Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

anarchism.is

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 230 posts

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

#181

Post by icebraining »

magicalist wrote: post #148
icebraining wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complying with search warrants would not be nearly as problematic if Google didn't capture so much data about its users, or made a bigger effort to prevent itself from reading it (and hence be unable to provide it). See http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2012-01-19-playing-chicken-w...

Some data could be captured less, but what about data like email contents, files, contacts, calendar data, chat histories? Retaining those things are part of the whole purpose of having web clients and dwarf logs like the IP address you used to do a web search, which is ephemeral anyway. Can we at least define the "so much data" that we're talking about here? Going to my Google account page, for the most part I see s…

Some data could be captured less, but what about data like email contents, files, contacts, calendar data, chat histories? Retaining those things are part of the whole purpose of having web clients and dwarf logs like the IP address you used to do a web search, which is ephemeral anyway. Can we at least define the "so much data" that we're talking about here? Going to my Google account page, for the most part I see services that I specifically turned on. What other data are we talking about here that would really save the day if not present?

LastPass is a webservice and stil encrypts the data locally; they use an extension, but Google controls the most popular browser today. They could add encryption capabilities to it and use it on Calendar, Contacts and others. Even email could be auto-encrypted on arrival.

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

#182

Post by JoachimSchipper »

sneak wrote: post #175
jmillikin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> You can do a lot with metadata.

With GMail metadata, yes; with Tarsnap metadata, much less so.

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

#183

Post by loup-vaillant »

embolism wrote: post #153
loup-vaillant wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, you do want to remove that dangerous war zone itself. The problem is, to do that, a few group of people at best needs to stick their neck out for the benefit of everyone else. The way I see it, the problem is that mass cooperation just isn't going to happen. Incentives and benefits must be found at the individual level (altruism counts as a weak incentive), and drawbacks must be dealt with, starting with the g…

My OS does do it by default. It also provides me with a messaging system with end to end encryption by default. The inconveniences can be removed by engineering - that's what we do . It's a matter of priorities and Google's are conflicted in this area.

Which OS? That sounds interesting.

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

#184

Post by gundy »

ra wrote: post #166
alan_cx wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're right, it's hypocrisy in action. I wonder if a panel of lawmakers were given all of this to make recommendations on, without secrecy, gag orders or political prejudice, if we'd have very different situation today.

US government is bigoted and tyrannical towards non-US citizens. Period.

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

#185

Post by oelmekki »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #104
embolism wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think he's right. There's something terrible, here. Google services let us search/share/store data with an efficiency yet unseen at this scale. It's probably not that much of an exaggeration to say google is empowering humanity.

But doing so, it handles so much data about so much people that even with good will, it's a danger. How secret services and cops could not be interested in the huge amount of data magically made available by google services ? The aggregation itself is the danger - and the feature we all love.

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

#186

Post by Andrew_Quentin »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #140
alan_cx wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ;)

I think its rather that no one has tested the above argument. The judgement was in 1953, so it had nothing to say about the internet or data stored in the US.

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

#187

Post by yaix »

rgbrenner wrote: post #59
ef4 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal theory that the bill of rights only applies to US citizens is dangerous and wrong. It applies to actions of the United States government. It is a list of things they may not do.

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…

Interesting. I guess that's why Guantanamo is on Cuba.

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

#188

Post by Andrew_Quentin »

mpyne wrote: post #152
contingencies wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably also against the UN declaration of human rights.

Given that spying drastically shortened the war against Japan and appreciably shortened the war against Nazi Germany (both of which are definitely not on the Christmas list of UN human rights proponents), I'd be careful about how emotionally attached one gets to the issue of spying. Like many other things, it is a tool... it can be used for good or for bad, but in the end it's a tool nonetheless.

Spying on an enemy government is way different from spying on civilians.

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

#190

Post by dragonwriter »

mpyne wrote: post #167
dragonwriter wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The First Barbary War was a declared war -- declared first by the Pasha of Tripoli against the US and explicitly recognized as a state of war in several acts of Congress subsequently -- so its hardly relevant.

Well, "recognized as" hardly amounts to a declaration of war. Congress did authorize use of military force though, but technically only against Tripoli, not Algiers or Tunis. So the question remains open in general.

> Well, "recognized as" hardly amounts to a declaration of war.

Congress has the power to declare war, but (a) that power doesn't require any particular language, and any authorization of military action, as contained in the various statutes Congress adopted after the Tripoli declared war, can have the effect of a declaration of war (and a declaration of war may be limited or conditional), and (b) Congressional declaration of war is sufficient to create war, but not necessary; an enemy declaring, or initiating without declaring, war is also sufficient to create war.

See, among other cases, Bas v. Tingy, 4 U.S. 37 (1800); The Prize Cases, 67 U.S. 635 (1862); The Protector, 79 U.S. 700 (1871).

Post reply on HN