I don't know why this still surprises people, or why Google is being singled out here. Information is transmitted by copying. Every provider has to look at and analyze your messages if they want to do clever things to them, like let you search your archived mail server-side. Even if they don't do anything with your messages themselves, they're still compelled by the government to parse through it all. Nothing is safe.
Whenever anyone asks me to explain how the Internet works, I don't talk about tubes or connected servers, because thinking your message is "in" a pipe is a broken abstraction; it makes people imagine nothing sees or touches your messages until they arrive at the destination. Instead, the mental model I encourage people to have for Internet is that "each packet is like a message stuck to a big public message board." Privacy is not the default; it's a public system, and privacy is something you have to actively create on top of it (via encryption, onion-routing, etc.)
Once again, this is a fundamental mistake especially techies seem to make when it comes to privacy.
Privacy isn't about what is and what isn't publicly accessible, it's about what you do with that information.
It's a violation of privacy for any company to follow me around in a public space and record my movements.
It's a violation of privacy for a company to use the data I've given them for any other purpose than the reason for which I gave it to them, because it is still my data.
This is why collecting and collating wifi ssid's by Google was considered a violation of privacy. Yes, the data was out there, but the abuse of that data was a violation.
Privacy is not a technological system. Privacy is not about security.
People should be able to use the internet without automatically getting their privacy violated, just like they should be able to go out in public without having their privacy violated. The fact that it is an open system is absolutely no excuse for deliberate privacy violations.
People should be able to use the internet without automatically getting their privacy violated, just like they should be able to go out in public without having their privacy violated.
You do realize that that's exactly wrong. Going out into public means that you risk being followed. Being followed becomes illegal when they follow you into your home (a private space) or when they actually hurt you/have hurt you.
You are making an even more fundamental mistake: knowing that you're addressing people asking how to act in their day-to-day lives--and yet talking about morality and how other people "should" be treating them, instead of talking about actions and consequences, and what they must do to protect themselves.
To parallel your "blaming the victims" rhetoric: walking down the street late at night, will a sense of injustice protect me from a rapist? No; kickboxing classes and a gun will protect me from a rapist. The sense of injustice is for when I'm safe at home and can write a letter to my congressman.
In the moment where you are actually trying to protect a real secret, a sense of injustice that there are corporations and governments willing to pilfer your secrets will not keep your privacy. Encryption and anonymity will keep your privacy.
"Public places. It may sound obvious, but you have little to no privacy when you are in public. When you are in a public place your actions, movements, and conversations are knowingly exposed to the public. That means the police can follow you around in public and observe your activities, see what you are carrying or to whom you are talking, sit next to you or behind you and listen to your conversations — all without a warrant."
Google is singled out due to the humans behind the corporate facade complying, no one forced them to.
I would hate to reduce it to binary but things like installation of proxy hardware (Blue Coat[1]) to monitor with or court orders for conscription of local hardware are. Without people collaborating along with the US government, then people... wouldn't be collaborating. Those within the USG would be forced towards alternative routes such as those detailed in the PRISM slides.
Bonus: Security creates insecurity, all this logging and data collection creates more data. This data, which Snowden's Booz Allen Hamilton has shown[2], can be leaked. As an example a look into the Blue Coat logs leaked[3] from Assad's Syria by extraordinary esoteric activists Telecomix[4] reveals followers of Christianity along with homosexuals intently monitored.
Bonus Caution: I wouldn't touch the Booz or HBGary leaks unless you like federal prosecution for assisting in dissemination of data on the profiteering collaborators[5].
Comments
I don't know why this still surprises people, or why Google is being singled out here. Information is transmitted by copying. Every provider has to look at and analyze your messages if they want to do clever things to them, like let you search your archived mail server-side. Even if they don't do anything with your messages themselves, they're still compelled by the government to parse through it all. Nothing is safe.
Whenever anyone asks me to explain how the Internet works, I don't talk about tubes or connected servers, because thinking your message is "in" a pipe is a broken abstraction; it makes people imagine nothing sees or touches your messages until they arrive at the destination. Instead, the mental model I encourage people to have for Internet is that "each packet is like a message stuck to a big public message board." Privacy is not the default; it's a public system, and privacy is something you have to actively create on top of it (via encryption, onion-routing, etc.)
Once again, this is a fundamental mistake especially techies seem to make when it comes to privacy.
Privacy isn't about what is and what isn't publicly accessible, it's about what you do with that information.
It's a violation of privacy for any company to follow me around in a public space and record my movements.
It's a violation of privacy for a company to use the data I've given them for any other purpose than the reason for which I gave it to them, because it is still my data.
This is why collecting and collating wifi ssid's by Google was considered a violation of privacy. Yes, the data was out there, but the abuse of that data was a violation.
Privacy is not a technological system. Privacy is not about security.
People should be able to use the internet without automatically getting their privacy violated, just like they should be able to go out in public without having their privacy violated. The fact that it is an open system is absolutely no excuse for deliberate privacy violations.
Stop blaming the victims.
You do realize that that's exactly wrong. Going out into public means that you risk being followed. Being followed becomes illegal when they follow you into your home (a private space) or when they actually hurt you/have hurt you.
You are making an even more fundamental mistake: knowing that you're addressing people asking how to act in their day-to-day lives--and yet talking about morality and how other people "should" be treating them, instead of talking about actions and consequences, and what they must do to protect themselves.
To parallel your "blaming the victims" rhetoric: walking down the street late at night, will a sense of injustice protect me from a rapist? No; kickboxing classes and a gun will protect me from a rapist. The sense of injustice is for when I'm safe at home and can write a letter to my congressman.
In the moment where you are actually trying to protect a real secret, a sense of injustice that there are corporations and governments willing to pilfer your secrets will not keep your privacy. Encryption and anonymity will keep your privacy.
"Public places. It may sound obvious, but you have little to no privacy when you are in public. When you are in a public place your actions, movements, and conversations are knowingly exposed to the public. That means the police can follow you around in public and observe your activities, see what you are carrying or to whom you are talking, sit next to you or behind you and listen to your conversations — all without a warrant."
From the EFF https://ssd.eff.org/your-computer/govt/privacy
Google is singled out due to the humans behind the corporate facade complying, no one forced them to.
I would hate to reduce it to binary but things like installation of proxy hardware (Blue Coat[1]) to monitor with or court orders for conscription of local hardware are. Without people collaborating along with the US government, then people... wouldn't be collaborating. Those within the USG would be forced towards alternative routes such as those detailed in the PRISM slides.
Bonus: Security creates insecurity, all this logging and data collection creates more data. This data, which Snowden's Booz Allen Hamilton has shown[2], can be leaked. As an example a look into the Blue Coat logs leaked[3] from Assad's Syria by extraordinary esoteric activists Telecomix[4] reveals followers of Christianity along with homosexuals intently monitored.
Bonus Caution: I wouldn't touch the Booz or HBGary leaks unless you like federal prosecution for assisting in dissemination of data on the profiteering collaborators[5].
[1] http://www.bluecoat.com/
[2] https://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/6533009/Military_Meltdown_Mo...
[3] http://bluesmote.com/
[4] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/jul/07/telecomix-...
[5] http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-doj-is-suing-barrett-br...
I may have missed some clarifications, so I feel the need to ask:
Did the USG not force Google to comply with their demands, and also keep quiet about it? I know that was the initial story.
Or is the issue that Google went above and beyond the USG's requests?
My definition of force involves things like threats of violence, firearms. FORCE.
People's definition of force here on HN seems to be "A written request by the USG."
you think the usg is actively pursuing these types of prosecutions?