Government Secretly Orders Google To Identify Anyone Who Has Searched A Name, Address And Telephone Number. The A there does a lot of heavy lifting, and implies that the warrants are for specific items.

The title on HN here is Exclusive: Government Secretly Orders Google To Identify Anyone Who Has Searched Name, Address And Telephone N, which implies that this is for all searches that are for any of these sorts of items.

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#79

Post by vineyardmike »

kobalsky wrote: post #53
vineyardmike wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You say that as if DuckDuckGo is completely immune to the same sorts of warrants. If you don't collect data, you can't share it in a warrant.

protonmail used to say this on their website and removed it after some people were arrested because they did provide logs to the french authorities. the catch is that they didn't log by default but they had to log specific users due to a warrant. the same will happen any service hosted by legal businesses.

Can't log specific users if you don't track who is who.

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#80

Post by air7 »

> so-called geofence warrants, where investigators ask Google to provide information on anyone within the location of a crime scene at a given time.

It's amazing we've become so tethered to our phones that it's just implicitly obvious that your phone's location is the same as your location. Authoritarian governments rejoice! People will voluntarily pay and cling to their tracking devices, no need to track them personally.

Post reply on HN