An open letter to Eric Schmidt • Hacker News Board

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#21

Post by DrJokepu » Wed, Dec 09, 2009, 11:05 PM UTC

fserb wrote: post #6

gojomo wrote: post #4

In some sense, every email to or from a gmail user is an "open letter" to Eric Schmidt. (No, I'm not implying that that he or the typical Googler does or would review private email... only that some non-null set of employees there, probably including the CEO if he were really determined to do so, could .)

What is the point you're trying to make? One could use your argument for any single entity in the world. "I'm not implying that Coca Cola's CEO does or would put poison on the beverages, only that some non-null set of employees there, probably including the CEO if he were really determined to do so, could." Replace Google/review private email with anything and you'll have a meaningful sentence: Obama/release nukes, k…

Exactly what I'm thinking. I thought this tinfoil hat mentality has died with slashdot. Face it: any e-mail provider can read your e-mail, including the e-mail provider of your recipient. The sysadmin in your office can read your e-mail. Your ISP can read your e-mail even if you host your e-mail server (unless you use https). Same goes for the ISP of the recipient. The only way to be safe was if everyone hosted their own e-mail servers and used PGP/GPG to encrypt their e-mail.

Maybe it's time to stop being paranoid and start concentrating or real problems? Like pondering on how to create an e-book reader that doesn't suck or discovering how to cure AIDS and cancer efficiently?

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#22

Post by psranga » Thu, Dec 10, 2009, 12:09 AM UTC

csallen wrote: post #14

Okay don't crucify me here... but am I the only one who thinks that this vague concept of privacy is overrated? Everyone on the internet is so concerned about their stuff being "out there". What does that even mean? Tens of thousands of real-life strangers see your face, your children, your address every year. If I wanted to stalk a random person all day every day in real life, how much information could I gather? Wh…

Go read the full Bruce Schneier article that was also posted on HN.

According to you searching for an embarassing incident/health problem etc on Google is equivalent to putting your private diary on your coffee table? Well trolled.

Privacy is a fundamental requirement to remain human.

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#23

Post by pyre » Thu, Dec 10, 2009, 1:04 AM UTC

csallen wrote: post #18

sdh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look to history for the answer to why privacy is so critical to a functioning, free society. If you don't care about freedom, then privacy is indeed overrated. Basically, every law or power given to the government needs to be evaluated as if the most evil entity imaginable were using it. If it is bad in that context, then it is a bad law.

Faulty logic in my opinion: In the past, people used X to do bad thing Y. Therefore, X is bad. Should I not be allowed to have a gun, because someone else shot someone? It's not having a gun that's bad: it's murder. You can murder in all sorts a way without a gun. It's not collecting data that's bad: it's violating trust. You can violate trust in all sorts of ways without collecting data.

But huge pools of data are a temptation to break trust in the way that leaving a gun in the middle of the street is an invitation to steal it.

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#24

Post by gloob » Thu, Dec 10, 2009, 2:13 AM UTC

DrJokepu wrote: post #21

fserb wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the point you're trying to make? One could use your argument for any single entity in the world. "I'm not implying that Coca Cola's CEO does or would put poison on the beverages, only that some non-null set of employees there, probably including the CEO if he were really determined to do so, could." Replace Google/review private email with anything and you'll have a meaningful sentence: Obama/release nukes, k…

Exactly what I'm thinking. I thought this tinfoil hat mentality has died with slashdot. Face it: any e-mail provider can read your e-mail, including the e-mail provider of your recipient. The sysadmin in your office can read your e-mail. Your ISP can read your e-mail even if you host your e-mail server (unless you use https). Same goes for the ISP of the recipient. The only way to be safe was if everyone hosted their…

It's possible that my priorities are simply out of touch with those of the mainstream, but for me "half of the world can read the email of the other half of the world" is a bigger problem than "ebook readers aren't very good right now". The notion that we should stop caring about privacy because a couple of network protocols have design flaws is silly.

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#25

Post by gnaritas » Thu, Dec 10, 2009, 2:17 AM UTC

pyre wrote: post #23

csallen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Faulty logic in my opinion: In the past, people used X to do bad thing Y. Therefore, X is bad. Should I not be allowed to have a gun, because someone else shot someone? It's not having a gun that's bad: it's murder. You can murder in all sorts a way without a gun. It's not collecting data that's bad: it's violating trust. You can violate trust in all sorts of ways without collecting data.

But huge pools of data are a temptation to break trust in the way that leaving a gun in the middle of the street is an invitation to steal it.

A better analogy would be that huge pools of data are a temptation to break trust in the way that leaving a huge pile of money lying in the street is a temptation to steal it. That's what those people see in that data, huge piles of money.

The question is should we outlaw things that in and of themselves aren't wrong, but are so tempting that a large minority of people who wouldn't otherwise break the law fall for the temptation and decide to. DUI isn't inherently wrong, but the odds of it resulting in harm are so great that it makes sense to outlaw it. Most of the time DUI is a victim-less crime, that doesn't mean it should be legal unless you mess up and kill someone.

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#26

Post by amackera » Thu, Dec 10, 2009, 2:18 AM UTC

It's Doctor Schmidt, he's got a PhD in EECS. (this really doesn't contribute to the discussion, I just thought it was cool)

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#27

Post by robak » Thu, Dec 10, 2009, 3:34 AM UTC

snprbob86 wrote: post #5

Schmidt's quote is clearly out of context and overblown. Rather than crucifying the man, we should seek clarification of his position. Personally, I believe that his actual stance is along the lines of: "Google does everything it can to protect the privacy of users. Unfortunately, we are required to retain some data by law and some by practicality. If you are doing something you don't want known, the only way to be c…

I'm sorry, but this is nonsense. This is NOT what he said.

The same way they cooperate with Chinese Secret Police to track and arrest freedom fighters.

Don't be too naive. They would sell you for extra change.

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#28

Post by robak » Thu, Dec 10, 2009, 3:42 AM UTC

ruby_roo wrote: post #20

You know, this whole episode could turn out to be a positive thing if he keeps pointing toward the Patriot Act as the real culprit. Which it is.

Not really. You have moral duty to oppose or ignore bad law. Do you think that he would help Gestapo track Jews in Nazi Germany? He's quite close because he cooperates with Chinese Secret Police. And probably he thinks that it's not his problem... it is all because of "bad law". How convenient! Now, how much I made on it... ;-) No, thank you Mr. Schmuck, I don't need no your stinking police state sniffing software. You can shove it you know where.

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#29

Post by IgorPartola » Thu, Dec 10, 2009, 4:17 AM UTC

At the same time consider an alternative to GMail. Are you going to host the service on a local machine? Are you going to send the e-mails only using PGP? All the people who are moving their e-mail services from GMail to joe-shmoe-shared-hosting.com are just switching the people who could be reading their e-mail, not eliminating them. If you host your own server in your bedroom, your ISP still can read all your e-mails unless you encrypt them for when they are "in flight". So can any server on the way from here to the recipient's or the sender's inbox.

I guess the only real solution would be for someone (startup idea alert) to start a company based solely on the principal that e-mail should be private point-to-point and charge exuberant amounts of money for this. E.g. guarantee a bulletproof, nukeproof data center with storage and transport encryption that would keep no logs or backups of any kind.

I'm not saying that what Google is saying, doing or we suspect is doing is right or wrong. I just think that alternatives to Google are companies that are much greedier or more desperate.

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#30

Post by vanelsas » Thu, Dec 10, 2009, 6:33 AM UTC

Privacy isn't about hiding things. Its about freedom, choice and the ability as a human being to draw a line. In the online world this has become impossible due to the implicit exchange of data taking place. Google provides you a relevant service, and in return they will take your data. That exchange needs to be explicit.