Don't be evil.
At this point I'm convinced that they never meant this. It was simply a recruiting slogan to attract all the liberal/libertarian/anti-coporation comp sci students who went to Stanford and Berkeley.
Tech group representing Google, Yahoo backs CISPA
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Re: Tech group representing Google, Yahoo backs CISPA
#12Don't be evil.
At this point I'm convinced that they never meant this. It was simply a recruiting slogan to attract all the liberal/libertarian/anti-coporation comp sci students who went to Stanford and Berkeley.
I'm pretty sure that early on (when pb coined the phrase), it was meant like "don't be like the other evil companies we've seen on the Internet in the past") (which presumably at the time meant Microsoft, maybe USG, maybe ITU, etc.) Which Google probably broadly believed internally. (this was in the early 2000s).
Re: Tech group representing Google, Yahoo backs CISPA
#13Sure, why not? Why would you NOT want to avoid all kinds of lawsuits? From our point of view it's disgusting but for upper management it's a no-brainer.
Why is it "disgusting"?
GoDaddy supported SOPA basically for the same reason - because it offered hosting providers immunity if they were taking down the sites themselves.
Re: Tech group representing Google, Yahoo backs CISPA
#14So who is TechNet? It's not really fair to cherry-pick from their members when writing a story like this. So let's take a look:
http://www.technet.org/leaders/member-companies/
A headline "Tech group representing AT&T, Palantir backs CISPA" isn't good copy. But that could have been the headline. The "Executive Council" (which seems to be the part of the organization that draws the focus on Google and Yahoo) also contains people from Oracle, Microsoft, and VeriSign. And one thing that council doesn't do is sign off on every letter the group sends out (or, probably, every point in the policy platform it espouses).
I doubt without knowing exactly that Google's official position is anti-CISPA and that this group doesn't speak for them because they don't actually control what it says. But I've been surprised in the past.
Perhaps, though, people should read this and think "hey, Google ought to put some pressure on the lobbying groups they participate in not to be stupid/evil/whatever." And perhaps if a few Google executives express that they're upset that their names were used in conjunction with something they don't support, they can rein in groups that want to claim the mantle of "the tech industry".
Re: Tech group representing Google, Yahoo backs CISPA
#15This is the part where tptacek says CISPA doesn't do anything particularly bad vs. the state of law now, other people express fairly emotional vs. fact based arguments about what bad it could do, and no one (in industry or government or watchdog groups) really knows for sure what CISPA would, in practice, mean, right?
Nah. It's bad. Here's a simple argument that covers just one part of the bill.
CISPA would give a safe harbor from other privacy rules to companies that share information with the government as long as that information is about "cyber threats". Now, let's say someone breaks into your database server and you're at a company with not-too-skilled IT people. The government shows up and says "hey, what can you tell us about the attack you experienced? PS - we'd be happy to analyze your data for you."
What do your IT people do? They say "screw it, we'll just send in all the logs we have and let the feds figure it out." And so they do that.
What if the law protects the information in those logs? What if the information is sensitive (like health or financial information) and is protected under a special privacy regime like HIPAA? Or what if the information is protected from disclosure by contract (like in a TOS/TOU document)? CISPA says that the disclosure is exempt from whatever sanctions/punishments would happen under those protection regimes because Cyber Threats Are Important (tm).
Disclosure: I am not a lawyer. Even after it's passed into law, only a court can decide exactly what the safe harbor in CISPA means.
Re: Tech group representing Google, Yahoo backs CISPA
#16This is the part where tptacek says CISPA doesn't do anything particularly bad vs. the state of law now, other people express fairly emotional vs. fact based arguments about what bad it could do, and no one (in industry or government or watchdog groups) really knows for sure what CISPA would, in practice, mean, right?
The basic issue around CISPA is that it puts the power to share info in the hands of the tech companies. They like it because the government cannot compel actions--unlike the Senate bill last year.
Tech companies trust themselves to only share the critical info needed for better security, so they do not see a risk in CISPA.
Citizen groups do not trust tech companies or the government, so they see risk in any legislation that seems to reduce oversight of info sharing between them.
Re: Tech group representing Google, Yahoo backs CISPA
#17This is the part where tptacek says CISPA doesn't do anything particularly bad vs. the state of law now, other people express fairly emotional vs. fact based arguments about what bad it could do, and no one (in industry or government or watchdog groups) really knows for sure what CISPA would, in practice, mean, right?
The basic issue around CISPA is that it puts the power to share info in the hands of the tech companies. They like it because the government cannot compel actions--unlike the Senate bill last year. Tech companies trust themselves to only share the critical info needed for better security, so they do not see a risk in CISPA. Citizen groups do not trust tech companies or the government, so they see risk in any legislat…
Right, a lot of the issue is that SOPA/PIPA (and before that, PATRIOT, NDAA, etc) have poisoned the water between ~the users of the Internet and ~the Government.
Re: Tech group representing Google, Yahoo backs CISPA
#18So who is TechNet? It's not really fair to cherry-pick from their members when writing a story like this. So let's take a look: http://www.technet.org/leaders/member-companies/ A headline "Tech group representing AT&T, Palantir backs CISPA" isn't good copy. But that could have been the headline. The "Executive Council" (which seems to be the part of the organization that draws the focus on Google and Yahoo) also cont…
The difference is, we expect this sort of Evil behavior from AT&T, Palantir, Oracle, VeriSign and definitely Microsoft. But when a company with the supposed motto of "Don't be evil" backs it, it's news. Yahoo, though, I'm only a little surprised. I'm also not surprised Apple is a member, nor that you (and the headline) didn't mention them.
Sure, sure, you can't keep track of the political positions of every group you're a member of. But if a group holds opinions that are evil, that might just be a good reason to not maintain membership. I could easily Godwin this thread by mentioning certain groups I am not a member of for exactly that reason. The company you keep and all that.
Re: Tech group representing Google, Yahoo backs CISPA
#19This is the part where tptacek says CISPA doesn't do anything particularly bad vs. the state of law now, other people express fairly emotional vs. fact based arguments about what bad it could do, and no one (in industry or government or watchdog groups) really knows for sure what CISPA would, in practice, mean, right?
I don't understand why you think CISPA is hard to parse. The 2013 draft bill is public. The bill is extraordinarily short. And much of the objections --- which you rightly call out as emotional --- are contradicted by the text of the bill.
I don't so much care whether CISPA passes. What I do care about is people trying to fundraise by convincing willfully ignorant nerds that CISPA is a backdoor SOPA bill; why, just look, GoDaddy supports it, it must be bad!
Re: Tech group representing Google, Yahoo backs CISPA
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
The basic issue around CISPA is that it puts the power to share info in the hands of the tech companies. They like it because the government cannot compel actions--unlike the Senate bill last year. Tech companies trust themselves to only share the critical info needed for better security, so they do not see a risk in CISPA. Citizen groups do not trust tech companies or the government, so they see risk in any legislat…
Right, a lot of the issue is that SOPA/PIPA (and before that, PATRIOT, NDAA, etc) have poisoned the water between ~the users of the Internet and ~the Government.
That is probably true, but that fact is not an all-access pass to making inaccurate claims about the bill. But it gets used that way all the time.