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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

#41

Post by lern_too_spel »

xnull2guest wrote: post #37
lern_too_spel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right, but the Snowden revelations showed that the FISA court was/is? a rubber stamp circle without any real due process - and in fact they can search the data and afterwards make a request via the FISA court. The data is also collected and stored and processed by algorithms without any court oversight, it is just when they want a contractor to look through the data manually that the minimal paperwork is involved. It…

"The data is also collected and stored and processed by algorithms without any court oversight."

This is false. PRISM doesn't get any data that wasn't specifically requested with a court order. It sounds like your understanding is still based on Greenwald's original reporting, which has since been shown to be inaccurate.

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

#42

Post by dllthomas »

staz wrote: post #21
film42 wrote: 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…

The downvotes are probably because "The nothing to hide" line is such a tired argument. Do you have blinds on your windows? Do you mind if we place a camera in your bathroom? Why? You have nothing to hide.

I think there is a subtle distinction between the "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear; ergo privacy invasion is good" meme, and what was said above ("privacy invasion is bad, but I am not concerned with invasion if my privacy because I have nothing to hide"). Which is not to say there's nothing to object to in the latter.

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

#43

Post by xnull2guest »

skuhn wrote: post #7
xnull wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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

I understand this and it is not contrary to my point. I'm actually trying to point out that the companies Snowden mentions have been specifically mentioned by NSA slides/documents and I think this has colored his suggestions. He suggests moving to others - but ultimately anything he suggests will get subverted if enough interesting material gets stored there. Not that that in itself is a reason not to adopt new technologies.

> To sneak it by us...

They aren't sneaking it by you as a company. They cooperate with the corporation and its internal organizational model to create a solution that fulfills the requirements. Most employees, however, can be blissfully ignorant.

I think you overestimate your ability to know such things. I know plenty of Google employees that had no idea about Google's involvement, Facebook employees with no idea about Facebook's involvement, Apple employees with no idea about Apple's involvement and Microsoft employees with no idea about Microsoft involvement.

I also work at a large company, and would have thought I would have seen clear indications of PRISM (& other) activity. Unfortunately that is not the case.

Condolezza Rice (of all people) joined the board of Dropbox.

This is their full time job and their professional expertise. I'm sure that PRISM infrastructure (or beta versions) were accounted for in full.

Edit: It's not condusive to conversation to downvote something merely because you disagree with it. The downvote button (and upvote respectively) are for designating whether you believe something is irrelevant to (/contributes to) the topic.

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

#45

Post by pXMzR2A »

jayd16 wrote: post #29
vikramsrao wrote: post #26

If i do all of these how do i share documents or search for information on the web? What ever the alternative is going to have the same issues as Dropbox, Facebook or Google. I cannot build my own versions of these!

You could build your own dropbox. It's not that complex. A social network and a search engine would be a bit harder.

> A social network

Diaspora*

> and a search engine

DuckDuckGo

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

#46

Post by pXMzR2A »

film42 wrote: 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…

> I actually have nothing to hide.

FTFA

> When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights.

Read TFA

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

#47

Post by takeitawaymike »

film42 wrote: post #16
[deleted] wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

I firmly agree with you, these services can seem scary, and we're half way down that slippery slope. But it's hard for myself (the consumer) to leave a service (like dropbox) that makes my life easier. I can manage my own private dropbox like service, but I don't trust myself. Maybe that's even scarier.

"But it's hard for myself (the consumer) to leave a service (like dropbox) that makes my life easier."

That's nonsensical and a strawman. No one is telling you to stop using such services. Just use an alternative that respects your rights. That's all there is to it.

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

#48

Post by xnull2guest »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #41
xnull2guest wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but the Snowden revelations showed that the FISA court was/is? a rubber stamp circle without any real due process - and in fact they can search the data and afterwards make a request via the FISA court. The data is also collected and stored and processed by algorithms without any court oversight, it is just when they want a contractor to look through the data manually that the minimal paperwork is involved. It…

"The data is also collected and stored and processed by algorithms without any court oversight." This is false. PRISM doesn't get any data that wasn't specifically requested with a court order. It sounds like your understanding is still based on Greenwald's original reporting, which has since been shown to be inaccurate.

"Collected" legally means looked at by a human.

I'm talking about sent to the NSA, processed by algorithms and stored. That's not 'collected'. It's a word game they play. My original assertion stands.

And be careful of "not under the PRISM program". The "not this program" has been shown to be false over and over (in spirit) as there are many related programs that do joint work on shared datasets.

Regarding Greenwald's reporting, can you link to something comprehensive (and trustworthy) about inaccuracies?

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

#49

Post by vikramsrao »

pXMzR2A wrote: post #45
jayd16 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could build your own dropbox. It's not that complex. A social network and a search engine would be a bit harder.

> A social network Diaspora* > and a search engine DuckDuckGo

Are they not compromised or more likely easily compromised considering they don't even have the resources to secure and legally fight against government interferences?

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

#50

Post by josephlord »

Selfcommit wrote: post #20

Does no one else see the irony in Snowden warning everyong to avoid Google.. via a Google+ Hangout?

If it was something intended to be public there is no harm in Google having it (they will scrape it off the web anyway) as the NSA are welcome to publicly access the content.

Most people don't treat Dropbox/Google/Facebook (non-public) usage as being equivalent to CCing the government but maybe they should.

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