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I love giving everything I do to Google. It makes my daily life so much easier. Whenever I think about big corps and how I potentially may not trust them, I loo

I love giving everything I do to Google. It makes my daily life so much easier. Whenever I think about big corps and how I potentially may not trust them, I look around for people who actually work there. In Google's case, I find young, smart, cool people just like me who I trust not to be dicks and do things with my stuff I wouldn't want them to. They may mess up sometimes (I would), but I feel like I can trust them. The upsides from sharing all of this stuff with Google outweight the possible downsides for me. Just wanted to post this since I feel like not enough people speak up to represent the not-so-paranoid crowd.

mahmud 16y ago
In Google's case, I find young, smart, cool people just like me who I trust not to be dicks What is this? has any thought gone behind this? I'm not your peer: I'm stupid, uncool and very, VERY old. That's why I decided to teach you fuckers a lesson and put on my fake cop uniform. With a few fake emails & and a phone call, I convinced Bobby, the head of security at data center #34 in Dallas to give me your life's records. Yours along with 5 million other people.
- primigenus 16y ago
  I was talking specifically about trusting Google's motivations, not the concept of security itself. You're twisting the issue; of course it's possible that Google's security will be broken somehow. But that's the case with anything, anywhere, anytime. So there's not much point (IMO) in basing decisions around that possibility.
  - mahmud 16y ago
    "Motivation" means jack-squat in world where powerful entities can buy, steal, or subpoena Google's stash of your personal data. And it's no longer just your data, but involves your entire social-graph. Say, you write to your sister about your father's health in great detail, because you chose to "share" your data with Google, now you're sharing his health information as well, and whoever steals or buys this information (remember, Google is a commercial entity) has it.
  - jtheory 16y ago
    The likelihood of someone going to great lengths to break through Google's security is rather higher than someone going to great lengths to break into your personal computer (assuming you are at least capable of securing that against generic threats, which really isn't that hard for technical folks). It's the agglomeration of lots of people's data that gets dangerous/interesting. And seemingly boring data like your browsing history can actually be pretty revealing -- ah, hey, I notice you regularly sign into the Bank of America site, plus you have an account on the forums at (easily hackable site)... might your username and/or password be the same? Ah, you sign in as the admin on an "anonymous" blog... and you mention your first pet (common security question) and link to your favorite uncle's blog, but he has a different last name from you... so is that your mother's maiden name? You see how this works. If some clever had access to this level of data on lots and lots of people, they wouldn't strike gold for everyone, but there would be quite a few casualties. All this to say that there are some very good reasons to avoid letting corporations gather lots of wide-ranging data about you in one place. The intentions of the corporation don't actually matter as much (though obviously if they're selling your data, the risks are higher); it's how valuable that data stockpile is, and to whom. If you just have your own data, and you manage it yourself, it's not worth it for someone to put much effort into hacking you personally, so you're in a much safer position.
prakashk 16y ago
> In Google's case, I find young, smart, cool people just like me who I trust not to be dicks and do things with my stuff I wouldn't want them to. Not too long ago, "Google fires employee for snooping on users" - http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/16/business/la-fi-google-firing-20100916 http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/16/business/la-fi-googl...
- primigenus 16y ago
  One in thousands. Like I said: people make mistakes. It doesn't bother me that we're dealing with human beings who aren't perfect; better this than the big brother corporation with an agenda.
  - prakashk 16y ago
    > One in thousands. What if that one person is one who thinks "if you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place"[1], and who just happens to be the CEO of the company? Would you still trust the company totally? What the head honcho of the company says _is_ its agenda. I love Google for the cool things they have done and continue to do. But it does get scary to think how big they have become. [1] http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/48975 http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/48975
    - primigenus 16y ago
      Yes, because I actually agree with his statement. I have nothing to hide; Google can know all about it if it makes my life easier.

mahmud 16y ago

In Google's case, I find young, smart, cool people just like me who I trust not to be dicks What is this? has any thought gone behind this? I'm not your peer: I'm stupid, uncool and very, VERY old. That's why I decided to teach you fuckers a lesson and put on my fake cop uniform. With a few fake emails & and a phone call, I convinced Bobby, the head of security at data center #34 in Dallas to give me your life's records. Yours along with 5 million other people.

primigenus 16y ago
I was talking specifically about trusting Google's motivations, not the concept of security itself. You're twisting the issue; of course it's possible that Google's security will be broken somehow. But that's the case with anything, anywhere, anytime. So there's not much point (IMO) in basing decisions around that possibility.
- mahmud 16y ago
  "Motivation" means jack-squat in world where powerful entities can buy, steal, or subpoena Google's stash of your personal data. And it's no longer just your data, but involves your entire social-graph. Say, you write to your sister about your father's health in great detail, because you chose to "share" your data with Google, now you're sharing his health information as well, and whoever steals or buys this information (remember, Google is a commercial entity) has it.
- jtheory 16y ago
  The likelihood of someone going to great lengths to break through Google's security is rather higher than someone going to great lengths to break into your personal computer (assuming you are at least capable of securing that against generic threats, which really isn't that hard for technical folks). It's the agglomeration of lots of people's data that gets dangerous/interesting. And seemingly boring data like your browsing history can actually be pretty revealing -- ah, hey, I notice you regularly sign into the Bank of America site, plus you have an account on the forums at (easily hackable site)... might your username and/or password be the same? Ah, you sign in as the admin on an "anonymous" blog... and you mention your first pet (common security question) and link to your favorite uncle's blog, but he has a different last name from you... so is that your mother's maiden name? You see how this works. If some clever had access to this level of data on lots and lots of people, they wouldn't strike gold for everyone, but there would be quite a few casualties. All this to say that there are some very good reasons to avoid letting corporations gather lots of wide-ranging data about you in one place. The intentions of the corporation don't actually matter as much (though obviously if they're selling your data, the risks are higher); it's how valuable that data stockpile is, and to whom. If you just have your own data, and you manage it yourself, it's not worth it for someone to put much effort into hacking you personally, so you're in a much safer position.

prakashk 16y ago

> In Google's case, I find young, smart, cool people just like me who I trust not to be dicks and do things with my stuff I wouldn't want them to. Not too long ago, "Google fires employee for snooping on users" - http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/16/business/la-fi-google-firing-20100916 http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/16/business/la-fi-googl...

primigenus 16y ago
One in thousands. Like I said: people make mistakes. It doesn't bother me that we're dealing with human beings who aren't perfect; better this than the big brother corporation with an agenda.
- prakashk 16y ago
  > One in thousands. What if that one person is one who thinks "if you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place"[1], and who just happens to be the CEO of the company? Would you still trust the company totally? What the head honcho of the company says _is_ its agenda. I love Google for the cool things they have done and continue to do. But it does get scary to think how big they have become. [1] http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/48975 http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/48975
  - primigenus 16y ago
    Yes, because I actually agree with his statement. I have nothing to hide; Google can know all about it if it makes my life easier.