Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea
171–180 of 230 posts
Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea
#172Earlier 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…
In context, your quote does not make sense. Without judicial review, which Jefferson was criticizing, there would be -nothing- to stop bad laws from being implemented. Abortion would still be illegal, for example.
Marbury v. Madison created a remarkable legal instrument: the Court can strike down a law, but it cannot write a new one (deplorable Costa Rican abortion jurisprudence notwithstanding). It is a check on government power that errs on the side of liberty.
However, relying on the Court to strike down every bad law is like relying on the compiler to catch logic errors. A sufficiently intelligent compiler can perform some remarkable analysis of code, but that is not the function of a compiler. We continue to elect bad Congressmen who pass bad laws signed by a bad President, and then we have the gall to blame the Supreme Court. It's ridiculous.
If you want to make a difference in politics, you have to actually get involved in politics, at the party and primary level, because that is just how shit gets done. It is critical to elect good candidates, not just to throw out bad ones.
Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea
#173Abit harsh on Google. I mean what are they to do?
Die. Lose to a competitor that is based in a free country and/or offers a paid service and therefore does not need access to the entirety of people's data to serve ads.
Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Because , you should really accept the removal of " Hah. Yeah, sure.
Well, how about this one? I would argue that controlling what substances are injected into your own body is pretty fundamental human right. So why do we allow societies to impose a vaccination regimen on people, by even minor coercion?
Oh, I thought you were going heroin, instead you went antivax.
Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
>(With the exception of things like tarsnap). The chain of trust still extends to them. You're trusting that they're actually doing everything they say they're doing. If you don't own the hardware and the building where the hardware is, you have to trust that they're doing everything you want them to be doing.
> The chain of trust still extends to them. You're > trusting that they're actually doing everything > they say they're doing. Tarsnap performs encryption in the client, which is distributed only as source code. If you audit the client sufficiently to believe it is properly encrypting your data, then there is no need to trust the server or the hosting provider.
You still have to trust them and their government when you use the service. They (or their government) could delete or compel the deletion of the files, have or cause outages, etc.
Also, all the crypto in the world doesn't keep a service from logging (ip, timestamp) tuples each time you access them. You can do a lot with metadata.
Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Am I right that a) applies only to direct communications between the end user and Google's servers? Actually if someone sends an email to my Gmail account using his ISP SMTP server, is the connection between the two SMTP servers likely to be encrypted?
Even if it is encrypted, I doubt it's authenticated.
Wiretaps almost never involve active MITM. This is a red herring.
Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right. This is why we need encryption.
We have encryption. We need to use it.
My using encryption doesn't suddenly make all of the hundred people I regularly communicate with on gmail suddenly have PGP keys or smartphones that support encrypted messages.
Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Expect that Google wants to read what you wrote on the email and to whom. Of course to help you see more ads, er better ads. Cause you're just dying for another dozen ads. Imagine a Google Glass wearer and a NSA order to record everything he sees?
Well, it would be possible to make the ad-thing part of displaying the message. That's the moment when you have to decrypt it anyhow.
That's how it works now. It would be foolish to assume that your emails are stored on disk unencrypted.
Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea
#179Google should invent a distributed, encrypted email protocol and make that network an option in GMail for storage and message sending. That would be a great PR move - if there is no central server, and no central message pipe, it's a little hard for anyone to think Google wants to be complicit in spying.
There already is a distributed, encrypted email protocol. That's what gmail uses.
Trusting "someone" on a distributed network to store information for you long term isn't a good idea. They disappear and your data is gone too.
Also, if you can find them to request the data, a search warrant can find them to request it, too.
Also, crypto doesn't help. It would be foolish to assume gmail messages aren't encrypted on disk. The keys have to be stored somewhere. End users can't and won't securely store key material. Store them on the server, and it's subject to the warrant.
Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea
#180If Google has records of all emails that have been sent and deleted, presumably even if you don't have a Gmail account the government could ask Google for all emails that had ever been sent to your account. Just as the Syrian government is unlikely to be able to get Google to give them information on particular dissidents, it would be wise for American activists to choose a email provider that is not located in the U…
Indeed. Once I manage to anonymously acquire some Bitcoins, I will be looking for a reputable VPS host based in Europe (that I can pay with Bitcoins) where I can run my own mail system.
Why, so that all the emails you send and receive can go right back to american PRISM partners? There's little point to that when everyone you email uses gmail.