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On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

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Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#101

Post by gnosis »

kostya-kow wrote: post #53
gnosis wrote: post #23

Google is spyware. This has been obvious for a long time. Most other "free" web services aren't much better. It's sad that it's taken so long for people to start realizing and caring about this, but better late than never.

>Most other "free" web services aren't much better. Most non-free web services are equally happy giving away your data to the government. Apple, MS and all the other companies are no better than Google. And Google is not the problem -- it is just a symptom. The problem is the government that does not respect the rights of people.

My use of the term "free" was not intended to imply that "non-free" web services were any better.

I used the term to highlight that what most people consider "free" web services actually have a price.

That price is usually your privacy.

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#102

Post by tyrion »

Isn't all "this shit" in violation of the International Bill of Human Rights?

"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks." -- International Bill of Human Rights, article 12.

I also found interesting to read the "CCPR General Comment No. 16" [1] on the right to privacy.

[1] http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/23378a8724595410c1...

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#103

Post by spankalee »

gnosis wrote: post #101
kostya-kow wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most other "free" web services aren't much better. Most non-free web services are equally happy giving away your data to the government. Apple, MS and all the other companies are no better than Google. And Google is not the problem -- it is just a symptom. The problem is the government that does not respect the rights of people.

My use of the term "free" was not intended to imply that "non-free" web services were any better. I used the term to highlight that what most people consider "free" web services actually have a price. That price is usually your privacy.

Free has nothing to do with it. Go ahead and pay for the same services, but it'll do nothing to protect your data from a search warrant.

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#104

Post by drivebyacct2 »

embolism wrote: post #46
jamesaguilar wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the problem is not specific to Google. (Not to put words in the gp's mouth, but that seems like an obvious reason to broaden the focus to me.)

True, but Google is by far the most dangerous aggregation of personal information, and the topic of this conversation. It's also a company that spends a lot of effort telling people to trust them when that is clearly unjustified.

> the most dangerous aggregation of personal information

Speak for yourself.

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#105

Post by drivebyacct2 »

mtgx wrote: post #13

They keep the deleted e-mails too? So even if you want to escape that 180 days law that says after 180 days it's free for all for authorities to get your e-mails, then deleting them before that time passes won't do you much good. So basically the authorities will have access to your e-mails anyway. It's just that they won't get them in the first 180 days. And of course this just applies to police/FBI, as NSA can get…

> basically the authorities will have access to your e-mails anyway

How is this not the wide assumption being made right now? How is there ANY question remaining of whether or not they have such access?

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#106

Post by drivebyacct2 »

embolism wrote: post #39
jmillikin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you implement a secure web interface to distributed encrypted storage? The moment a user wants to view email in their browser, it needs to be decrypted by Google's server (or decrypted by Javscript served from Google's server, which is equivalent from a security perspective). For users who are willing to give up the web interface, there are many open-source email clients that provide strong encryption (e.g.…

The web is simply not designed with privacy in mind. People should stop using webmail.

What a truly, truly, truly absurd statement. I run my own webserver and have Roundcube exposed. It's only accessible via my VPN and even then, it's HTTPS. So tell me, how are you planning to compromise that?

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#107

Post by huggah »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #79
gohrt wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wouldn't be Gmail in any sense. Why would google be involved in that product -- they dont' provide the server, the delivery, the spam detection (right?) If you dont want to use Gmail for some or all messages, just don't use Gmail.

They could provide all the client software. Hell, they could even make ad targeting work by moving their mail-reading bots to the client and have them select ads from a stack of mothership-provided ads, with no feedback except following the link if you click. But I agree with you that it's very different from anything they do. Also, too vulnerable to piracy or cloning. Aaand it may not be feasible to run their bots i…

> they could even make ad targeting work by moving their mail-reading bots to the client

Gmail ad targeting isn't a bit of JavaScript that can run in real time in the background. It's a series of huge map reduces touching data sets larger than any client computer could store. Just indexing a pre-prepared list of mothership ads would result in a horrible user experience (far poorer ad targeting).

Google has a vested interest in only showing you ads you might be interested in; it doesn't work as well as it should, but it works magnitudes better than the state of the art 10 years ago.

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#108

Post by tptacek »

ef4 wrote: post #87
rgbrenner wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, tptacek is right... if you are a foreigner living abroad, the bill of rights does not apply to you: In 1957, the court changed its position, overturning decades of precedent to declare that American citizens are in fact protected against U.S. government misbehavior by the Bill of Rights even outside the country. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, the court limited its ruling to U.S. citizens. Foreigners rem…

I'm aware that the court has interpreted it that way. That doesn't make it any less wrong. To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. - Thomas Jefferson,1820 I will also note that the data in question was within the United States, where all property, whether owned by foreigners or…

What warrant did Jefferson serve on the Barbary Pirates?

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#109

Post by gnosis »

spankalee wrote: post #103
gnosis wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My use of the term "free" was not intended to imply that "non-free" web services were any better. I used the term to highlight that what most people consider "free" web services actually have a price. That price is usually your privacy.

Free has nothing to do with it. Go ahead and pay for the same services, but it'll do nothing to protect your data from a search warrant.

Actually, it does have something to do with it.

When you don't pay for a service in money, the company providing that service has to find some other way of generating money.

Often they do this by collecting and selling data about you.

Now, that doesn't mean that just because you paid for a service they won't do the same thing. But they'll will have more incentive to protect their paying customers than some service which consider you and your data as the commodity.

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#110

Post by embolism »

betterunix wrote: post #96
acdha wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe engineer a service that is harder to wiretap? You can't solve a legal problem with engineering. We're talking about the same agencies who had the ability to get all of the major phone carriers to install wiretapping services – there's no reason to believe they wouldn't do the same to anyone else of interest.

Yeah, but if you read the linked paper, there are things Google could do to protect its users' privacy. That paper is about privacy-preserving targeted advertising, which would not give Google anything for the government to subpoena or search while still allowing them to conduct their business. There is no reason Google has to make itself an easy target.

You're making the assumption that that proof-of-concept behavioral tracking solution is anywhere near as effective as what google already does.

Google doesn't want the profile to be stored privately in your browser because then they can't use it to target you in other situations.

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