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Google's software mistreats or harms the user

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Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user

#251

Post by gregknicholson »

davvolun wrote: post #119
chucksmash wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd naively consider a keylogger to be software that captures your keypresses universally. I use Firefox and have search suggestions disabled there so I am somewhat sympathetic to their point. That said, calling server-side autocomplete on a field you explicitly are typing in strikes me as about as sensible and forthright as calling an Amazon text field that takes my credit card number a card skimmer.

> calling server-side autocomplete on a field you explicitly are typing in strikes me as about as sensible and forthright as calling an Amazon text field that takes my credit card number a card skimmer Exactly, and waters down the impact of the termminology. If "card skimmer" is anything that can read a credit card, than the term is meaningless for security. If "keylogger" is anything connected to the web that respon…

> GNU is risking turning into the boy who cried wolf here.

As with a lot of the FSF's messaging, I think the substance of the message may be correct, but the way they convey it just isn't effective.

If this is for a general audience(!), no-one was ever convinced by the 48th item in a list who wasn't already convinced by the 47th. You don't persuade people just by being right, and certainly not by banging on about the very many subtly-different ways in which you're right. Pick few strong examples and prosecute those decisively.

If this is a resource for campaigners, set out the audience and intent before you start. Preface it with something like “Here are various ways that certain aspects of Google's software can be seen as indistinguishable from malware. They may be useful counterarguments if someone suggests Google's software is trustworthy.”

Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user

#252

Post by amatecha »

henryfjordan wrote: post #71
whatshisface wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you come at it from the perspective that Google is your friend, as in not like a real friend (who I wouldn't let change my passwords), but a friend that's even better than a real friend, then sure, these points are paranoid. The GNU perspective is very distrustful of the idea that anyone else should be administrating their devices, and refuses to trust any corporation more than they would a friend.

The GNU completely ignores the value that you get from Google. For instance this point: > Google Chrome contains a key logger that sends Google every URL typed in, one key at a time They are describing the auto complete feature... I get that people should be making informed choices about what data they share, but for the FSF to so intentionally mis-describe what is going on does not help inform anyone.

It might ignore the value, but it's not incorrect.

If Chrome is sending to Google every character typed into the URL bar, that's literally a networked keylogger and can presumably be used for all the same nefarious purposes as a "malicious" keylogger. The perceived value this feature provides is meaningless in the context of privacy/security.

I bet all those keypresses are stored permanently, associated with your Google account, but that's another issue altogether.

Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user

#253

Post by yongjik »

whatshisface wrote: post #215
yongjik wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP's points still stand, if coming from the perspective that Google is a successful, multinational corporation, with a reputation to protect, and staffed with thousands of engineers who also have their own job standards and individual reputation to protect.

Your friends have your friendship to protect, right? If multinational corporations have your interests at heart more reliably than your friends then maybe it's time to meet new people!

Different entities can be entrusted with different responsibilities, not because I trust one more but simply because they're different.

I'll never ask my friends to memorize my schedule and remind me on time. I'll also never ask Google to take care of my cat. Sounds pretty straightforward to me.

Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user

#254

Post by skybrian »

badrequest wrote: post #80
skybrian wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "friend" analogy is basically the perspective of someone who wouldn't put their money in a bank. If you wouldn't trust a friend to hold thousands of dollars for you, why would you trust a bank? It's questionable whether Google deserves similar trust as a bank since they aren't regulated in a similar way. But it isn't unusual for people to trust companies over friends for some things, such as their life savings.…

You bring up regulatory controls on banks, but then dismiss them as if most folks would willingly put their money into them if the regulations weren't there. If you'd trust the bank with your money without the regulations, I'd love to send you details about the bank I'm forming.

I certainly don't mean to dismiss financial regulation. It's an important reason why today's banks are lower risk than in previous times - at least, for depositors. But people used and trusted banks long before FDIC insurance. (And often, that trust was broken.)

I expect we will see more regulation of the companies storing personal data, along the lines of the GDPR. I don't expect people will stop using the big tech companies to store personal data.

Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user

#255

Post by lazyasciiart »

nybble41 wrote: post #199
lazyasciiart wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose is to extend what I as the producer of the files can do, giving me the ability to send you a file and still control your usage.

> ...giving me the ability to send you a file and still control your usage. This is exactly why DRM is malware. It's not your device. You don't get to say what it may or may not do. That's for the device's owner to decide. malware: Software that is specifically designed to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to a computer system. " rel="nofollow">https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/malware> Your explicit in…

Without DRM, I won't send you the file. If I don't send you the file, you can't play it at all. So DRM has increased what you can do.

Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user

#256

Post by kube-system »

nybble41 wrote: post #248
spookthesunset wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> subverts their control over their own device The owner owns their device, yes but they don't always own the data on the device. DRM, for all its faults, is an attempt to reconcile to reconcile the two conflicting requirements.

The idea of "owning" data is incoherent, which readily explains the issues with DRM. It is an attempt to apply rules suited only for scarce property to non-scarce information. Owning a resource means that you get to decide how the resource is consumed, i.e. used up . This is exclusive only to the extent that scarce resources cannot be put to two conflicting uses simultaneously, so active use by anyone else would prev…

The vast majority of places in the world recognize the right for a creator to exclusively reproduce their creative works for a period of time so that they may enjoy profit from their creativity.

That may be semantically different than “ownership”, but is otherwise functionally irrelevant in the context of this conversation.

Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user

#257

Post by dang »

19ylram49 wrote: post #42
19ylram49 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the points made are legitimate concerns. I’m guessing that you work for Google (or Apple)?

Aaaaand confirmed! You do work for Apple. (It took me 30 seconds to visit your website and confirm this.)

You can't attack another user like this here. We ban accounts that do this. Please don't do it again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user

#258

Post by monster99 »

spookthesunset wrote: post #165
johannes1234321 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software running on my computer, not letting me things do I want to do is malware. Yes.

You own your computer, yes. But you don't always own the data on it. Ownership of something is a legal and social construct, not a technical one. PS: I think most DRM works against the businesses that attempt to implement it. But it isn't malware. It is a data protection layer.

DRM most certainly is. BEfore the internet there was no "DRM" in the modern sense, copyright protection back then did not lead to incomplete software.

Modern DRM is literally taking control of other peoples machins remotely by holding back part of the program on computers in corporate offices. It's literally fraud.

Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user

#259

Post by monster99 »

spookthesunset wrote: post #224
musicale wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does it (DRM) limit you from doing, in particular? How about: - Using the fast forward function in media playback software to skip over advertisements. - Ripping DVD and Blu-Ray movies for use with a media server. - Playing movies and games from other countries (region locking.) - Recording or streaming console gameplay (e.g. HDCP on PS3, disabling the share function in certain PS4 games.) - Running certain so…

Don't use that content if you don't like the restrictions it imposes on you. DRM sucks, but you don't have to use it.

Except you really don't have a choice, the internet allows companies to hold programs hostage and you have no market power.

The modern internet is one giant computer which companies unofficially own or control. By coding software in a fraudulent way where they take advantage of mass computer illiteracy from their end.

That's how DOTA 2, league of legends, SMITE, paladins, fortnite, exist... they can only exist in a society where mass internet penetration is sufficiently large, or else they would have just been regular PC multiplayer games coded like Quake 3 or UT2004.

You don't get the agenda, the last 20 years has been the greatest theft of PC games in history. When valve dropped steam in 2004 - the patch to take control of half-life, it was an act of fraud and theft because his customers couldn't reach him.

Valve is the biggest theif in all of history. The internet changes the dynamics of power between companies and customers because they can simply hold files and programs hostage on their computers and call it a service.

AKA google play is pure criminal enterprise, games you never own and who's programs run on your device but who's executables are wrapped in encryption and critical parts of the code run on googles servers, even though they are asking for money from the public.

The whole model exists based of mass computer illiteracy. These "Software as a service" models are irrational because the whole agenda for corporations is to deny local apps to the user for monopoly profits.

They get away with it because their tech informed customers are trapped 100 miles away, so they can simpyl force policies.

Free market theory is over, the power assemetry between creator of software and buyer is overwhelmingly now in the producers favor.

Nowhere is this seen more clearly then diablo 2 vs diablo 3 or starcraft 1 vs starcraft 2.

Where the game is the same but they hold the program hostage on a computer in their office to deny application control to the people buying the software. It's just fraud by any other means.

There's no reason for any game, application, or os to be split between my computer and the companies. It's fraud on a massive scale, they are literally enslaving peoples computers because writing software means you are a governing power in an internet enabled society.

Most people are not technology literate so you get a disaster in terms of privacy.

Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user

#260

Post by lima »

ben7799 wrote: post #128
mfontani wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly sure tethering can also be trivially detected by inspecting the TTL of packets, as a device sitting "behind" the tethering device will increase the TTL by one. https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/47819/how-can-ph... seems to have more on the matter.

This can be spoofed/hidden extremely easily if both devices are open source and you want to change it though. It's not like TTL can't be changed. The tethering device can just rewrite the packets to hide the tethered device.

Even better - you only need root on either device. Just set a higher initial TTL on your tethered device, or rewrite the TTL on the phone.

But carriers don't use that anymore, too easy to bypass.

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