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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

#131

Post by andor »

tptacek wrote: post #28
betterunix wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe engineer a service that is harder to wiretap? It is not easy, but they have some of the best computer scientists on this planet working for them. If I were them, I would start somewhere around here: http://crypto.stanford.edu/adnostic/adnostic.pdf

It's not directly apropos this particular thread, but Google has engineered an email service that is particularly difficult to wiretap. To wit: (a) They're the Internet's foremost adopter and proponent of DHE ciphersuites, which drastically reduce the impact of losing the RSA key that underpins most site's TLS security, and, just as importantly, forces adversaries to actively MITM every connection in order to decrypt…

They're a pioneer in key pinning, which bakes the identity of their key into the Chrome browser binary, meaning that when your Chrome browser talks to Google's mail service, it's unlikely to trust any otherwise- valid- looking certificate presented by a MITM attacker.

Chrome doesn't pin actual certificates, just public keys of CAs. If some organization had access to Verisign, Equifax or Geotrust keys, they could just create new certificates for *.google.com, which Chrome would accept.

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

#132

Post by jkrems »

B0Z wrote: post #80
nsomaru wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding (a) --- I don't understand how this argument that the constitution of a country (which represents its highest thoughts and ideals) can be applied selectively (i.e., only to citizens). If the thoughts contained therein regarding the rights of human beings are indeed 'True', then surely they should apply to all human beings? If the US insists on waiving the rights of non-citizens, despite the constitution, th…

> I don't understand how this argument that the constitution of a country (which represents its highest thoughts and ideals) can be applied selectively (i.e., only to citizens). If the thoughts contained therein regarding the rights of human beings are indeed 'True', then surely they should apply to all human beings? You'll get little argument from most 'Mericans for your statement that these rights are human rights.…

I think you are missing the point here: My government (Germany) already grants those rights, maybe even more rights than the US. But this doesn't mean anything when I'm using a service provided by an US company over which my government doesn't have any jurisdiction. What the US government says by its position and in the age of internet and cloud computing is the following: The moment any non-US citizen is using a service provided by an US company, he is giving up any right to due process, privacy and data security (as far as this service is concerned). Which is risky and short-sighted to say the least.

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

#133

Post by jmillikin »

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…

Why would anyone use a proprietary ad-ridden client when there would be multiple high-quality open-source clients available?

And if the protocol is sufficiently closed to prevent open-source clients, why would anyone use it at all? Wouldn't that be the same as the XMPP->Hangouts transition that infuriated everyone a few weeks ago?

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

#134

Post by markdown »

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.

> It's sad that it's taken so long for people to start realizing and caring about this, but better late than never.

LOL, you really think people have started caring about this? Nobody but a handful of techies and tech writers gives a shit.

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

#136

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#137

Post by burntsushi »

embolism wrote: post #114
burntsushi wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just seems like a variation of the argument that you should get out of the way of the bullet instead of demanding that the gunman not shoot you in the first place. I should be able to give whatever data I want to Google without worrying that the government is going to take it from Google in secret.

That is a laudable and idealistic goal, but we don't live in that world. Furthermore Google itself knows more than we do about how easily governments can access the data it accumulates. If it chose to, Google could protect users by developing services that do not rely on Google itself examining their personal data. Google understands the risks better than its users but chooses to expose them because doing so is align…

> If it chose to, Google could protect users by developing services that do not rely on Google itself examining their personal data.

I'm perplexed that you'd call me idealistic for not wanting a coercive third party secretly taking a company's data by force, and in the next sentence suggest that a company should provide services to me in exchange for nothing.

I give my data to Google. In exchange, I get their services and they get to serve me advertisements. I am happy with this arrangement. Wanting my government to have some semblance of the checks and balances encoded in our founding document is neither unreasonable nor idealistic.

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

#138

Post by charonn0 »

dylangs1030 wrote: post #75
charonn0 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I would prefer your stance to be correct, the Supreme Court has held that the Constitution applies only to persons within the USA. For example, Downes v. Bidwell found that "the Constitution does not apply to foreign countries [...]" [1] and that it doesn't apply to US Citizens if they are outside of the US, "[the] Constitution can have no operation in another country." [2] [1]: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/sc…

While what you say was true, this legal precedent was later overturned by Reid v. Covert in 1957: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_v._Covert

Justice Black, who wrote the Reid opinion[1], did so in terms which are very much applicable to the current situation:

    The concept that the Bill of Rights and other constitutional protections against 
    arbitrary government are inoperative when they become inconvenient or when 
    expediency dictates otherwise is a very dangerous doctrine and, if allowed to 
    flourish, would destroy the benefit of a written Constitution and undermine the 
    basis of our Government.
That sentence basically sums up my entire viewpoint on warrantless government dragnets.

[1]: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0354...

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

#139

Post by eliben »

digitalengineer wrote: post #18

"Google is, however, allowed to tell me what account is involved, and I can do whatever I want with the information Google gave me" So Google was allowed, not required . Looks like they did the right thing by at least telling OP what they were forced to do. Shouldn't the title be "Not trusting your Government"?

No, because blaming Google is trendy lately and will bring more traffic to the site.

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

#140

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

alan_cx wrote: post #72
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…

Hold on.... If a foreigner is protected while in the US, is accountable to the US if he/she breaks US law from abroad, and accountable if he/she breaks US law while visiting the US in the form of visiting a US web-server, (we foreigners are said to have visited US jurisdiction if we use US based services, there for we can be extradited) why then, if a foreigner's data is on US servers or systems, is his/her data and…

Well, US jurisdiction only applies when it's convenient, and the same goes for rights ;)
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