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Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

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Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#251

Post by sumedh »

jerieljan wrote: post #229
geraldyo wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you happen to have any actual cases you can point me to? I see this all the time in HN but it's never beyond "a buddy of mine said that he didn't do anything wrong and somehow they got locked out forever with no recourse". Or it's someone saying that happened to themselves, and then they say they never did anything bad with their gmail. Which may or may not be true?

One good case I can think of is Crinacle. Very popular for his audio measurements site and does YouTube. His Google account got flagged for something suspicious, Google had it shut down and without good explanations. He can't even get help through YouTube support and while the old channel remains, the Google account behind it appears disabled today. The only choice he had was to file a request that lead to nowhere an…

> His Google account got flagged for something suspicious,

Was that because of his gmail or Youtube?

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#252

Post by sumedh »

bushbaba wrote: post #41

The US should use the current market decline to split up Google. Splitting it up would allow for more competition and overall improve the tech sector. Ideally you'd see the government force a split up Youtube, Cloud, Search, and their Ad Exchange into separate companies.

> Ideally you'd see the government force a split up Youtube, Cloud, Search, and their Ad Exchange into separate companies.

Google will argue that keeping these services in one company gives free access to consumers. How can the US govt prove that it harms consumers?

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#253

Post by latexr »

rglullis wrote: post #232
latexr wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "They" that did the fork only managed to do it because there was a majority consensus agreement to switch to the forked chain. A majority you may not agree with. So you’re still at the mercy of external entities, contradicting your original point. > Seriously, why is it that every discussion about crypto has the same bullshit talking points? Because proponents keep repeating the same debunked invalid talking po…

> So you’re still at the mercy of external entities The people that didn't agree with the "DAO fork" continued on the original chain. None of them were forced to follow the majority. This is a huge important difference.

> None of them were forced to follow the majority. This is a huge important difference.

Quite the contrary, it’s a meaningless difference. Most systems have that feature.

Imagine everyone in your friends circle uses Signal. Then they decide to change to WhatsApp but you and one other refuse to do so. No one forces you to follow the majority, you simply deal with the consequences of not doing so. For example, you may have less of a voice in the decision of where to go to dinner together because you're not part of the main conversation.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#255

Post by williamtrask »

rglullis wrote: post #209
simias wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's why web3 frustrates me to no end. Decentralized services were common in the "old" internet, web3 just takes than and adds a layer of ponzi and speculation on top of them. If bittorent was invented today you'd have to buy into some pyramid scheme to use it. Beyond that having a trusted third party does suck for some things, but at least it means that I have a recourse if something goes wrong. With cryptocra…

Tell me how decentralized services allow applications to be permissionless, censorship- and sybil-resistant without a blockchain. I will make both of us rich.

Tell me how blockchain makes anything Sybil-resistant and I’ll bite.

I can create as many Bitcoin/eth/etc wallets as I want.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#256

Post by PaulHoule »

rglullis wrote: post #209
simias wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's why web3 frustrates me to no end. Decentralized services were common in the "old" internet, web3 just takes than and adds a layer of ponzi and speculation on top of them. If bittorent was invented today you'd have to buy into some pyramid scheme to use it. Beyond that having a trusted third party does suck for some things, but at least it means that I have a recourse if something goes wrong. With cryptocra…

Tell me how decentralized services allow applications to be permissionless, censorship- and sybil-resistant without a blockchain. I will make both of us rich.

‘Make both of us rich’ is exactly what we’re afraid of.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#257

Post by denton-scratch »

yabatopia wrote: post #91
juunpp wrote: post #2

I have actually been receiving much spam from gmail addresses lately and have considered banning the domain altogether. > I was surprised to find out that my friend Peter Eckersley — a very privacy conscious person who is Technology Projects Director at the EFF — used Gmail I find that the EFF does this more often than not, like how they also criticize Amazon for giving police warrant-less access to Ring cameras... a…

> I have actually been receiving much spam from gmail addresses lately and have considered banning the domain altogether. For some accounts I block all Gmail usernames ending with a number: from 0@gmail.com to 9@gmail.com. The only exceptions are addresses that I have added to my whitelist. A bit drastic, but it did wonders to my mailbox.

Spamassassin seems to have a default rule that freemail addresses ending in a digit get 3.0 added to the spam-score.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#258

Post by ajross »

rglullis wrote: post #250
ajross wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "they" you denied existed, of course. Look, the frame of your argument here is "the blockchain won't ever unilaterally make decisions you don't like like a big centralized tech company". And they do, and have, multiple times in the past. And lots of people didn't like that, in each case.

No. You are talking about three different groups and you calling both by the same "they": - One "they" is the Ethereum developers making new developments and proposing changes to the "main" blockchain. - The other "they" is the thousands of people who are developing and using applications that can be used by the most people, and care (mostly) about having one blockchain where they can reach the most people. - The thi…

You're splitting hairs. Sure, your carefully constructed "microtheys" don't have the power you fear. But someone does[1]. And they act. And have.

[1] As currently constructed, it (probably) requires a 51% attack by staked ETH owners. There's a lot more wealth concentration on the blockchain than you think there is, this isn't a lot of actual people!

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#259

Post by sumedh »

shadowgovt wrote: post #53

Is the fact that the sender and receiver of an email both have a copy surprising? IIRC, no emails from Hillary Clinton's server, for example, were ever leaked from the server, but the public saw them because one of her regular correspondents had his email compromised.

> IIRC, no emails from Hillary Clinton's server, for example, were ever leaked from the server,

How do you know that. I dont want to make political comments on HN but her server was insecure at some time (aka no encryption) and then accessing the emails on her blackberry in foreign countries.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#260

Post by denton-scratch »

hagen2022 wrote: post #108
open-source-ux wrote: post #69

The popularity of ChromeOS in US schools means millions of kids require Gmail accounts (since ChromeOS requires sign-in the OS to full use). It's probably true to say that almost every school kid in the US has been captured by Google's embrace. The 'tech community' have little to say on the matter. In fact, developers are more likely to defend Google rather than question unprecedented levels of data collection.

The issue is that there are no proper replacements for Gmail. Too many people (whether opensource fellows or privacy or both) suggest do not use it but there are NO good answers. One cannot expect a local shop or university to host email services 24x7 AND provide world-class security. This is like excel/word/ppt becoming a default file format and use of MS office. Sure libreoffice works but when everyone is using MS…

> One cannot expect a local shop or university to host email services 24x7 AND provide world-class security.

You're right! That doesn't mean you have to rely on The Borg. I rely on my ISP (admittedly an unusually good ISP); I pay them for mail service, a fiver a month, on my own domain. There are many dedicated commercial email providers that are reliable and secure, such as Fastmail (I've never tried Fastmail).

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