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Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

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Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#91

Post by CountDrewku »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #42
CountDrewku wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been de-googling my life as much as possible the last year. I think it's impossible to completely be rid of it but at least I feel I'm doing something. Moving important email to protonmail. I only use firefox and duckduckgo browsers. Pretty much exclusively using duckduckgo for search. I've installed a PiHole on my home network. I've switched to an iPhone... although I considering some custom android ROM now. Us…

> Moving important email to protonmail. https://www.thedailybeast.com/secure-email-provider-protonma... Protonmail literally gave up the personal info of some French activists who were later arrested...

Being legally compelled to hand over data is not the same as actively collecting every single facet of personal info about people for monetary profit bud.

Google does exactly what you're upset about ON TOP of a plethora of more insidious things.

If you're trying to make a claim that one is equal to the other you're failing miserably.

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#92

Post by Nasrudith »

_yoqn wrote: post #88
shadowgovt wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eric Schmidt, as Google CEO, had a habit of saying unpopular but true things. When he responded to a question about how people interact with Google with "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," he wasn't so much offering self-criticism as a warning regarding the overall societal trend, of which Google was merely a part. The context is often left o…

Privacy is generally agreed to be a human right. And privacy means that you can do or say something and have a right to have it not be known or made public. If someone with access to you data exposes it, it's a violation of privacy. So no, the old argument of "if you don't want it known, don't do it" is fallacious and dangerous.

Doesn't the added context change it from a moral argument to a pragmatic one about opsec as it were? Morally not locking your door doesn't mean you should be robbed. Practically it means you are more likely to be robbed.

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#93

Post by l33tbro »

a_large_rat00 wrote: post #76
icarus_gh wrote: post #38

As a person neither leaning East nor West who is an avid HN reader it's always interesting to read the comments under such topics where the collusion between US private companies come up. Comparing it to the reactions when tenous connections between Chinese companies and the CCP are characterised as a threat to freedom and human rights. It reminds me to be wary of my own biases. Because from where I stand they are al…

One can be against heavy-handed authoritarianism both at home and abroad, while still seeing the (quite distinct) shades of gray between the US security apparatus and the CCP, or between the CCP and North Korea, or between the US and the EU. Different governments and processes give different weights to due process and human rights vs bureaucratic efficiency and national security. It should not be controversial to say…

> That doesn't exonerate the US by any stretch; our government does a ton of shady shit, much of it arguably unconstitutional or extrajudicial, from warrantless wiretaps to drone executions of US citizens. But these make the news, which indicates 1) at least there is a relatively free press and 2) they are unusual enough as to be noteworthy, as opposed to commonplace and not discussed.

Does what is reported by the media equate to the sum total of US malfeasance? I sometimes wonder if there is an Overton's Window for the public's appetite for corruption and exposure of systemic exploitation.

> China doesn't share the same values as the West. The individual is deemphasized for the collective good, as defined by the current CCP elite of any decade.

Could the 2 power structures have different approaches to how the individual is de-emphasised for collective good? Perhaps the US has a more diffused and opaque strategy of achieving the same end? I say this because Americans signal opportunity and the virtues of social agency to one another at all levels of society - but each time I travel there it seems like a social nightmare where few are actually contented once you get past the small talk.

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#94

Post by einpoklum »

This story is a smoke screen. The government in general - that is, some branches of the government starting with the NSA - already obtains all this information, and more, automatically from Google, whether willingly or otherwise. No warrant, no specific orders, no nothing. That is part of Edward Snowden's revelations:

https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Guardian_and_Snowden_r...

Many large media outlets have basically buried this fact rather quickly after the initial coverage of the revelations, and now we can have stories about how "the keyword warrant" being "one of the more contentious". Sure, it's contentious, since _more_ government bodies get easier access to some of the information, but its infraction of people's privacy is nothing compared to the vast public spying.

One should also mention the mechanism of "National Security Letters", in which the executive branch of the US federal (only?) government can compel non-govenrment entities, in secret, to provide them with whatever information they deem necessary for national security purposes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#96

Post by [deleted] »

wongarsu wrote: post #3

In principle I don't have a problem with the police getting a warrant to find out who searched for a specific name or place in a constrained time frame. It's a bit like the police asking the library who checked out a specific book. The problem is that this could obviously be used with keywords that target a wide group of people, e.g. finding everyone who plans to attend a protest. If we continue to allow keyword warr…

[deleted]

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#97

Post by matheusmoreira »

wongarsu wrote: post #3

In principle I don't have a problem with the police getting a warrant to find out who searched for a specific name or place in a constrained time frame. It's a bit like the police asking the library who checked out a specific book. The problem is that this could obviously be used with keywords that target a wide group of people, e.g. finding everyone who plans to attend a protest. If we continue to allow keyword warr…

> It's a bit like the police asking the library who checked out a specific book.

And you have no problem with this? Government and police looking into and judging you based on what you read is one step away from policing wrongthink. You can't learn anything deemed dangerous anymore without being arrested. Can't look up how a bomb or sarin gas works without SWAT coming down on you because you're obviously a terrorist.

This government collusion with Google is the same thing. Government and police show up and say "find me a list of people who searched for dangerous knowledge". This is normal now, without even the trepidation depicted in films like Se7en.

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#98

Post by AlbertCory »

jeffbee wrote: post #11
AlbertCory wrote: post #4

What I don't know, even though I was in the same building with the people who handled these orders in Google Legal, is: If you clear your Google history (as you should), can they still respond to an order like this with your name? What if you did the search from Brave or Safari, where you were not logged into Google?

I doubt that deleting your search history would trigger a re-write of search logs. After all your history is your data, but search logs are their data. I believe it is their published policy to remove the last octet (or 80 bits, for IPv6) from client addresses in logs after 9 months and to rewrite logs without cookies after 18 months. This probably tells us more about the fact that 18-month-old search logs are not ve…

see my comment about "undue burden."

They could, but might say "nah, too much trouble."

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#99

Post by kwhitefoot »

binkHN wrote: post #25

If you haven't already, you've been able to "auto-delete" the data Google keeps on you for a while now. I think Google should be turning this on by default for everyone, but, if you are not doing this, a little more detail may be found at https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/automatically... .

This is only the data that Google keeps for you, not the data that Google keeps on you.

Re: Google keyword warrants give U.S. government data on search users

#100

Post by fragmede »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #26
lmilcin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: downvote all you want. Complaining about being downvoted is shunned upon on HN and is unlikely to cause people to stop downvoting. It brings nothing interesting to discussion and actually reduces density of interesting things.

You only posted a piece of my edit. I did also clarify my point. Was not meant as a complaint as much as a clarification and invitation for discussion. Wish more down votes would comment. My style tends to be terse/short and perhaps I don't always make my point well.

The edit would have been better if you'd left off the first four words in it. It's not your terseness that's the issue.
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