5 ms·

Sure, but if that happens... I think we're fucked either way? I think any providers would be just as susceptible (maybe more so; Google ostensibly has the mean

Sure, but if that happens... I think we're fucked either way? I think any providers would be just as susceptible (maybe more so; Google ostensibly has the means to protect data, legally and technologically), and your data would already be on Google's servers unless you only emailed or chatted with other non-Google users.

pydry 6y ago
No, you're not fucked either way. In fact, if you're white, middle class, etc. you're probably better off than most and will be given the most leeway. If your data on google/facebook/microsoft/amazon servers is kept to the bare minimum (& kept innocuous), if you self host and if you keep your data on smaller services your chances of getting caught up in a dragnet operation are minimized. Your chances of having an elevated "risk" score because of some stray data point (e.g. some people you emailed once, or some guy's house you visited) is minimized. They're not going to keep track of everybody personally, but they will be running machine learning models all up and down every data point you left to pick out anything suspicious.
- granzymes 6y ago
  Or they go after the people who have tried to hide themselves ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I think this is a very odd thing to structure a life around, but then again I've never understood any kind of doomsday prepping.
  - pydry 6y ago
    I've never understood people who stock up on baked beans and hide in bunkers either. You're right though. Maybe between the people who have facebook accounts they used to say bad stuff about dictator du jour and those who don't have facebook accounts at all they'll definitely go after the latter ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And, maybe there won't ever be a fascist dictatorship in the United States. After all, right wing populism is getting more and more unfashionable these days.
    - rexpop 6y ago
      > right wing populism is getting more and more unfashionable these days Compared to WHEN? And based on what sources?
  - brigandish 6y ago
    Risk is not only an estimate of the extent of harm if something happens but the likelihood of it happening, hence they're not prepping for Doomsday - which would be fairly pointless - but worse case scenario, of which there are several vying for the title of worst case, each with varying chance. I'd rather liken it to fastening my seatbelt than prepping for Doomsday.
  - Qwertious 6y ago
    That's why individial self-hosting isn't a good defense - it only works if it's widespread. If half the population uses GenericPrivateITservice then the government can't crack down on those users. People "opting in" to privacy systems can't work, that's why it needs to be solved politically.
  - AndrewThrowaway 6y ago
    I totally agree with you because things just don't work like that. When Nazis came my grand father was a teenager. A lot of local chads believed in them and joined SS and did all the dirty work. Then when soviets came these chads were afraid that they will be prosecuted for murdering Jews so they did the only logical thing - joined soviet milicija. What basically made them untouchable. My grand father's brother ran away to US. These local chads then could "prosecute" all the family for "joining partisan movement". It was not soviets from Moscow that were counting every head. It was local supporters who knew each other from the high school. If there was some brother missing in family, they could send all the family to gulags, take over the land, take over houses by accusing family joining partisans. So my grand father spent his teenage years hiding in neighboring villages. It is not Google who will give you out. They will have upper hand if anything because they are big and etc. It will be your employer who will comply. It will be your local mailman (what was all these packages you were receiving from China?). It will be your neighbor who likes to shoot guns and doesn't like you for one reason or another. What people should understand that this "fascist government" will be sitting in DC. They will not be sending somebody from DC to Minnesota because "someguy at gmail dot com" wrote something against them. How inefficient that would be. It will be local people who will be supporting "the new great government". And they have much more compromising information about you than your emails. When the doomsday comes you will not be hiding your baked beans in your bunker from zombies. It will be your neighbor whose three kids are starving. Or just your other neighbor who likes guns and to eat. And he is hungry, pretty hungry right now.
    - granzymes 6y ago
      Thank you for sharing that story.
    - pydry 6y ago
      >What people should understand that this "fascist government" will be sitting in DC. They will not be sending somebody from DC to Minnesota because "someguy at gmail dot com" wrote something against them. How inefficient that would be. It'll be easy as pie. The data is there in an easily consumable format. The tools exist to categorize and find undesirables. Tools exist which can be used to rank you in terms of desirability. DC won't sent somebody to Minnesota because of what you wrote in a gmail alone. However, what you wrote in gmails would likely contribute to a "social scoring system" which would be used against you.
garbagetime 6y ago
>Sure, but if that happens... I think we're fucked either way? Why?
- Const-me 6y ago
  When people are saying they legally kill other people for their political views, that's often a fake. What often happens, no one cares about political views, people just using the tool for profit, revenge, career, or lulz. Nothing stops me from registering a free e-mail address garbagetime @ somedomain.com, writing any e-mails I want there, then letting your government know about your secret e-mail address you use to discuss politics.
henearkr 6y ago
There are providers (not free, though), like ProtonMail, who store your data encrypted, in a fashion that would prevent this threat model. I bet that Google would sooner gladily erase itself all of its data rather than give them to a fascist gov (seems that they cooperated mildly in the past, but not with a fascist government, with a normal one). They already took tough decisions like to ditch Chinese market, under pressure of the employees. Yes Google is clearly leftist, ecolo, all you want, as they are just the sum of their engineers. Great minds.

pydry 6y ago

No, you're not fucked either way. In fact, if you're white, middle class, etc. you're probably better off than most and will be given the most leeway. If your data on google/facebook/microsoft/amazon servers is kept to the bare minimum (& kept innocuous), if you self host and if you keep your data on smaller services your chances of getting caught up in a dragnet operation are minimized. Your chances of having an elevated "risk" score because of some stray data point (e.g. some people you emailed once, or some guy's house you visited) is minimized. They're not going to keep track of everybody personally, but they will be running machine learning models all up and down every data point you left to pick out anything suspicious.

granzymes 6y ago
Or they go after the people who have tried to hide themselves ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I think this is a very odd thing to structure a life around, but then again I've never understood any kind of doomsday prepping.
- pydry 6y ago
  I've never understood people who stock up on baked beans and hide in bunkers either. You're right though. Maybe between the people who have facebook accounts they used to say bad stuff about dictator du jour and those who don't have facebook accounts at all they'll definitely go after the latter ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And, maybe there won't ever be a fascist dictatorship in the United States. After all, right wing populism is getting more and more unfashionable these days.
  - rexpop 6y ago
    > right wing populism is getting more and more unfashionable these days Compared to WHEN? And based on what sources?
- brigandish 6y ago
  Risk is not only an estimate of the extent of harm if something happens but the likelihood of it happening, hence they're not prepping for Doomsday - which would be fairly pointless - but worse case scenario, of which there are several vying for the title of worst case, each with varying chance. I'd rather liken it to fastening my seatbelt than prepping for Doomsday.
- Qwertious 6y ago
  That's why individial self-hosting isn't a good defense - it only works if it's widespread. If half the population uses GenericPrivateITservice then the government can't crack down on those users. People "opting in" to privacy systems can't work, that's why it needs to be solved politically.
- AndrewThrowaway 6y ago
  I totally agree with you because things just don't work like that. When Nazis came my grand father was a teenager. A lot of local chads believed in them and joined SS and did all the dirty work. Then when soviets came these chads were afraid that they will be prosecuted for murdering Jews so they did the only logical thing - joined soviet milicija. What basically made them untouchable. My grand father's brother ran away to US. These local chads then could "prosecute" all the family for "joining partisan movement". It was not soviets from Moscow that were counting every head. It was local supporters who knew each other from the high school. If there was some brother missing in family, they could send all the family to gulags, take over the land, take over houses by accusing family joining partisans. So my grand father spent his teenage years hiding in neighboring villages. It is not Google who will give you out. They will have upper hand if anything because they are big and etc. It will be your employer who will comply. It will be your local mailman (what was all these packages you were receiving from China?). It will be your neighbor who likes to shoot guns and doesn't like you for one reason or another. What people should understand that this "fascist government" will be sitting in DC. They will not be sending somebody from DC to Minnesota because "someguy at gmail dot com" wrote something against them. How inefficient that would be. It will be local people who will be supporting "the new great government". And they have much more compromising information about you than your emails. When the doomsday comes you will not be hiding your baked beans in your bunker from zombies. It will be your neighbor whose three kids are starving. Or just your other neighbor who likes guns and to eat. And he is hungry, pretty hungry right now.
  - granzymes 6y ago
    Thank you for sharing that story.
  - pydry 6y ago
    >What people should understand that this "fascist government" will be sitting in DC. They will not be sending somebody from DC to Minnesota because "someguy at gmail dot com" wrote something against them. How inefficient that would be. It'll be easy as pie. The data is there in an easily consumable format. The tools exist to categorize and find undesirables. Tools exist which can be used to rank you in terms of desirability. DC won't sent somebody to Minnesota because of what you wrote in a gmail alone. However, what you wrote in gmails would likely contribute to a "social scoring system" which would be used against you.

garbagetime 6y ago

>Sure, but if that happens... I think we're fucked either way? Why?

Const-me 6y ago
When people are saying they legally kill other people for their political views, that's often a fake. What often happens, no one cares about political views, people just using the tool for profit, revenge, career, or lulz. Nothing stops me from registering a free e-mail address garbagetime @ somedomain.com, writing any e-mails I want there, then letting your government know about your secret e-mail address you use to discuss politics.

henearkr 6y ago

There are providers (not free, though), like ProtonMail, who store your data encrypted, in a fashion that would prevent this threat model. I bet that Google would sooner gladily erase itself all of its data rather than give them to a fascist gov (seems that they cooperated mildly in the past, but not with a fascist government, with a normal one). They already took tough decisions like to ditch Chinese market, under pressure of the employees. Yes Google is clearly leftist, ecolo, all you want, as they are just the sum of their engineers. Great minds.