Which company doesn't belong?
I don't know. What's your point?
Reform Government Surveillance
51–60 of 223 posts
Re: Reform Government Surveillance
#52Good god, they can't even get their open graph tags right. Tried to share this on facebook: http://i.imgur.com/HDtqrcS.png
The site just went live at 9:00 PM PST, so that's what FB had cached from the placeholder site beforehand. G+ had the same problem. Mostly this demonstrates a need to be able force a recrawl when generating the thumbnail.
They should have passed the url through Facebook's Open Graph Object Debugger to invalidate the cache before launching the site. FB 101...
Re: Reform Government Surveillance
#53It seems peculiar that Apple is a signatory: > Sincerely, > AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo and their logo appears in the listing @ the end of the page, but their logo isn't in the beginning of the page, and they don't provide a quote from their CEO nor legal counsel, per the other signing companies. Last-minute change of heart, lukewarm support...?
I wondered about that as well. Last-minute inclusion seems most likely explanation, but very odd. If you have ever worked on something like this, you will know that merely getting these companies to agree to have their logos on the same page is a feat. They are listed in alphabetical order, and I imagine there was MUCH discussion about their relative sizes. But it can't be that Apple is disputing their logo size, sin…
They can't be that particular, they're even using the old Twitter logo at the top.
Re: Reform Government Surveillance
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
On Internet you have the choice of which service to use, that's the key difference. You don't want Google ? Use DuckDuckGo. You don't want Microsoft ? Use Linux systems. And so on. The issue with the government is that you are tracked by default, on your mobile phone and on your online activity. You cannot opt out .
You have very little choice to avoid Google Analytics (or one of a handful of other major analytics companies). Almost every site on the internet uses it. None of them reveal in an obvious way if they do, or give you any choice (or they just pop up a generic "we use cookies, if you continue using this site you agree"). Or beyond that, there's all the sharing buttons, Google Web Fonts, hosted JavaScript libraries, and…
Using ghostery or similar browser plugins covers 90% of the use cases you describe.
I dislike that you get forced to use it to opt-out, but there is little other choice.
Re: Reform Government Surveillance
#55It seems peculiar that Apple is a signatory: > Sincerely, > AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo and their logo appears in the listing @ the end of the page, but their logo isn't in the beginning of the page, and they don't provide a quote from their CEO nor legal counsel, per the other signing companies. Last-minute change of heart, lukewarm support...?
I was hoping to see Amazon.com signed on to this as well, given their substantial position in cloud computing, and their likely future influence being even greater.
Re: Reform Government Surveillance
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also the stark differences in the consequences of misuse. Google can use my information to serve me diabolically targeted ads. The government can put me in jail. It's not that I trust Google more, it's that they have vastly less power to harm me even if their intentions are bad.
The difference is quite subtle, if any. I'm not even sure why you are afraid of government stalking. After all, government is prevented by the rule of law from arbitrarily throw you in jail. For every reason you are afraid of government, you should be afraid of corporation X. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that corporation X will not collude with the government to do you harm 10 years from now. These corporations…
> After all, government is prevented by the rule of law from arbitrarily throw you in jail.
This statement is factually incorrect. The government is allowed to hold you for however long they want, without trial, as long as they call you "terrorist". www.ndaa2012.us
Re: Reform Government Surveillance
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
They may not all care what happens to Snowden, but I think it's unfair to say they're merely showing off. I think these companies are acting on pretty high principle. They have little to gain by issuing such a statement, except the goodwill of people like us, but since they're all participating, such goodwill is evenly distributed and no one of them derives an advantage from it. Whereas they all depend on good relati…
The crux of the issue for Snowden is whether he is viewed by the public as a whistle-blower or traitor. These companies have staked out a position, off the back of his endeavors, yet lack the courage and conviction to fully support him. It makes me cringe to see Larry Page, Marissa Mayer et al posting weasel words on a web-site, as though they are champions of the people. In the week that Nelson Mandela passed away,…
Snowden didn't do this for publicity or to be grand-standed, he did it because he believed it was right. I think he would agree that he is not the issue people should be discussing. Instead, it should be how to fix the problems he brought to light.
Re: Reform Government Surveillance
#58A bit surprised by some of the errors on the site. - Tweet button doesn't have a link - G+ share button isn't working - Opengraph tags point to a missing image-url, so Facebook shares don't have an image associated. I think maybe this hit HN before they were quite ready for launch - I'm guessing these'll be fixed pretty quickly. Excellent move by the companies involved though. A lot of advocacy organizations have bee…
The og: tags point to a misspelled hostname (reformgovernmentsurviellance.com) -- but it now seems to redirect to the correct one.
Re: Reform Government Surveillance
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
On Internet you have the choice of which service to use, that's the key difference. You don't want Google ? Use DuckDuckGo. You don't want Microsoft ? Use Linux systems. And so on. The issue with the government is that you are tracked by default, on your mobile phone and on your online activity. You cannot opt out .
You have very little choice to avoid Google Analytics (or one of a handful of other major analytics companies). Almost every site on the internet uses it. None of them reveal in an obvious way if they do, or give you any choice (or they just pop up a generic "we use cookies, if you continue using this site you agree"). Or beyond that, there's all the sharing buttons, Google Web Fonts, hosted JavaScript libraries, and…
I use multiple Firefox profiles.
Primary has all the privacy-enhancing extensions turned on and tuned, so random browsing will not accrue to me.
When I hit a wall (rarely) and after consideration, decide that I really want to bypass it (even more rare), I create a new profile, do the dirty deed, and then destroy the profile.
Chrome profiles are leaky in confidence-damping ways, and the options for privacy extensions are fewer. Use Firefox.
Re: Reform Government Surveillance
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
They may not all care what happens to Snowden, but I think it's unfair to say they're merely showing off. I think these companies are acting on pretty high principle. They have little to gain by issuing such a statement, except the goodwill of people like us, but since they're all participating, such goodwill is evenly distributed and no one of them derives an advantage from it. Whereas they all depend on good relati…
The crux of the issue for Snowden is whether he is viewed by the public as a whistle-blower or traitor. These companies have staked out a position, off the back of his endeavors, yet lack the courage and conviction to fully support him. It makes me cringe to see Larry Page, Marissa Mayer et al posting weasel words on a web-site, as though they are champions of the people. In the week that Nelson Mandela passed away,…
These companies want the conversation to be about surveillance, not Snowden. Had Snowden been mentioned in the letter, it would have set off a distracting debate. They probably appreciate what he did, but publicly thanking Snowden isn't going to help them achieve their goals.