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Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]

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Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]

#391

Post by Ferret7446 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #129
n0zmer wrote: post #110

Not sure if it matters, but all chats at Google default to history off (deleted after 24hrs). Turning on history only keeps messages for 30days and you have to do this for every single group chat, private chat, etc. There is no archive or long held messages like Slack.

Yes, these settings were chosen specifically to destroy evidence, and the courts are increasingly unhappy with that. All conversations involving people on legal holds (such as the CEO!) should be retained indefinitely.

That's a rather biased way of phrasing it. Did humans evolve mouths and ears specifically to destroy evidence? Those settings were chosen because the platform was designed to emulate hallway chats, and the "records" are an implementation detail.

If this goes through, all that will happen is that Google will re-engineer the backend to evade whatever standard set by the ruling. Who wins from this outcome? Perhaps the engineers getting paid and promoted to work on said project. Certainly not the courts or the "people".

Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]

#392

Post by Ferret7446 »

gwbas1c wrote: post #134
jimsimmons wrote: post #4

Would it have been better if they had these conversations in person and never left a breadcrumb trail? Not saying what they did is ethical but why would anyone have an expectation of forthrightness here?

> Would it have been better if they had these conversations in person Probably because they weren't in the same room? Same building? Same state? Same country? The value of chat is that it's a very lightweight conversation; especially in a distributed team. It's also a good way to start a conversation with someone if they might be concentrating and need a few minutes to put down what they're doing. Either way, I would…

So who wins exactly if this precedent is set and companies all move back to less efficient but "safer" channels of communication? That would represent a huge loss of productivity and efficiency for society.

Because there will always be such channels used in private business. Or is the government going to enforce mandatory private monitoring?

Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]

#393

Post by Ferret7446 »

mil22 wrote: post #53

At Google in 2006, the SVP of Engineering was presenting to the entire engineering org during an all hands meeting. A question came up as regards retaining emails related to a pending lawsuit. He told everybody: "Do NOT delete any emails. . Let me say that again to make sure everyone has understood me correctly: do NOT delete any emails!" The way it was said, the chuckle, and the way it was repeated with the extra em…

The way you described it, I cannot imagine any way to interpret that as "delete all such emails". Perhaps I lack imagination, or perhaps you grossly misunderstood him.

Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]

#394

Post by Tangurena2 »

tyingq wrote: post #356
devrand wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK you have an obligation to retain records if under a legal hold, but you do not have an obligation to create records. So if your company policy is to record all phone calls, then yes, you would need to retain and provide those records as part of discovery. However, you cannot be obligated to start recording phone calls in order to make them discoverable. > What if you were using a 3rd party chat with no history…

>Which raises the question: if you're under a legal hold are you compelled to enable that by default? Right...similar for plain old telephone calls now too. That is, many VOIP PBX systems have a simple way to enable recordings.

Remote recording of PBX systems is built-in. Congress made that a requirement because law enforcement claimed they needed it.

Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]

#395

Post by devrand »

nolok wrote: post #384
devrand wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's a comparable situation as someone explicitly took an action to make a record. In the case of Chat it's all software automation. No one is explicitly taking an action to make a record or destroy a record. There is the whole situation of people asking to switch to the no history mode, but that's not retroactively applied and it's really no different than sending an email that says "let's talk about…

> I'm not sure that's a comparable situation as someone explicitly took an action to make a record. In the case of Chat it's all software automation. No one is explicitly taking an action to make a record or destroy a record. I am not sure why you are making this distinction when it doesn't exists. Litigation hold also means stop all software automation that would result in destruction of record, doesn't matter how m…

I don't see where I stated that anyone was claiming ignorance. My point still holds: users had the option to create a record, but it was not the default. From that perspective the comparison provided does not hold.

The real debate is about whether "off the record" text can exist at all, and if so, under what conditions/duration? Are captions on a video call a text record? Do those need to be retained?

Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]

#396

Post by CatWChainsaw »

rightbyte wrote: post #261
seanhunter wrote: post #252

It's always really funny/amazing that seemingly smart people think that the legal system can be "hacked" by doing cheap stuff like deleting history. It's going to come out and it's going to look bad. In an actual case that I was involved in, the other party was an ex-lawyer and had a rigorous practise of not keeping records in case something bad was discovered. I on the other hand had (terrifyingly, in retrospect) me…

Technical people often see laws like literal programming rather than a fuzzy social construct.

Or they're so full of themselves that they think laws apply to the peons who aren't as smart as them.

Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]

#397

Post by dataflow »

squirtle24 wrote: post #387
dataflow wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a lawyer, but my amateur guess is the answer to your first question would be yes, and the answer to your second question would be no, because of the common-sense understanding of how computer storage works and what it means to delete something. There's no need to have an information-theoretic definition of "destruction" here.

Relevant law cited elsewhere in the thread: "(e) Failure to Preserve Electronically Stored Information. If electronically stored information that should have been preserved in the anticipation or conduct of litigation is lost because a party failed to take reasonable steps to preserve it, and it cannot be restored or replaced through additional discovery, the court ..." The key word is "reasonable", which is what the…

The key word to me is "stored". The common-sense definition of storage refers to non-volatile storage, not RAM or data in transit.

Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]

#398

Post by gwbas1c »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #392
gwbas1c wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would it have been better if they had these conversations in person Probably because they weren't in the same room? Same building? Same state? Same country? The value of chat is that it's a very lightweight conversation; especially in a distributed team. It's also a good way to start a conversation with someone if they might be concentrating and need a few minutes to put down what they're doing. Either way, I would…

So who wins exactly if this precedent is set and companies all move back to less efficient but "safer" channels of communication? That would represent a huge loss of productivity and efficiency for society. Because there will always be such channels used in private business. Or is the government going to enforce mandatory private monitoring?

> So who wins

Someone in this thread mentioned that the financial sector records all history for anything work related. What's wrong with that?

> That would represent a huge loss of productivity and efficiency for society.

Are you arguing that corporations need to violate laws in order to be productive and efficient?

> Because there will always be such channels used in private business.

Yes. But look at how much leaked out in Google's case.

What do you think would happen if Google's policy was to only use personal means of communication? (IE, personal cell #, personal email, text messages instead of chat...) What do you think would be happening now?

Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]

#399

Post by jimsimmons »

gwbas1c wrote: post #398
Ferret7446 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So who wins exactly if this precedent is set and companies all move back to less efficient but "safer" channels of communication? That would represent a huge loss of productivity and efficiency for society. Because there will always be such channels used in private business. Or is the government going to enforce mandatory private monitoring?

> So who wins Someone in this thread mentioned that the financial sector records all history for anything work related. What's wrong with that? > That would represent a huge loss of productivity and efficiency for society. Are you arguing that corporations need to violate laws in order to be productive and efficient? > Because there will always be such channels used in private business. Yes. But look at how much leak…

If everyone’s forced to speak under the fear that anything they say can and will be used against them, a lot of communication won’t happen.

Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]

#400

Post by nolok »

devrand wrote: post #395
nolok wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure that's a comparable situation as someone explicitly took an action to make a record. In the case of Chat it's all software automation. No one is explicitly taking an action to make a record or destroy a record. I am not sure why you are making this distinction when it doesn't exists. Litigation hold also means stop all software automation that would result in destruction of record, doesn't matter how m…

I don't see where I stated that anyone was claiming ignorance. My point still holds: users had the option to create a record, but it was not the default. From that perspective the comparison provided does not hold. The real debate is about whether "off the record" text can exist at all, and if so, under what conditions/duration? Are captions on a video call a text record? Do those need to be retained?

Is this maybe a case where you may be mistakenly confusing record in the technical / computer sense, as opposed to record as meant in the legal sense ? Because your three last questions do not make sense in the legal view.

> The real debate is about whether "off the record" text can exist at all, and if so, under what conditions/duration

This question makes no sense, as you what you are asking is "can i not make a record, when i make a record of something to transmit it to someone else"

> Are captions on a video call a text record? Do those need to be retained?

Yes and yes, of course. It's legally a record. Again, this questions makes very little sense legally.

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