Google Security Team Member on NSA: "Fuck These Guys"

Disregarding for a moment that a state can not be communist (one defining characteristic of communism being absence of state), only socialist, North Korea has long disassociated itself from communism. Since the 90s at least there has been a systematic removal of any mention of Marxism, communism and related terminology from the constitution, laws and official discourse.

I doubt he's reading this - but for you, sure...

His claim is that there aren't any viable anonymous payment systems for the web but that advertising is semi anonymous, so that's better.

(1) There are ways to make anonymous payments on the net, I can use cash to buy cash-cards in denominations up to $500 that work just like debit cards online, they are even branded with Visa and/or MasterCard. Until a couple of years ago you could buy even larger denominations but war on terror hysteria made it illegal to do without providing ID. None of the entrenched powers seemed to mind the new regulations all that much, which leads too...

(2) The rise of advertising as the primary source of online funding has choked out development of alternative online payment systems in the same way that an invasive species chokes out native species that occupy the same ecological niche. If it weren't for companies like google we wouldn't be in the situation we are now because a lot more work would have gone into the development of alternative payment systems.

(3) The entire goal of modern online advertising is to identify and track users as narrowly as possible so as to better "target" them. The more sophisticated online advertising systems become, the less anonymous the users become. Companies like BlueKai and hundreds of others exist to connect your real-life identity (and associated database entries) with your online activity. Even google does it with their real names policy for g+.

So instead of each vendor only knowing about the specific transactions they have with you, there exist multiple databases that amalgamate all of your transactions (online and offline) across multiple vendors into one central record that is for sale. I'm well aware that Google thinks their user records are super proprietary and that they would never make that data openly available outside of Google, but (1) they are far from the only holder of such data and many of the others see selling/renting that database as their main source of profit, (2) sophisticated use of targeted ad-buys can indirectly mine Google's data, it's not as easy as just buying access like you would from a place like Experian but it is feasible under the right circumstances and (3) who can say if Google will have a change in corporate direction tomorrow and start selling access to all that data that they have been collecting for over a decade?

So, in short, his claim was so blindered that it really was quite ridiculously naive/ignorant.

Who do you think the lobbyists are? Them is us.

> You can't blame Google for not anticipating a hostile break-in by the government.

"The" government? The lines were also being tapped by organized crime, China, France, etc. Google severely failed at data protection.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that, just maybe, the whole NSA thing is a cover-up to distract the attention from the fact that it's actually the megacorporations that want to spy on you? This is a good way for Google, Microsoft, etc. to look innocent. Let's not forget that it was us who decided to trust these corporations with all our personal data.