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What Could Google Do With the Data It's Collected?

temphn 16y ago
Among other things, they could easily blackmail any public figure who used Google search (or mail, maps, etc.) There are various ways they could frame this to retain their image...one would be to announce a campaign to crack down on the use of gmail for lawbreaking. Then sweep email for selective incidents involving politicians (and reporters!) threatening Google with regulation, and report to the authorities. They already do this with child pron, so this would just be moving the bar back towards things that 99% (as opposed to 99.999...%) of society opposed. Escorts are probably a good place to start if you wanted to take down politicians.
- Ardit20 16y ago
  Well, maybe politicians should not do naughty things. If they are using gmail for lawbreaking then I am in favour of google outing them.
  - JadeNB 16y ago
    This seems to me like a variant of the ‘nothing to hide’ argument, which Bruce Schneier (http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/my_reaction_to.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/my_reaction_to...), Daniel Solove (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565), and others have thoroughly rebutted. It's true that politicians should be subject to more scrutiny than the rest of us, but that doesn't mean that they should have no privacy. Do you trust Google to make that decision about politicians? Once politicians are afraid of the power that Google wields, do you trust them to protect you from Google?
lwhi 16y ago
Many regular users - and younger members of society especially (like my younger siblings for example) - have absolutely no concern for privacy or the potential for abuse by companies like Google. What will it take before the general public understands kind of dangers involved? Or are privacy concerns largely theoretical musings by geeks, which simply aren't as important as we imagine them to be?
- retube 16y ago
  What are the dangers? What could be done with this type of information? There was a similar shift in privacy when banking went electronic and we all got credit cards. Now businesses have vast repositories of extremely detailed purchasing information, and we all accept this surrender of privacy without question. What's the difference? What has been the impact of the loss of privacy via e-banking?
  - lwhi 16y ago
    The introduction of these electronic systems helped to establish a course which society is now destined to continue along. A gradual step-change is more socially palatable. Maybe the only limit to the possible dangers is human imagination?
- Ardit20 16y ago
  I do not think the younger members of society do not care about privacy. I think an 18 year old knows full well what he would like to keep private, such as a nude picture of himself, and what to make public, such as a face picture of himself. They just are not scared of the internet that's all and do not consider fantastic possibilities, but probabilities. Google has become too big and even powerful, so it is only right that every step, even contemplation of taking a step, is scrutinised closely. That so is being done tells you that many, if not the majority, do understand the importance of privacy.
- dan00 16y ago
  The general public cares too little and the geeks care too much.
  - lwhi 16y ago
    I think you're probably right.
  - Revisor 16y ago
    The general public cares too little. Period.
hackermom 16y ago
No trolling, just a supposition: I'd like to answer this with a movie quote (I just can't recall the movie for some reason) - "...and like it or not, they're going to build you a new civilization, under a new world order." What can't be done when a single company in the world has, with a multitude of "free" services, crawled into every crevice of your private life? They know who you e-mail and what you mail about. They know your calendar and schedules. They know your economy. They know your medical history. They know who your friends are and what you do on your vacation. They know your hobbies and interests. Traverse the list of Google products and you'll quickly see that every single aspect of your life can now have a Google tag on it.
- lwhi 16y ago
  So what's the answer? Revolution? I'm honestly at a loss, when I try to think of solutions. The most sensible reaction might be to break Google up into smaller companies - which would mean that the benefit it gains from being interconnected would be reduced - but I don't think this would currently be possible.
  - lwhi 16y ago
    Vote me down by all means, but at least tell me why.
    - lwhi 16y ago
      slow clap
  - naner 16y ago
    "So what's the answer? Revolution?" Haha, no, not in this day and age. People in power these days know you have to keep the public sated to prevent revolution. People with family and jobs who live in relative safety and have a reasonable amount of income aren't going to revolt. And the public shouldn't initiate a revolution anyways because the cost becomes too great with a society this size. The answer is deceptively simple. Develop a theory of change (work backwards from your end goal to discover the steps that need to be taken) and devise a strategy that takes into account the dynamics of power. The problem is that this is very difficult. You have to be very disciplined, you have to abandon your personal life goals, you have to find people to help you, and you will almost certainly have to do something out of line with your ideals (such as manipulating people or temporarily acting like the people you are trying to be rid of).
retube 16y ago
"Google blamed the collection on a rogue bit of code that was never removed after it had been inserted by an engineer during testing" I've seen this quoted before. If it's accurate it's pretty damn weak, in fact totally unbelievable. There's absolutely no way this data could have been collected unless deliberately.
- ugh 16y ago
  Why? Their goal was to collect MAC adresses of all the WiFi hotspots they encountered. If you want to do that you have to – at least temporarily – save all packets that are coming in. The code to do this already exists, Google probably repurposed something. Deleting all the packets you received is a additional step, it’s not guaranteed that whatever they used automatically deletes all received packets as soon as they are no longer needed. Someone has to think of that and fix it. They are collecting gigabytes of data, so those additional packets wouldn’t exactly be obvious. And they probably just copied the HDDs those cars have wholesale, without any prior processing of the data.
  - retube 16y ago
    yes but isn't it the MAC addresses they collected "by accident"? That's my point (or have I totally misunderstood this?)
    - ugh 16y ago
      They wanted to collect MAC addresses. There is, of course, also the question whether they can do that without asking, but that was their intention.
  - gizmomagico 16y ago
    > If you want to do that you have to – at least temporarily – save all packets that are coming in. So, maybe something like: 1) Capture incoming packet 2) Store its MAC address 3) Discard packet data 4) Repeat This turned out to be difficult for Google's programmers?
jmg 16y ago
Why don't any of these articles put blame on the users, for broadcasting their data without any encryption set up? I guess that's not the exciting news story. They could at least use the opportunity to educate people a bit..
jakevoytko 16y ago
Google's data mining capability is comparable to that of a major government. Just using their search data, they can predict disease outbreaks [0], and can probably predict other macro events like recessions and cultural shifts. Google is just more effective at processing the data that is already collected. If Google ran the War on Terror, they would dissolve 99.9% of plots before they begin. The falsely accused would have to sit in prison, since they couldn't get anyone on the phone even if they wanted to. That's fine though, because they would get free food and Internet in their Google jail cell, and hear talks by other famous inmates. [0] http://www.google.org/flutrends/ http://www.google.org/flutrends/
- coned88 16y ago
  The US govt routinely uses private enterprise data mining companies like Lexis nexis.

Among other things, they could easily blackmail any public figure who used Google search (or mail, maps, etc.) There are various ways they could frame this to retain their image...one would be to announce a campaign to crack down on the use of gmail for lawbreaking. Then sweep email for selective incidents involving politicians (and reporters!) threatening Google with regulation, and report to the authorities. They already do this with child pron, so this would just be moving the bar back towards things that 99% (as opposed to 99.999...%) of society opposed. Escorts are probably a good place to start if you wanted to take down politicians.

Ardit20 16y ago
Well, maybe politicians should not do naughty things. If they are using gmail for lawbreaking then I am in favour of google outing them.
- JadeNB 16y ago
  This seems to me like a variant of the ‘nothing to hide’ argument, which Bruce Schneier (http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/my_reaction_to.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/my_reaction_to...), Daniel Solove (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565), and others have thoroughly rebutted. It's true that politicians should be subject to more scrutiny than the rest of us, but that doesn't mean that they should have no privacy. Do you trust Google to make that decision about politicians? Once politicians are afraid of the power that Google wields, do you trust them to protect you from Google?

lwhi 16y ago

Many regular users - and younger members of society especially (like my younger siblings for example) - have absolutely no concern for privacy or the potential for abuse by companies like Google. What will it take before the general public understands kind of dangers involved? Or are privacy concerns largely theoretical musings by geeks, which simply aren't as important as we imagine them to be?

retube 16y ago
What are the dangers? What could be done with this type of information? There was a similar shift in privacy when banking went electronic and we all got credit cards. Now businesses have vast repositories of extremely detailed purchasing information, and we all accept this surrender of privacy without question. What's the difference? What has been the impact of the loss of privacy via e-banking?
- lwhi 16y ago
  The introduction of these electronic systems helped to establish a course which society is now destined to continue along. A gradual step-change is more socially palatable. Maybe the only limit to the possible dangers is human imagination?
Ardit20 16y ago
I do not think the younger members of society do not care about privacy. I think an 18 year old knows full well what he would like to keep private, such as a nude picture of himself, and what to make public, such as a face picture of himself. They just are not scared of the internet that's all and do not consider fantastic possibilities, but probabilities. Google has become too big and even powerful, so it is only right that every step, even contemplation of taking a step, is scrutinised closely. That so is being done tells you that many, if not the majority, do understand the importance of privacy.
dan00 16y ago
The general public cares too little and the geeks care too much.
- lwhi 16y ago
  I think you're probably right.
- Revisor 16y ago
  The general public cares too little. Period.

hackermom 16y ago

No trolling, just a supposition: I'd like to answer this with a movie quote (I just can't recall the movie for some reason) - "...and like it or not, they're going to build you a new civilization, under a new world order." What can't be done when a single company in the world has, with a multitude of "free" services, crawled into every crevice of your private life? They know who you e-mail and what you mail about. They know your calendar and schedules. They know your economy. They know your medical history. They know who your friends are and what you do on your vacation. They know your hobbies and interests. Traverse the list of Google products and you'll quickly see that every single aspect of your life can now have a Google tag on it.

lwhi 16y ago
So what's the answer? Revolution? I'm honestly at a loss, when I try to think of solutions. The most sensible reaction might be to break Google up into smaller companies - which would mean that the benefit it gains from being interconnected would be reduced - but I don't think this would currently be possible.
- lwhi 16y ago
  Vote me down by all means, but at least tell me why.
  - lwhi 16y ago
    slow clap
- naner 16y ago
  "So what's the answer? Revolution?" Haha, no, not in this day and age. People in power these days know you have to keep the public sated to prevent revolution. People with family and jobs who live in relative safety and have a reasonable amount of income aren't going to revolt. And the public shouldn't initiate a revolution anyways because the cost becomes too great with a society this size. The answer is deceptively simple. Develop a theory of change (work backwards from your end goal to discover the steps that need to be taken) and devise a strategy that takes into account the dynamics of power. The problem is that this is very difficult. You have to be very disciplined, you have to abandon your personal life goals, you have to find people to help you, and you will almost certainly have to do something out of line with your ideals (such as manipulating people or temporarily acting like the people you are trying to be rid of).

retube 16y ago

"Google blamed the collection on a rogue bit of code that was never removed after it had been inserted by an engineer during testing" I've seen this quoted before. If it's accurate it's pretty damn weak, in fact totally unbelievable. There's absolutely no way this data could have been collected unless deliberately.

ugh 16y ago
Why? Their goal was to collect MAC adresses of all the WiFi hotspots they encountered. If you want to do that you have to – at least temporarily – save all packets that are coming in. The code to do this already exists, Google probably repurposed something. Deleting all the packets you received is a additional step, it’s not guaranteed that whatever they used automatically deletes all received packets as soon as they are no longer needed. Someone has to think of that and fix it. They are collecting gigabytes of data, so those additional packets wouldn’t exactly be obvious. And they probably just copied the HDDs those cars have wholesale, without any prior processing of the data.
- retube 16y ago
  yes but isn't it the MAC addresses they collected "by accident"? That's my point (or have I totally misunderstood this?)
  - ugh 16y ago
    They wanted to collect MAC addresses. There is, of course, also the question whether they can do that without asking, but that was their intention.
- gizmomagico 16y ago
  > If you want to do that you have to – at least temporarily – save all packets that are coming in. So, maybe something like: 1) Capture incoming packet 2) Store its MAC address 3) Discard packet data 4) Repeat This turned out to be difficult for Google's programmers?

jmg 16y ago

Why don't any of these articles put blame on the users, for broadcasting their data without any encryption set up? I guess that's not the exciting news story. They could at least use the opportunity to educate people a bit..

jakevoytko 16y ago

Google's data mining capability is comparable to that of a major government. Just using their search data, they can predict disease outbreaks [0], and can probably predict other macro events like recessions and cultural shifts. Google is just more effective at processing the data that is already collected. If Google ran the War on Terror, they would dissolve 99.9% of plots before they begin. The falsely accused would have to sit in prison, since they couldn't get anyone on the phone even if they wanted to. That's fine though, because they would get free food and Internet in their Google jail cell, and hear talks by other famous inmates. [0] http://www.google.org/flutrends/ http://www.google.org/flutrends/

coned88 16y ago
The US govt routinely uses private enterprise data mining companies like Lexis nexis.