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Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

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Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#301
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

vengeance Unfortunately. But the criminal still can't commit crimes while in prison though. Vengeance just also means that solving the problem of any individual criminal is usually only temporary.

Well there can still be rehabilitation with captivity. The US system just doesn’t prioritize that. We prefer punishment, even though outcomes are worse for everyone.

Agreed. There are things like GED and college programs, but they can have long waiting lists. Makes it a bit ironic if you have to commit a crime bad enough to get a multi-year sentence to get into an education program in prison. There more to rehabilitation though, and exclusion from a vast number of jobs after getting out of jail doesn't really help the rehab process.

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think the American experiment needs to end. What we have was never democracy nor was it meant to be. America was simply a playground for European nobles to send their second and third sons off to either make a fortune or die; then those surviving second and third sons decided to form a government that their families couldn’t claim as their own. We need a new American experiment that is actually government…

Slavery existing at the time this country was founded does not make it a founding principle. The only constitutional component of slavery was intended to reduce the power of slave states, and most of the country abolished slavery by 1804.

The entire structure of the senate is designed to give maximum power to the slave-holding states, and every political decision in the country before the civil war was made with the aim of preserving their power in mind (this counts for the electoral college too).

This is the reason votes in rural areas count so much more than urban votes. Because rural areas in the south were heavily populated by enslaved people and the slavers (meaning not just the title holding slave owners; many people who did not own slaves were still fundamental players in the system of slavery) held a lot of influence.

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine a scenario where the warrant is for searches that you would not believe a human would naturally make on their own. I think SCOTUS would allow that. Scenario: Hello fellow criminals. Instead of point to point communication, we will make random posts/pages that have our combination of words on them. So if you want to read our communication, do a google search for the exact quote "purple antelope shoe couc…

naturally make Though some of those bomb searches could easily be made by anyone curious about past bombing incidents. I've certainly had some curiousity-based searches about how the Unibomber did his work. How do we end up defining naturally ? That's a question the court would ask, and want to be able to provide a litmus test for going forward. I'm not sure how we do that here... Statistical probability at some spec…

Yes, once the very unique search phrase becomes public and lots of random people are searching it, I suspect the court would be less likely to allow such a warrant.

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#304
post #209

It may be an unpopular opinion, but I'm kind of fine with that. I mean, Google tracks everybody anyway, but there is no benefit to the society at large. But if in this way you can somehow help preventing mass murder, at least for once this tracking is put to good use. I imagine they must have a lot of false positives so probably concentrate on the worst offenders. If someone is searching for a lot of sick stuff on wa…

I'm in the same boat, but we really need to update our justice system to compensate for the increase in trivial infractions. social credit style systems can make a lot of sense here, eg: micro punishments and rewards

I don't understand what you mean. Searching for problematic material is not a crime. Heck, it can be even done for legitimate reason such as research. I have a friend who loves watching decapitation videos but is otherwise a pretty amiable person and I hope he never kills someone. Persecuting someone on the basis of what they like to watch or what they search for is out of the question in any Western democracy[0]. When you add "social score" to it, it becomes an abominable dystopia nobody would like to live in.

[0] Well, until you actually find CP - it will be placed in your browser cache then, so technically it's on your hard drive now, not a pleasant situation from a legal point of view.

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#305

The only sensible solution is to name JS and CSS frameworks using the keyword list.

Reminds me when the trigger keywords for Echelon[1] leaked on the internet [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON [2] https://www.theregister.com/2001/05/31/what_are_those_words/

Saying the word "privacy" triggers the global warrantless surveillance system? That's pretty amusing. They must have quite the dossier on a lot of people here, including me.

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's back when people still wore DeCSS on tshirts.

I had one of those shirts. Unfortunately even in my circle of nerd friends, I was the only tech nerd. Everyone else was either an anime nerd or a M:TG nerd.

You were lucky: you actually had nerd friends...

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#308
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For a legal warrant you have to have probable cause that a specific person committed a crime. You can't just search everybody and see what sticks, that's blatantly unconstitutional. Sure, though it’s worth noting that nothing prohibits the police from walking down the street and asking people. Those people don’t have to talk to the police, but… Google will fight warrants like this. AT&T doesn’t. Other companies hav…

I think something everyone should be aware of as well: there is no legal requirement that Google not hand over this data to police. A warrant is needed to force Google to hand over such data, but they don't need anything at all to ask Google nicely . And if Google decides it's in their best interest to comply without a warrant, they are the legal owner of the data, so ...

there is no legal requirement that Google not hand over this data to police.

Yet they always do! Weird how that works out.

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#309
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is also censoring a large list of search terms when used in combination with reddit. For example, you'll get zero results for "site:reddit.com underage".

How did you discover this? Any more examples?

I was trying to find information about a recent scandal and was surprised that I couldn't find any discussion on reddit. Restricting the results to reddit.com made it clear what was going on. These search terms are not censored on Yandex.

It seems that they've recently removed some search terms from the blacklist. If I remember correctly, the terms I had searched originally were "qanon" and "pizzagate" , but those are no longer censored. "pedo" and "jailbait" still trigger the censor though.

Re: Feds order Google to track people searching certain names or details

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the SCOTUS has basically no legitimacy left at both the federal and state level. States are routinely ignoring Supreme Court rulings and have for years, and federal agencies don’t listen to them either anymore. The rule of law in the US is on life support right now. Another Trump presidency will kick the patient out the window.

We are in another Trump presidency for all practical purposes. Increasing surveillance, rule by executive order, no respect for the press, no transparency, business as usual, threatening other countries. Not much has changed.

I don't really understand what Trump did differently, he just was more direct with implementing bad ideas. But surveillance steadily increased under previous presidencies. Government doesn't understand that this mistrust is mirrored by the populous at some point. In a democracy surveillance should be directed towards officials, not the populous. I think it pretty stupid to blame Trump. Yes, he was funny (as a non-American) but certainly not the reason for the structural issues and the split in political camps. A symptom perhaps and a predictable one I believe.
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