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Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge says yes
- stagbeetle 10y agoIf I understood the article correctly, the title is misleading. The cops were not granted an entire raw database of all google searches by person. Instead, they were granted "'any/all user or subscriber information' of anyone in Edina who'd looked up that name between December 1, 2016, and January 7" which is IMHO a much less serious breach of privacy. You could retort that collecting these users' "name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), dates of birth, social security numbers, email addresses, payment information, account information, IP addresses, and MAC addresses" is a serious breach of privacy, but I believe those are all available to law enforcement (save the internet-specific info).
- johansch 10y agoThat is still really quite bad though. And all of this privacy invasion just for a wire fraud case?
- rhino369 10y agoGoogle uses this stuff to advertise for toys etc. Using it to catch a fraudster is more important than that.
- bholzer 10y agoDo the ends really justify the means in this case? I don't think so, personally
- rhino369 10y agoSure they do. Especially when compared to what is accessible to civil plaintiffs. Your searches aren't even private since you let google look at them.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ed_balls 10y agoUnless you are prosecuted by accident, news papers write about you and charges are dropped. You apply for a job, someone googles you and reply with "Thank you for your time. Unfortunately..."
- rhino369 10y agoI don't think we can assume more information increases the likelihood of false accusations. It certainly can for any given situation, but it can certainly greatly reduce the risk by identifying the real perpetrator. If I were on trial when I was innocent, I'd really appreciate having this information available. Though if there was empirical data to suggest that it was more risky, I could be convinced.
- angryasian 10y agogoogle uses it for advertising but doesn't hand it over to any one particular person or company.
- CamperBob2 10y agoGoogle didn't murder a hundred million of its own users in the last century alone. It took police and government forces to do that.
- rhino369 10y agoWell if the government did murder 100 million people it would certainly use Google to assist. Nazi's used IBM, VW, Bayer, etc. Letting them get search data about fraud won't make that any more or less likely though.
- stagbeetle 10y agoThe few people who searched for douglas would be inconvenienced slightly, sure. But what harm has been, or might reliably, be done with this info?
- tyingq 10y agoIt sets an interesting precedent for more broad fishing expeditions. Slippery slope and that sort of thing. Have you watched the film Minority Report?
- seangrogg 10y agoHave you? The concept was "pre-crime" which is stopping crimes before they happened - not investigating crimes that have already conclusively been committed. Additionally, upon finding the system in use was faulty it was dismantled and everyone affected by it given a pardon. Not saying the slippery slope argument is invalid, but the use of Minority Report is better kept to arguments where the intent is to use "big data" to predict and prevent crimes - not for when crimes have been committed and the intent is to figure out who did it.
- tyingq 10y agoI mentioned it because it is the bottom of the slippery slope. Once search data is open game for any law enforcement purpose, why not preemptively tag searches that are common before a crime takes place? That said, I'm a bit confused as to how a "happy ending" would invalidate moral concerns raised by an illustrative story. Also FWIW, leading with "Have you?" reduces the chance I might read what you had to say with an open mind.
- stagbeetle 10y agoNo, but I get the general premise. I don't see how it directly meshes into the issue at hand though.
- tyingq 10y agoSweeping through large swaths of data on what people do in order to single out one potential person in the data. Once you're good with that, it leads places.
- madamelic 10y agoFailed wire fraud. Yeah, they are doing this for a loss of... $0.
- willvarfar 10y agoPrinciple is more important than money.
- madamelic 10y agoFailed wire fraud. Yeah, they are doing this for a loss of... $0.
- ars 10y ago> And all of this privacy invasion Can you clarify what you mean by "all this"? Because as far as I can tell all they are asking for is the identity of the person who searched for a specific word. That's hardly an invasion of privacy.
- ars 10y agoYou are quite right, and it's a shame people are downmodding you. For some reason there is this belief that anything you do electronically should be immune to warrants, and warrants should only apply to physical documents. Just read the comments and see, it's really astonishing. It was the same thing with that phone the FBI was hacking, [some] people had a deep-seated belief that because it was encrypted the FBI should not be permitted to hack it! (Some people had other issues with it, but they were a minority - most simply felt the FBI should not be allowed to try to hack a phone.)
- lovich 10y agoIf a bike was stolen from a street, the police do not have the right to enter and search every home on that street to see if you committed the crime. We already have the legal framework for these kinds of questions in meatspace. The courts are treating it differently because its on a computer, the same way companies are getting patents for unpatentable processes as long as they do it on the internet
- ars 10y agoExcept that's a terrible analogy. A better analogy is the police are asking all the landlords to check their security cameras for someone carrying a bicycle.
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoThe best solution for avoiding government surveillance overreach continues to be for nobody to store the data. A service provider can't be forced to disclose information it doesn't have. I recommend duckduckgo.com for those bothered by this: "We don’t store your personal information. Ever. Our privacy policy is simple: we don’t collect or share any of your personal information."
- tdfx 10y agoIt does not mention what Google's response was, or if they have complied with the order.
- m00dy 10y agoIf Google gives that information, I will stop using it right away
- _archon_ 10y agoGoogle is legally obligated to provide that information. They can fight the subpoena's merit in court if they wish, but right now, the requesting police and the issuing judge are the problem.
- tabeth 10y agoCurious: if anyone thinks it is bad for Google to give the police information, do you think it's bad for Google to have the information in the first place? Another way to think about this is: when (not if, but when) Google gives a government information in some time in the future, would that change your behavior now?
- rosser 10y agoIt already has. I use DDG, and have for years. My Gmail box is for mailing lists, and putting up on things like my HN profile, for random people to get in contact. Personal correspondence goes to an address on a host I control.
- milesf 10y agoThe problem with Google and Facebook is they lack context. Let's say you doing a search for school on Islamic State. How do they know the difference between you and a member of this terrorist organization? Context is everything.
- michael_fine 10y agoIsn't that exactly what the court system is for? I've never heard of anyone being charged with terrorism merely for googling IS, and I suspect any judge would throw out a case like that in a heartbeat.
- nvarsj 10y agoThe vast majority of prosecutions never go to trial. Plus the president can lock up enemy combatants without trial.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> The vast majority of prosecutions never go to trial. But that's a result of the evaluation of prospects at trial, so the protections that apply at trial directly influence that. > Plus the president can lock up enemy combatants without trial. Such detentions of alleged enemy combatants can be (and have been) challenged in court as well.
- milesf 10y agoWhich is why I use ddg.gg (DuckDuckGo). They don't track you. People are starting to wake up to the implications of a world without privacy. I carry around Snowden's quote on my phone and repeat it verbatim when people say they have nothing to hide: "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say". Do not be discouraged. Just keep educating people one-by-one and we will win this fight. We have to, otherwise our ancestors who fought and died for freedom and liberty will have done so in vain.
- angryasian 10y agoI know everyone wants to hate on google, but I think we should be more worried about our government and ISP's https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/gop-senators-new-bill-would-let-isps-sell-your-web-browsing-data/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/gop-senators-new... no one is safe if this bill passes.
- dkhenry 10y agoThat bill opens up to ISP's what website's ( like google ) hav e been doing for years. If no one is safe because of that bill, then no one is safe already. VPN'ing around your ISP is about the same level of difficulty as setting your default search engine to not be google.
- angryasian 10y agogoogle doesn't sell or share your personal information to anyone. Its a huge distinction.
- Raphmedia 10y agoThe only reason they don't share it to anyone is that "anyone" is their competition.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
- forkerenok 10y agoI wonder what principles a judge in the U.S. justice system? Is it only constitution? Can people somehow adjust what makes a judge? (speaking of competency in privacy matters)
- burkaman 10y agoIt depends on the state. In Minnesota, judges are elected in nonpartisan elections, so people can adjust their qualifications every 6 years.
- unit91 10y agoI'm trying to see what the big deal is here (relax, I'll explain). Police are not asking for the entire search history of everyone in the town, then combing through it to see what they've searched for. Rather, police are asking Google who, in a narrow amount of time, searched for the name of a relatively unknown person who had $28K stolen from him. Is this really that different from police asking for security camera footage from a convenience store after a robbery? In either case, obviously innocent bystanders will be quickly eliminated from the list of possible suspects. Any remaining suspect(s) will still need to be (1) charged, (2) have a judge allow the evidence in court, and (3) convicted on the basis of evidence beyond reasonable doubt by a jury of their peers. Unfortunately, I think obvious invasions of privacy (e.g., PRISM) have made folks very jumpy about any electronic evidence collection, which I don't think is warranted. EDIT: Thanks to guelo for pointing out that this was an unsuccessful attempt at wire fraud, so the victim (fortunately) retained the $28K. I missed that previously.
- jmathai 10y ago> which I don't think is warranted That's the point of disagreement.
- hartator 10y agoA better analogy will be someone trying to rob a bank with a grey hoody and the police reviewing tapes of people closets to see everyone who bought a grey hoody.
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoNot even, the correct analogy would be to view all the CCTV cameras in the city, no matter who owned them, on that day to see who was wearing a particular shade of grey hoody.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dagenleg 10y ago
- canadian_voter 10y agoI think we need to get over the idea of privacy. It's not technologically, politically or legally feasible to expect that anything you do on the internet can or should be kept from the authorities. Big data is such an incredible tool for crime prevention. Minority Report is not a dystopian vision: it's a blueprint for a more just society. If every "private" email, video conference and search is available for inspection and cross reference, we can end anti-social behaviour as we know it and achieve the kind of peace and harmony that only come from full accountability. Crime thrives in dark corners. A surveillance society is a searing searchlight to expose and eradicate the the rot. The question is: what comes next? If you bought a pressure cooker on Amazon a month before the Boston bombing, do police get to know about it?" Absolutely. That is valuable information for an investigate. That doesn't mean everyone who bought a pressure cooked should be locked up, but that information can be used in conjunction with other information to narrow down a list of suspects. Legitimate buyers have nothing to fear and terrorists get caught.
- _vertigo 10y agoSorry, it's early in the morning and my sarcasm detector isn't working properly yet. Are you being serious?
- milesf 10y agoEither a troll or a shill.
- milesf 10y ago"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." - Edward Snowden
- tedajax 10y ago> Minority Report is not a dystopian vision: it's a blueprint for a more just society. Yeah arresting people for crimes they have yet to commit doesn't sound more just to me. > Crime thrives in dark corners. A surveillance society is a searing searchlight to expose and eradicate the the rot. Crime thrives when people have no other options. Providing economic opportunities for everyone reduces crime far more than mass surveillance ever will.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mgarfias 10y agoI'm not sure living in the future is worth this.
- ars 10y agoThis title is click-bait. They did not ask for "whole city's Google searches", they asked for the identity of the "person who searched for a specific search string", which is not the same thing! Suggested new title: "Edina police ask for identity of person who searched for specific name, and a judge says yes"
- emerongi 10y agoTechnically they ask for ALL the identities that searched for that name.
- Winblows69 10y agoI totally agree with switching to DDG and ceasing all Google activity. However, this is fear-mongering, slippery-slope-fallacy-ridden sensationalism. They targeted a specific name. The judge isn't going much further than that. I get it - the police are potentially violating innocent peoples' privacy. But for some reason, what this judge did doesn't overly bother this Google-hater / privacy defender. Maybe it's because the article is written for the National Inquirer.
- deckar01 10y agoHere is the original source with more info on the actual crime they are investigating and the reason they are targeting Google. https://tonywebster.com/2017/03/minnesota-search-warrant-anyone-who-googled/ https://tonywebster.com/2017/03/minnesota-search-warrant-any... Edit: I find it rather amusing that the cops found the image used in the fake passport on google images, but decided to request google searches for the name instead of access logs for the image on the actual server.
- danjoc 10y agoPost-edit, this is the best comment in the entire thread. You should be at the top of the page.
- jjawssd 10y agoThe end-game of Google (and Facebook, etc.) is to feed on everything everything you think, do, and say so they can predict and influence your beliefs and what you purchase. Of course, law enforcement wants a piece of the cake as well to be able to control and predict the behavior of the population. Break free from the hive mind. Disconnect yourself from the spying apparatus. And now for a more amusing take on the matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUIcCyPOA30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUIcCyPOA30
- ruleabidinguser 10y agoGood motivation to continue security work
- joshmn 10y agoMinnesotan here: The inside joke about Edina is that it stands for "Every Day I Need Attention"; it's mostly old money, old-ways of doing things. For example: Up until a few years ago, they outlawed happy hour (as a state, we recently approved liquor sales on Sunday; odd, I know) and no, I'm not kidding. Having said, this doesn't surprise me at all. Not that a judge approved it, but that Edina of all places requested it.
- colanderman 10y agoIllinois banned happy hour until a couple years ago, and Massachusetts still does.
- koltaggar 10y agoMassacusetts sucks
- colanderman 10y agoUnfortunately there are people who don't really care for free speech either. Our president is foremost among them.
- buckbova 10y agoThe potus revels in his 1st amendment rights. Not sure what you're getting at.
- BookmarkSaver 10y agoHis. No one else's. Have you been living under a rock?
- buckbova 10y ago> No one else's. You can hurl insults about the US president all you want. But, this is not the forum for it. And if you do, please show some proof. People are getting hysterical, making ridiculous statements intended to invoke certain feelings about the potus based on false premises. It's completely transparent and lame.
- BookmarkSaver 10y agoNo, it is pathetic that you are unaware of Trump's exclusion of major news sources from coverage, baseless attacks on the credibility of sourced articles, and explicit statements that he desires to go after news organizations for unfavorable reporting using libel laws. Especially in the light of his recent slander against Obama regarding wiretapping. If you have your eyes closed in denial, then there is nothing I can do for you. The fact that you consider my statement "ridiculous" or "hysterical" just goes to show how utterly deluded you are about the activities and hypocrisy that he's actually engaged in. Trump has absolutely no interest in defending free speech, only his speech.
- buckbova 10y ago
- mirimir 10y agoWell, one would think that they'd have been bright enough to use StartPage/DuckDuckGo, a VPN, Tor, or some combination of them.
- nailer 10y agoUnvoted and flagged as misleading: Title: > Police ask for whole city's Google searches, and a judge says yes Implying searches not related to the case are included. Article: > In specific, police want to know who has searched for a particular name used as part of that fraud.
- danjoc 10y agoThe police aren't asking for a city's searches. They're asking for anyone, anywhere, who searched Google for 'Douglas ? ?' in a 5 week period. The article this one links to explains this much better. https://tonywebster.com/2017/03/minnesota-search-warrant-anyone-who-googled/ https://tonywebster.com/2017/03/minnesota-search-warrant-any... Google isn't the only search engine on the internet, but the police claim they were unable to find the information in Yahoo or Bing results. They suspect it must have come from a Google search, because that's where they were able to find the same information. The judge felt this provided probable cause to permit the search on Google. This article is bad. It appears to be written by a layperson who doesn't understand law or how the internet works. And it pours on the hyperbole to excite emotions. Fake news.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- eridius 10y agoThis is not fake news. It's real news. Just because you don't think it's particularly newsworthy doesn't make it fake.
- danjoc 10y agoThe citypages link on HN is fake news. It misrepresents and mischaracterizes the events reported on the tonywebster link. "Cops figure if they could just find out who in that affluent suburb has Googled that name, they'd narrow their suspect list right down." This is fabricated tripe. The cops are not looking specifically in the victim's suburb. The person who wrote the citypages article is being a complete imbecile. His heart might be in the right place, but he's got his facts all wrong. The warrant pertains to information on anyone, anywhere on the entire planet who might have accessed Google's servers and searched for that name between Dec 1 and Jan 7.
- eridius 10y agoGetting one fact wrong doesn't make the story fake news. Most of it (and, most importantly, the actually important parts of it) are completely true. Fake news is news stories that are intentionally made up, not news stories that contain mistakes.
- r721 10y agoI wonder which is the case here: 1) Google will query some internal search logs 2) Google will query a bundle of search histories which we see at "My Activity" page
- ohstopitu 10y agoThis was unclear from the article...but from what I understand the police want info on anyone who searched a specific term on google for a specific image from geo-location/IP in that city a week before the crime took place ? 1. What if the criminal didn't use Google? 2. What if the criminal did use Google but used a VPN or Tor or a Proxy?
- bigbugbag 10y agoThis article is a piece of crap and is plain wrong. Police asked for a warrant for anyone anywhere over a 5 weeks period who search for the name that leads to the picture used in the fake passport that you can find on google but not yahoo or bing. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/judge-oks-warrant-to-reveal-who-searched-a-fraud-victims-name-on-google/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/judge-oks-warran...
- ascendantlogic 10y agoI'm not too outraged over this one. They're asking who in a specific city googled a specific name during a specific timeframe. This is how you find out who your suspects are. I understand it's a razor thin line between "normal police work" and "dragnet surveillance" but this time I think it's the former.
- bigbugbag 10y ago> They're asking who in a specific city googled a specific name during a specific timeframe. Nope. the clickbait article that got posted here tries to spin it that way, but the warrant is for anyone/anywhere. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/judge-oks-warrant-to-reveal-who-searched-a-fraud-victims-name-on-google/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/judge-oks-warran...
- KindOne 10y agoI remember seeing something like this online. I think it was murderpedia.org ? Details are a bit fuzzy and might be wrong. In the 90's someone murdered a person or two. Somehow the cops asked the local ISP for anyone making constant searches of the case. They traced it back to the murderer.
- clubm8 10y agoRecall anything else? Even something as simple as the state, MO of the killer, etc?
- KindOne 10y agoI was kind of wrong on the details, was in 2002 and they asked Microsoft. "Instead, agents simply tapped into the wealth of information that Microsoft Corp. and other Internet companies keep on people who visit their Web sites and use their services." http://murderpedia.org/male.T/t/travis-maury.htm http://murderpedia.org/male.T/t/travis-maury.htm
- shmerl 10y agoSo, unconstitutional decision by the judge, and cops are surely happy to run with it.
- danm07 10y agoThat's it. Incognito mode, permanently.
- k-mcgrady 10y ago>> police want to know who has searched for a particular name [douglas] used as part of that fraud This is a super click-bait headline. Sounds like Police got the search history of everyone in the city. The reality, which is quickly explained in the article, is nothing like that. They have a list of people in the city who searched for a pretty specific term and it sounds like Google does the digging and gives them a list of names. Whether that's a problem or not is still up for debate but that headline is ridiculous.
- frugalmail 10y agoWe should have a new Technology court, where qualified hybrid legal/whatevertech folks preside.
- gondo 10y agotheoretical question: what if google will say that they do not know how to get this specific information out of their data? how can anyone prove if its true without full access to google infrastructure? will the police confiscate all their servers?
- coolsdude2282 10y agoThis may sound silly to you all but I have recently given up paying for internet at my house as an experiment due to the prevalence of free public wifi nearly everywhere. I'm about 9 months into having cancelled my internet/cable entirely and it is working out well for me. I have only ever been very mildly inconvenienced by it. Things like this make me never want to go back in all honestly, I save quite a bit of money with basically no downside (unless you count buying very very slightly more coffee than I otherwise might). Since I don't use google logins, disable tracking/cookies, and also change my mac address semi-regularly this seems like an adequate solution without going full on Tor/NoScript all the time(which I would prefer but the inconvenience cost becomes too great). If this is allowed to legally stand, I am going to have to think long and hard about ever subscribing to an ISP or creating a google account ever again.
- gist 10y agoMac addresses? Under what scenario does any provider (ISP even) end up with your mac address? (Am I missing something here that I don't know about?) Understand that your router has your mac address and in theory your ISP could end up with it by getting it there if they wanted to but don't know of cases where they legally actually do this or have any need for the info. True?
- Operyl 10y agoI guess, if for whatever reason Google had a MAC address of say a Chromebook in some other unrelated database. And the serial of that Chromebook was associated with your account. It's a stretch, and you have to wonder if Google would even go that far.
- gist 10y agoThe other scenario I thought about was the unique browser footprint. Info in server logs that is very specific to someone's machine and the way they have it setup (screen size, os, browser and a host of other info). In certain cases the probability becomes highly likely that it can be linked to another log where your identity is known because the same footprint (not sure if that's the correct word) is in that other log.
- yarper 10y agoI had this thought too - my MAC address is not likely something google have access to (not in the normal operation of a network as it's stripped at the next hop)
- JumpCrisscross 10y agoFYI, you can delete your Google account records from here https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/465?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/465?co=GENIE.Plat...
- krapp 10y agoYou can appear to delete your Google account records from there. I wouldn't trust any company that cooperates with the NSA and State Department to actually ever delete anything the government could find useful.
- james_niro 10y agoIs this an episode of South Park? Or it just seems that way
- tuxracer 10y agoThis title is so inaccurate it should be changed. Asking who in a city searched for a term is not the same as asking for a whole city's Google searches.
- bo1024 10y agoI actually disagree. Answering the question requires searching through each and every person's Google searches. So it's the equivalent of going door-to-door and searching every house for the one with the item.
- tuxracer 10y agoThe government is not getting access to (nor asking for) all queries. The government is getting access to information identifying who searched for a term. Google's query may include all search terms but Google obviously already has that data anyways. This is equivalent to asking FedEx who in a given city was shipped something from a specific address. Sure when FedEx does a search it may technically search over all shipments from any address, but the government isn't getting access to that information. Hardly equivalent to door-to-door searches of every house.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> This is equivalent to asking FedEx who in a given city was shipped something from a specific address. It is neither equivalent to nor even really analogous to it. It's more like asking a retailer that keeps such records for a list of every purchaser of a specific product. Which, just to be clear, is something law enforcement will do in some circumstances already.
- tuxracer 10y agoAgreed that's a much better analogy. In this case the "retailer" already maintains such records. The government isn't even asking for the list of all purchases by all individuals, just the name of who purchased a particular item. Sure in the course of getting the answer to that question the retailer may sift through the records of all purchases, but this is data they already have. This is hardly something to be outraged about. Title implies something much different.
- godgod 10y agoDragnet surveillance. Cops have access to EVERYONES data while looking for ONE bad guy.
- joering2 10y agoWait a second - I thought a year ago I had an email from Google telling me this is last chance to opt out of them collecting my search queries. I remember clicking and google page told me thanks we won't collect your searches. Is that not the case anymore?
- avodonosov 10y agoIt's not "whole city's Google searches"
- suprgeek 10y agoTerrible Headline but genuinely scary request. Police are NOT requesting "whole city's Google Searches" - they are requesting the Whole WORLD's Google searches (if you will) for a specific search string (actually a variation of strings). Realistically complying will get them a bunch of IP addresses. Lets say they get 100 IP addresses; then what? Track down and investigate every one of them? For what? How do you go from IP address to potential suspect in Bank Fraud? Apparently now rather than having a suspect and then going to Google for that specific suspect's records is no longer the in thing. These lazy coppers want Google's help to even develop a suspect...very very close to a fishing expedition.
- looserof7 10y agoIf I'm that criminal, I would have deleted all of my goggle history after knowing about this.
- BrailleHunting 10y agoUse duckduckgo. Problem solved.
- bigbugbag 10y agoHow does this kind of clickbait which is false get promoted to HN front page ? Specially when the source is given in the posted article and is the actual original source[1] and has no clickbait nor lies. Also this story is covered by ars technica[2] and a copy of the warrant is available online[3]. [1]: https://tonywebster.com/2017/03/minnesota-search-warrant-anyone-who-googled/ https://tonywebster.com/2017/03/minnesota-search-warrant-any... [2]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/judge-oks-warrant-to-reveal-who-searched-a-fraud-victims-name-on-google/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/judge-oks-warran... [3]: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3519211-Edina-Police-Google-Search-Warrant-Redacted.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3519211-Edina-Police...