4 ms·

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." ~Eric Schmidt lol

by megous 4y ago

shadowgovt 4y ago
He catches a lot of shit for his phrasing, but Schmidt had a habit of saying true things in a way that maximized the odds they'd be received poorly. (In context, they were talking about the long-retention and implicit-digital-footprint effects on online services, and he was noting that the trends were only going to become "more observation" and "more retention" over time... At some point, it becomes much cheaper to just not do the thing online if you want to preserve your privacy ... and in general, he was right. It's not just government observation; it's corporate observation and private observation, and the ability to churn through someone's entire Twitter history, etc., etc.).
- deelowe 4y ago
  A bit of a shitty answer though when the context surrounding the discussion was about whether Google was doing anything to protect privacy. Apple, by comparison, seems to have navigated the same environment extremely well. They of course can't prevent certain things from happening, but for what's within their control, they are doing what they can.
- donalhunt 4y ago
  As someone who heard this first hand (probably at an all-hands or TGIF), the quote from the earlier post was very much not "don't use communication channels that leave a trail" and much more "don't do illegal shit". In addition, I fondly remember him quibbing that there is no internet in jail. :/ Saying that, I'll leave you in the knowledge that Google Meet is excellent for off the record conversations (and executives are great for ignoring rules set for the rest of the company).
- wmeredith 4y ago
  Schmidt doesn't get shit for saying true things. He gets shit for being a rich hypocritical asshole. At the time he was spouting his holier-than-thou bullshit, he was colluding with other high-tech firms (Apple, et al.) to suppress workers' salaries, and he was actively hiding the evidence of doing so. It came out in court anyway and Google was part of a half-billion dollar settlement over the matter. Eric Schmidt is not some misunderstood truth-sayer. He's a crook and a hypocrite and the things he says are received poorly because he's an elitist who's made his $25,000,000,000 fortune punching down.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    So you're saying he was doing something that he didn't want anyone to know, and maybe he shouldn't have been doing it in the first place? ;)
donalhunt 4y ago
I wonder if in a decade or two, Eric's "adult supervision" era will be recognised as Google's heyday. Eric stepped down as Google's CEO in 2011 and it could be argued that the execution since then has been meh.
HDThoreaun 4y ago
I believe Sundar got in trouble for labelling every single email "confidential attorney client privilege" and cc'ing the legal team so that none of what he says would be released in discovery.
throwaway29303 4y ago
Mr. Schmidt also didn't want to leave paper trail[0] to avoid being sued in another case as well. And somehow Mr. Schmidt considers himself to be a well behaved[1] person. "I am very well tested, I am very well behaved." -Eric Schmidt [0] https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/23/3906310/the-no-hire-paper-trail-steve-jobs-and-eric-schmidt-didnt-want-you-to-see https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/23/3906310/the-no-hire-paper... [1] https://wikileaks.org/Transcript-Meeting-Assange-Schmidt https://wikileaks.org/Transcript-Meeting-Assange-Schmidt
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  When he says "well behaved" he surely means in the computing sense of being predictable and having the range of his behaviours to be well known. Rather than the more common interpretation of "generally morally upstanding"?
  - throwaway29303 4y ago
    The latter. Just Ctrl + F type "behaved" and you'll see. The whole exchange is quite an interesting read. (And that conversation took place in 2011, btw.)
asah 4y ago
except that the harmless written word is notoriously easy to quote out of context and otherwise use "against you" in court. At google's scale, it's virtually impossible to NOT have mountains of "incriminating" conversations. Also, it seems arbitrary that OTR chat should be recorded but hallway conversations and phonecalls are ok to delete...
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > harmless written word is notoriously easy to quote out of context and otherwise use "against you" in court. Do you believe lawyers and judges are unfamiliar with this issue? Like their entire lives are spent reviewing documents, letters and email. They invented the concept of Disclosure before computers existed, so that Defence can rebut or put proper context to any argument that will be made by prosecution.
  - znep 4y ago
    True, now they are just used against you in the press when they get released one way or another, legally or not. Then, the entire point for some lawsuits existing is to set the stage for that information to come out for no good legal reason. You can think of it as legal hacking. I regret writing that last sentence.
  - izacus 4y ago
    > Do you believe lawyers and judges are unfamiliar with this issue? They are absolutely familiar with this issue and if you've ever been in any legal case, they'll gleefully exploit every small word to make you look like the biggest criminal rapist in the world and maximize the time you spent in jail. Go read why exactly do we support Signal and other E2E encrypted messengers. Establishing precedent that every word you say while WFH can be used against you for decades is problematic no matter how much you hate Google.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Also, it seems arbitrary that OTR chat should be recorded but hallway conversations and phonecalls are ok to delete… If you regularly create records of conversations and phone calls, evidence preservation rules apply to those records as well; you cannot delete them, either. The fact that no records are usually made in the first place and that the only evidence of the content of such conversations is witness testimony not records means that evidence preservations laws don’t apply (but if you tamper with the witnesses, that is a fairly serious offense.)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
teawrecks 4y ago
Well yeah, if he can get others to stop doing shady shit, it puts him at an advantage.

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." ~Eric Schmidt lol

by megous 4y ago

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." ~Eric Schmidt lol

shadowgovt 4y ago

He catches a lot of shit for his phrasing, but Schmidt had a habit of saying true things in a way that maximized the odds they'd be received poorly. (In context, they were talking about the long-retention and implicit-digital-footprint effects on online services, and he was noting that the trends were only going to become "more observation" and "more retention" over time... At some point, it becomes much cheaper to just not do the thing online if you want to preserve your privacy ... and in general, he was right. It's not just government observation; it's corporate observation and private observation, and the ability to churn through someone's entire Twitter history, etc., etc.).

deelowe 4y ago
A bit of a shitty answer though when the context surrounding the discussion was about whether Google was doing anything to protect privacy. Apple, by comparison, seems to have navigated the same environment extremely well. They of course can't prevent certain things from happening, but for what's within their control, they are doing what they can.
donalhunt 4y ago
As someone who heard this first hand (probably at an all-hands or TGIF), the quote from the earlier post was very much not "don't use communication channels that leave a trail" and much more "don't do illegal shit". In addition, I fondly remember him quibbing that there is no internet in jail. :/ Saying that, I'll leave you in the knowledge that Google Meet is excellent for off the record conversations (and executives are great for ignoring rules set for the rest of the company).
wmeredith 4y ago
Schmidt doesn't get shit for saying true things. He gets shit for being a rich hypocritical asshole. At the time he was spouting his holier-than-thou bullshit, he was colluding with other high-tech firms (Apple, et al.) to suppress workers' salaries, and he was actively hiding the evidence of doing so. It came out in court anyway and Google was part of a half-billion dollar settlement over the matter. Eric Schmidt is not some misunderstood truth-sayer. He's a crook and a hypocrite and the things he says are received poorly because he's an elitist who's made his $25,000,000,000 fortune punching down.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  So you're saying he was doing something that he didn't want anyone to know, and maybe he shouldn't have been doing it in the first place? ;)

donalhunt 4y ago

I wonder if in a decade or two, Eric's "adult supervision" era will be recognised as Google's heyday. Eric stepped down as Google's CEO in 2011 and it could be argued that the execution since then has been meh.

HDThoreaun 4y ago

I believe Sundar got in trouble for labelling every single email "confidential attorney client privilege" and cc'ing the legal team so that none of what he says would be released in discovery.

throwaway29303 4y ago

Mr. Schmidt also didn't want to leave paper trail[0] to avoid being sued in another case as well. And somehow Mr. Schmidt considers himself to be a well behaved[1] person. "I am very well tested, I am very well behaved." -Eric Schmidt [0] https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/23/3906310/the-no-hire-paper-trail-steve-jobs-and-eric-schmidt-didnt-want-you-to-see https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/23/3906310/the-no-hire-paper... [1] https://wikileaks.org/Transcript-Meeting-Assange-Schmidt https://wikileaks.org/Transcript-Meeting-Assange-Schmidt

pbhjpbhj 4y ago
When he says "well behaved" he surely means in the computing sense of being predictable and having the range of his behaviours to be well known. Rather than the more common interpretation of "generally morally upstanding"?
- throwaway29303 4y ago
  The latter. Just Ctrl + F type "behaved" and you'll see. The whole exchange is quite an interesting read. (And that conversation took place in 2011, btw.)

asah 4y ago

except that the harmless written word is notoriously easy to quote out of context and otherwise use "against you" in court. At google's scale, it's virtually impossible to NOT have mountains of "incriminating" conversations. Also, it seems arbitrary that OTR chat should be recorded but hallway conversations and phonecalls are ok to delete...

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> harmless written word is notoriously easy to quote out of context and otherwise use "against you" in court. Do you believe lawyers and judges are unfamiliar with this issue? Like their entire lives are spent reviewing documents, letters and email. They invented the concept of Disclosure before computers existed, so that Defence can rebut or put proper context to any argument that will be made by prosecution.
- znep 4y ago
  True, now they are just used against you in the press when they get released one way or another, legally or not. Then, the entire point for some lawsuits existing is to set the stage for that information to come out for no good legal reason. You can think of it as legal hacking. I regret writing that last sentence.
- izacus 4y ago
  > Do you believe lawyers and judges are unfamiliar with this issue? They are absolutely familiar with this issue and if you've ever been in any legal case, they'll gleefully exploit every small word to make you look like the biggest criminal rapist in the world and maximize the time you spent in jail. Go read why exactly do we support Signal and other E2E encrypted messengers. Establishing precedent that every word you say while WFH can be used against you for decades is problematic no matter how much you hate Google.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Also, it seems arbitrary that OTR chat should be recorded but hallway conversations and phonecalls are ok to delete… If you regularly create records of conversations and phone calls, evidence preservation rules apply to those records as well; you cannot delete them, either. The fact that no records are usually made in the first place and that the only evidence of the content of such conversations is witness testimony not records means that evidence preservations laws don’t apply (but if you tamper with the witnesses, that is a fairly serious offense.)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

teawrecks 4y ago

Well yeah, if he can get others to stop doing shady shit, it puts him at an advantage.