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

Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 457 posts

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#231

Post by preg_match »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #214
mariuolo wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I got a really strange response over email which I clearly wasn't supposed to see. A representative from that airline was asking internally if they could put me on the no-fly list. That was really chilling. What if they only pretended to forward it to you by mistake and you /were/ supposed to see it? As in "it would be a shame if you could never fly again".

In the United States legal system, when you take a plea because the Government was threaning you with a 20 year sentence the judge requires in court and under oath for you to state that you were not coerced/pressured in any way to take the plea (because pleas wouldn't be valid if the Government pressured you into them and into signing away your rights). Before you push back at your work you have to consider possible…

Re: plea deals. Most people don't know that plea deals are very common. Over 90% of convictions come from plea deals.

It's not just that lawyers are expensive and court is risky. Court also takes fucking forever. Somewhere along the way, a right to a speedy trial has been lost. People have jobs they have to get back to, families they have to provide for. The plea deal is often a way out right now, with the tradeoff of having a conviction.

Even if you're 100% innocent, it's often the better financial choice to just... take a guilty plea. The end result is we can't really say, for sure, how many convictions are actually guilty people.

The calculus gets even more complicated when we consider race. If you're a large black man, are you really going to want to take the chance in trial? If you're a meek white woman, you might be more inclined.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#232

Post by dylan604 »

maybewhenthesun wrote: post #152
elric wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the same google that has repeatedly, entirely "by accident", captured boatloads of wifi data with their wardriving vehicles (or google streetview or whatever it's called). They sure seem like a trustworthy bunch.

Not only those wardriving vehicles. They use everybody to scan the world's wifi networks. Well, except people like me who stubbornly turn off 'location accuracy' every time some app demands you turn it on. I don't know exactly what gets sent to google, but it's certainly enough to identify and track (retrospectively) a huge part of the world's population. Now I know you get tracked by the celltowers anyway, but still…

> Now I know you get tracked by the celltowers anyway

Yes, but theGoog doesn't own that data. By having all of theGoogOS devices scanning and reporting back directly to theGoog, theGoog gets that data for free. Plus, all of the other info it can hoover up that the cell towers would not have access.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#234

Post by preg_match »

elric wrote: post #28
xrd wrote: post #19

About twenty years ago, I was taking a flight back from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to the US. In the middle of the night the pilot got on the loudspeaker and said "hi! Having some engine trouble, so we are landing in Manaus." Manaus is in the middle of the Amazon. Needless to say, a bit scary to hear that, but we landed without issue. They told us we had two choices: the nice hotel with a shared room, or the lesser nice…

I fully share your concerns. And I don't understand how apparently tons of Teams and email conversations can be archived and sold without any kind of scrutiny. How can such data be sold without the consent of all involved parties? What gives Google the right to use it to train LLMs? Is that just a way of washing away the legal protections?

Usually when you work a job you sign a little thing that says "yeah you own everything I produce for you, no matter how small".

Which is, of course, ridiculous, and follows the trend of absurdist contract law wrangling in corporations. Similar to non-competes and NDAs.

It makes sense to some degree, but the fact that semi-private conversations are included in that makes no sense. These have little to no business purpose.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#235

Post by kayodelycaon »

KellyCriterion wrote: post #178
xrd wrote: post #19

About twenty years ago, I was taking a flight back from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to the US. In the middle of the night the pilot got on the loudspeaker and said "hi! Having some engine trouble, so we are landing in Manaus." Manaus is in the middle of the Amazon. Needless to say, a bit scary to hear that, but we landed without issue. They told us we had two choices: the nice hotel with a shared room, or the lesser nice…

- if they could put me on the no-fly list. - ahhh, there seems to be different no-fly lists? The one Im aware of is the one for terrorists and moneylaunderers, and usually they will not tell you who put you on that list :-D

There are different no fly lists. Airlines maintain their own list of people they’ve banned from their planes.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#236

Post by zachthewf »

FYI: If you have a company that you are shutting down, you too can sell your data to the labs. Companies will help you do this. If you have a company with a handful of people and you wrote code, collaborated in Slack, and used task management tools for a few years, you can probably sell this data for $50k or so.

You can also do this if you're not shutting down, but it's probably not worth it.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#237

Post by alerighi »

prepend wrote: post #181
elric wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully share your concerns. And I don't understand how apparently tons of Teams and email conversations can be archived and sold without any kind of scrutiny. How can such data be sold without the consent of all involved parties? What gives Google the right to use it to train LLMs? Is that just a way of washing away the legal protections?

Since it’s work communications, consent was already given. When you join a company, you typically sign an agreement that talks about how the company owns all your output. Thumbs upping a Teams message is work output and they own it. Every email sent and received. Every keystroke. Etc etc etc. If you don’t want your employer to log and sell it, start your own company. Or use a personal device. I do the latter.

I don't know the US law, but surely in Europe specifically every private conversation is private, period. No matter if it's work email, your company cannot read the emails directed at your company mailbox by its initiative (of course in case it's needed a judge can ask it to be taken as evidence), nor it can read the files on your computer, or anything similar, no matter if the device it's company provided, because it would be considered the same as using a camera to spy on the employee, that is of course illegal.

Of course if it's shared communication media (e.g. a mailing list) it can, but not at your private address, no matte if it's @company.com, it's considered the same as your private email.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#238

Post by danhodgins »

xrd wrote: post #52
snickerbockers wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what happened to the sloth??? Don't bury the lead, man!

The sloth was returned to his owner and I did tip him. That kid is probably still prowling the Amazon (as an adult now), looking for sucker tourists like me.

Fantastic hustle from the kid. Game recognize game.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#239

Post by preg_match »

transcriptase wrote: post #84
breppp wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably should have taken the kid to small claims, that was extortion

Great way to end up on the no-sloth list

Put the sloth between me and the kid and let the sloth choose. It's the only fair way to do it!

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#240

Post by anonymars »

thehappypm wrote: post #208
l3x4ur1n wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is actually perfect, when the automated voice declares the call is being recorded, you don't have to do it again. You're legally allowed to record, because both parties were informed already and agree to it.

This may not be true in all jurisdictions

Exactly, that's only one-party consent
Post reply on HN