U.S. Government Compels Google To Hand Over Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. Government Compels Google To Hand Over Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data

#81

Post by karamazov » Tue, Oct 11, 2011, 10:02 PM UTC

webXL wrote: post #64

mattmanser wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at this from the opposite direction. You want a big multi-billion $ business to start dictating your laws? Good luck on that one, that's not going to end badly is it?

Big multi-billion $ businesses can only exist in a society where a big government can enable them using bailouts, quid pro quo campaigning and cost-prohibitive compliance for frivolous regulation. From a societal POV, big anything is bad. I wish more open-minded people could recognize that fact.

That's not true at all; many (probably most) huge companies have never received bailouts. Compliance is also a tricky issue - you don't want to let the market compete on nuclear power plant design without some sort of supervision, even if the current system doesn't work very well. Lobbyists are a different story, but Google, for example, or Amazon, got to where they are without leaning on governmental support or anti-competitive laws.

Re: U.S. Government Compels Google To Hand Over Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data

#82

Post by cookiecaper » Tue, Oct 11, 2011, 10:07 PM UTC

andrewcooke wrote: post #77

cookiecaper wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware of the illegal NSA spying, but surely they're still somewhat more cautious about deploying domestic surveillance. Going overseas makes it all legal and OK, here they at least theoretically are not supposed to be doing things, and that's better than nothing, right?

so you're arguing that despite doing massive domestic surveillance, solidly supported by the government, they're not going to use the data because of their good moral standing. or are you being sarcastic?

I suggest that there are legal implications that make it more difficult to use that information on cases that are not "high value".

Re: U.S. Government Compels Google To Hand Over Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data

#83

Post by natch » Wed, Oct 12, 2011, 5:36 AM UTC

Dear Google,

There must be ways to protect user privacy that are better than collecting everything in a form that can just be handed over. Example: encrypt on the client side, with user-supplied, large, non-compromised keys, and don't ever inspect the data on the server. If you need to inspect data in order to serve relevant ads, do it on the client, and only send back enough information to tailor whatever ads are currently available. Maybe do the ad selection on the client too. If this doesn't work for one of your services, consider it for other services where it would work. Laws prevent you from providing service X without providing such-and-such a hook? Then don't provide service X. Provide a plugin framework instead, and let users bring their own service. Use your heads. Maybe use a bit of the compute power the client has available. You spun down a lot of your China presence because of stuff like this, supposedly. You should be able to take big steps anywhere, not just in China. You are smart. Figure. It. Out.