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Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

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Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#3

http://www.dbms2.com/2014/09/15/misconceptions-about-privacy... While I'm a huge Snowden fan, he's a bit wrong at times about encryption, in that it solves a smaller part of the problem than he sometimes suggests.

Is that your blog? I really don't think you've "caught him out" by saying his first paragraph contradicts his second. One paragraph is the present state of affairs, the other suggests future behaviour that can change the present state of affairs. Snowden doesn't have the luxury of communicating with people who have covered their tracks.

All of your bullet points thereafter merely describe the present state of affairs and do not in any way contradict the concept of using encryption to change them.

It's the defeatist attitude that I find the most defeating about this subject.

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#4

http://www.dbms2.com/2014/09/15/misconceptions-about-privacy... While I'm a huge Snowden fan, he's a bit wrong at times about encryption, in that it solves a smaller part of the problem than he sometimes suggests.

Dropbox was revealed as a participant of the PRISM program: anything you store there is searchable. The same is true of Facebook and Google and Yahoo, Apple, all cell phone carriers, all internet carriers and other cloud storage companies including Skydrive/Onedrive.

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#5
I won't be getting rid of Dropbox, Google services, or Facebook anytime soon. I disagree with government spying, and would like to see major reform, but (disagreeing with Snowden) I actually have nothing to hide. I'm not excusing the companies that provide data to governments, but I like the services they provide. They solve problems I want solved, so I will continue to use them.

Edit: Why all the down votes? If you disagree, let's talk about it.

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#7
post #4

http://www.dbms2.com/2014/09/15/misconceptions-about-privacy... While I'm a huge Snowden fan, he's a bit wrong at times about encryption, in that it solves a smaller part of the problem than he sometimes suggests.

Dropbox was revealed as a participant of the PRISM program: anything you store there is searchable. The same is true of Facebook and Google and Yahoo, Apple, all cell phone carriers, all internet carriers and other cloud storage companies including Skydrive/Onedrive.

Dropbox is mentioned in the PRISM slide deck as being a desired participant, not an actual participant. I worked at Dropbox when those slides were released, and none of us on the operations team knew what it could possibly be talking about.

Every company that wants to continue to operate in the US has to comply with US government orders, that is just a fact of life. No one in the technology industry is super excited about going to jail or having their equipment seized. But the kind of compliance that PRISM implies is not something that you just sneak in without anyone noticing.

There was an internal accounting of every server and network connection -- it would have required a shadow ops team running shadow datacenters to sneak it by us.

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#8
post #4

http://www.dbms2.com/2014/09/15/misconceptions-about-privacy... While I'm a huge Snowden fan, he's a bit wrong at times about encryption, in that it solves a smaller part of the problem than he sometimes suggests.

Dropbox was revealed as a participant of the PRISM program: anything you store there is searchable. The same is true of Facebook and Google and Yahoo, Apple, all cell phone carriers, all internet carriers and other cloud storage companies including Skydrive/Onedrive.

You left out half a sentence. "Anything you store there is searchable" if the US government has a court order for your data. This has always been the case. Other governments have similar systems for processing data obtained via legal requests, under different names.

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#9
post #5

I won't be getting rid of Dropbox, Google services, or Facebook anytime soon. I disagree with government spying, and would like to see major reform, but (disagreeing with Snowden) I actually have nothing to hide. I'm not excusing the companies that provide data to governments, but I like the services they provide. They solve problems I want solved, so I will continue to use them. Edit: Why all the down votes? If you…

[deleted]

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#10
post #5

I won't be getting rid of Dropbox, Google services, or Facebook anytime soon. I disagree with government spying, and would like to see major reform, but (disagreeing with Snowden) I actually have nothing to hide. I'm not excusing the companies that provide data to governments, but I like the services they provide. They solve problems I want solved, so I will continue to use them. Edit: Why all the down votes? If you…

"If you have nothing to hide share your credit card info and social security number with the world"
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