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Google to close engineering office in Russia

reuters.com

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Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#91

Post by minimax »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #53

it is worrying what is happening in Russia but much less so than what is going in the USA. Google, Facbook etc tightly integrated with the nations intelligence agencies, mining the data found there to make secret lists that could result in assassinations, indefinite detention and torture. Russias actions are for the most part overt, and rightly criticized, what the US does, it does so covertly. If anyone speaks about…

We hear a lot about Russian dissidents leaving Russia because they have their freedom limited. Snowden and Julian Assange have had their freedom limited to much more so than any of the Putin dissidents. (With the exception of the possibility that a couple of them have been assassinated)

Assange has a TV show on Russian state television, and Snowden is a guy who fled to Russia with literally thousands of stolen NSA documents and now does TV propaganda with Vladimir Putin. Those are not dissidents. Those are Russian agents, whether they realize it or not.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#92

Post by dragonwriter »

minimax wrote: post #91
ThinkBeat wrote: post #53

it is worrying what is happening in Russia but much less so than what is going in the USA. Google, Facbook etc tightly integrated with the nations intelligence agencies, mining the data found there to make secret lists that could result in assassinations, indefinite detention and torture. Russias actions are for the most part overt, and rightly criticized, what the US does, it does so covertly. If anyone speaks about…

We hear a lot about Russian dissidents leaving Russia because they have their freedom limited. Snowden and Julian Assange have had their freedom limited to much more so than any of the Putin dissidents. (With the exception of the possibility that a couple of them have been assassinated) Assange has a TV show on Russian state television, and Snowden is a guy who fled to Russia with literally thousands of stolen NSA do…

They are western dissidents, whether or not they are also Russian agents.

Its not uncommon for dissidents forced to resort to exile to be leveraged for propaganda purposes by regimes opposed to the ones with regard to which they are dissidents, but that doesn't make them any less dissidents.

Why do people want to make things exclusive that are not?

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#93

Post by snarfy »

raverbashing wrote: post #40
chkuendig wrote: post #30

Might be a coincidence, but they also just announced plans to rent 50'000 square meters of office space in Zurich http://www.handelszeitung.ch/unternehmen/google-investiert-d...

I wonder why is Zurich a big part of Google's strategy as opposed to other places in Europe

It's because of the laws. Privacy laws, secrecy laws, tax laws, etc.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#94

Post by zarriak »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #53

it is worrying what is happening in Russia but much less so than what is going in the USA. Google, Facbook etc tightly integrated with the nations intelligence agencies, mining the data found there to make secret lists that could result in assassinations, indefinite detention and torture. Russias actions are for the most part overt, and rightly criticized, what the US does, it does so covertly. If anyone speaks about…

The biggest thing about the difference between Russia and the United States is the end goal of their actions. Putin is ensuring his power base, while the US is trying to stop terrorism. I don't like what they are doing but this is what the NSA thinks what works to stop terrorism. If you look at both President Obama and President Bush they did close to the same things regarding national security. It may be a faulty assumption, but this leads me to believe that there are things that these programs protect the western world from. The people who work for the CIA and NSA aren't idiots and they definitely have committed some horrible actions, but they wouldn't being continuing these missions if they were futile.

I would like to live in a world without religious extremism, but it has and will always exist. They utilize the poverty and illiteracy of certain places in the middle east to make teenagers believe suicide bombing is the way to get to heaven. Humanity is facing many existential crises and this is the way we are currently handling one. It is definitely not an optimal solution, but it doesn't matter if we can't solve our ever increasing CO2 emissions and the many other problems resulting from greenhouse gases.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#95

Post by tormeh »

raverbashing wrote: post #40
chkuendig wrote: post #30

Might be a coincidence, but they also just announced plans to rent 50'000 square meters of office space in Zurich http://www.handelszeitung.ch/unternehmen/google-investiert-d...

I wonder why is Zurich a big part of Google's strategy as opposed to other places in Europe

I would guess ETH Zurich and, to a lesser degree, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne has something to do with it. That's basically Europe's leading engineering and software universities right there.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#96

Post by ThinkBeat »

minimax wrote: post #91
ThinkBeat wrote: post #53

it is worrying what is happening in Russia but much less so than what is going in the USA. Google, Facbook etc tightly integrated with the nations intelligence agencies, mining the data found there to make secret lists that could result in assassinations, indefinite detention and torture. Russias actions are for the most part overt, and rightly criticized, what the US does, it does so covertly. If anyone speaks about…

We hear a lot about Russian dissidents leaving Russia because they have their freedom limited. Snowden and Julian Assange have had their freedom limited to much more so than any of the Putin dissidents. (With the exception of the possibility that a couple of them have been assassinated) Assange has a TV show on Russian state television, and Snowden is a guy who fled to Russia with literally thousands of stolen NSA do…

Does that mean that North Korean dissidents who speak about against the regime when they escape are CIA agents?

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#97

Post by melling »

debacle wrote: post #73
muglug wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Espionage (what the US programs were for) is very different than the widespread victimisation of those who are seen as undesirable. The Russian government is actively conspiring to silence hundreds of thousands of people. Whether it's because they were unfortunate enough to have been born gay, or because they want to talk about Russia's annexation of eastern Ukraine, or whether they just don't think Putin should be i…

The US government is also actively conspiring to silence hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, and they have been doing so since before Martin Luther King's days. They're just far more subversive about it because they're sitting on reams of money.

Could you be more explicit and provide some examples.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#98

Post by Perdition »

schrodinger wrote: post #60
ThinkBeat wrote: post #53

it is worrying what is happening in Russia but much less so than what is going in the USA. Google, Facbook etc tightly integrated with the nations intelligence agencies, mining the data found there to make secret lists that could result in assassinations, indefinite detention and torture. Russias actions are for the most part overt, and rightly criticized, what the US does, it does so covertly. If anyone speaks about…

Sorry, but I really don't buy the argument that USA is worse than Russia in this respect. Snowden, while I totally applaud what he did and would love to see him pardoned, or protected under whistleblower laws, leaked a ton of highly classified information. Again, I think he did the right thing, but him being prosecuted is not the same as "if anyone speaks about the actions the U.S. takes in secret they are hunted to…

Yeah, if Snowden had of betrayed the ~~KGB~~ FSS/FIS he would have fallen down some stairs onto some bullets a long time ago.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#99

Post by delroth »

piquadrat wrote: post #71
robk wrote: post #34

Word is that most employees are being offered full relocation (generally to Zurich) which I have to think will be well received. This goes for both Moscow and St Petersburg.

I guess it's not a coincidence then that Google announced the opening of new offices in Zurich today. https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u... Couldn't find an English source

http://www.europaallee.ch/content/dam/PDF/Ueber_Europaallee/... for an english source.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#100

Post by osipov »

aragot wrote: post #86
osipov wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very myopic view and here's why -- virtually all governments in the world are becoming increasingly authoritarian because of the global economic crisis and the civilian unrest that it provokes. For example, replace Putin in your sentence and you'll get "United States is increasingly cracking down on any possibility of dissent and threat to it power". You can support that statement with facts about police in…

> The real question is WHY is Putin cracking down on threat to his power? Sounds like a rhetorical question but I don't guess the answer. Do you mean Putin is doing it because of the civilian unrest? > Demonizing Putin is what your government wants you to do to avoid seeing the bigger picture. No-one is demonizing Putin, they're telling facts. The bigger picture is, censorship is bad, and if US defends the freedom of…

>>No-one is demonizing Putin, they're telling facts.

Really? Much in the same way that the media of 10 years ago convinced the populace that Hussein was involved with 9/11, the media today is propagating the following memes:

- Putin hates gays

- Putin kills journalists

- Putin was responsible for downing of MH17

How many of these memes are supported by facts? When accusing a leader of a nuclear power of these things, shouldn't the accusations be ironclad?

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