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Cowards

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Re: Cowards

#171

Post by grandalf »

One thing to keep in mind about both Facebook and Google is that both were late arrivals to their respective markets... created by founders from elite schools who were able to get funded to build a "Cadillac" version of something that already existed.

This kind of entrepreneurial success is closer akin to being successful in finance and less about innovation than about mapping a set of ideas to a set of value props that appeal to holders of risk capital.

This is a highly "establishment" mindset... but since that doesn't make a compelling creation story, emphasis is placed on the riskiest and most personality-driven elements.

So it's perfectly expected that both firms act cautious and conservative in a situation like this.

Re: Cowards

#172

Post by trekky1700 »

You can't really use the way someone frames a sentence as evidence for guilt. The terminology they used, like back door, was simply what they were accused of having. And the nitpickiness of pointing out that they said direct access rather than access is, in my opinion, crossing the boundaries of reason. We know, and have known for years that these sites provide data to the US when required by law. That would be considered access, which could easily explain the terminology.

Just because it's not the most sensational story doesn't mean it's not the true one. If we're going the conspiracy theory route: what if the documents are phony? What if the leak was made up?

Basically, rather than wildly speculating based on he said she said and the framing of a sentence, why don't we try to be intelligent and wait for some real information. None of this speculation does any good.

Re: Cowards

#173

Post by edwardunknown »

Aqueous wrote: post #81

There are cowards and then there are people who willfully exaggerate. A backdoor implies unfettered access to data for batch collection and processing. That's what this story was about at the beginning - the government was indiscriminately collecting and possibly analyzing your private data using some sort of massive, sinister Big Data operation, the scale of which we can not even conceive, and these big web companie…

CNET is claiming the Washington Post & Guardian stories were wrong and the whole thing was based off a leaked Powerpoint document. James Clapper said the stories contained numerous inaccuracies but didn't specify. This whole thing is hilarious, especially HN's reaction.

Re: Cowards

#174

Post by corresation »

polarix wrote: post #69
saalweachter wrote: post #65

I love the guilty-until-proven-innocent angle of these personal attacks against CEOs and companies. There is literally no evidence anyone could produce which would prove to anyone's satisfaction that (a) Google, Yahoo, Facebook, etc don't hand over every last shred of data they have to the NSA, the KGB, and whatever China's equivalent is, or that (b) the CEOs of the respective companies didn't personally sign off on…

The best hope for evidence would be engineering and construction documentation of the reporting mechanisms.

What sort of reporting mechanism? One of the articles (the one that Arrington thinks refutes the public denials of these companies, even though it does no such thing) talks about Google trying to organize a more efficient, standards approach to responding to lawful orders for specific data. That has nothing to do with this wholesale data pipe that is supposedly in place.

Re: Cowards

#176

Post by foobarqux »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #106

"Or to put it another way, who the hell needs “direct access” or “back doors” when companies are building “secure portals” for them instead?" The extent of his confusion is breathtaking. Apparently very few people get what this is all about. The real question is this: Does the government (a) mine content and/or metadata in these service providers' databases for suspect activity, or (b) can it only access specific acc…

I think the "real question" is whether people are okay with the government being capable of retrieving personal information that they thought was private. Public outrage is justified even if the nuance is not understood.

Moreover if the government is doing dragnet surveillance on telephone records it is only a matter of time before they expand the program to tech providers even if it hasn't already.

Re: Cowards

#177

Post by dasil003 »

calhoun137 wrote: post #157
dasil003 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoah, hold on, I don't think anyone is saying this is easy or there aren't risks for Zuckerberg. However to say he shouldn't stand up against tyranny and abuse of government power because he has responsibility to parties x, y and z is exactly the line of thinking that allows totalitarian governments to thrive. Government power is not absolute, that power is derived from the people. No one person can stand up to the…

Oh the irony! Obviously if Zuckerberg cared about people's privacy he would have run facebook differently.

It's not too hard to draw a line between using information your company collects for business purposes and government surveillance.

Also, it's worth noting that one of the key features that helped Facebook take off was much better privacy controls than anything that existed at the time.

Re: Cowards

#178

Post by joesb »

wslh wrote: post #148
dylangs1030 wrote: post #23

An article that waxes poetic, yet is so very hollow and devoid of realism. What would you have these companies do? Band together in a mighty ring of technological resources and begin a Privacy Revolution? This is unrealistic. As an American, I am saddened and angered by the recent news of the past two days. I am disgusted with what our government has done - what it has hidden from us, to take advantage of us unawares…

> What would you have these companies do? Band together in a mighty ring of technological resources and begin a Privacy Revolution? If I remember well Google was courageous enough confronting China.

May be, in that case, they thought the US government will still back them up. Will the Chinese government help Google in tis case against the US gov?

Re: Cowards

#179

Post by joesb »

polarix wrote: post #69
saalweachter wrote: post #65

I love the guilty-until-proven-innocent angle of these personal attacks against CEOs and companies. There is literally no evidence anyone could produce which would prove to anyone's satisfaction that (a) Google, Yahoo, Facebook, etc don't hand over every last shred of data they have to the NSA, the KGB, and whatever China's equivalent is, or that (b) the CEOs of the respective companies didn't personally sign off on…

The best hope for evidence would be engineering and construction documentation of the reporting mechanisms.

And, if given those document, why would you trust it? They could still be lying. If you don't trust what they are saying now, why would you trust any document created by them?

Re: Cowards

#180

Post by Aqueous »

wavefunction wrote: post #121
Aqueous wrote: post #81

There are cowards and then there are people who willfully exaggerate. A backdoor implies unfettered access to data for batch collection and processing. That's what this story was about at the beginning - the government was indiscriminately collecting and possibly analyzing your private data using some sort of massive, sinister Big Data operation, the scale of which we can not even conceive, and these big web companie…

It's more about seizing the moment of widespread outrage to effect change, rather than ho-humming like a jaded hipster.

The line between 'seizing' widespread outrage and 'manufacturing' it is perilously thin.
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