5 ms·

It reminds me of when Eric Schmidt, then CEO of google, tried that argument about people's worry of google collecting so much personal data. Some media outlet t

It reminds me of when Eric Schmidt, then CEO of google, tried that argument about people's worry of google collecting so much personal data. Some media outlet then published a bunch of personal information about Schmidt they had gathered using only google searches, including where he lives, his salary, his political donations, and where his kids went to school. Schmidt was not amused.

Sebguer 9mo ago
Back in the day, Google eng had pretty unguarded access to people's gmails, calendars, etc. Then there was a news story involving a Google SRE grooming children and stalking them through their google accounts...
neilv 9mo ago
That questionable-sounding stunt by the media outlet wasn't comparable: Google/Alphabet knows much more about individuals than addresses, salary, and political donations. Google/Alphabet knows quite a lot about your sentiments, what information you've seen, your relationships, who can get to you, who you can get to, your hopes and fears, your economic situation, your health conditions, assorted kompromat, your movements, etc. Schmidt is actually from OG Internet circles where many people were aware of privacy issues, and who were vigilant against incursions. But perhaps he had a different philosophical position. Or perhaps it was his job to downplay the risks. Or perhaps he was going to have enough money and power that he wasn't personally threatened by private info that would threaten the less-wealthy. We might learn this year, how well Google/Alphabet protects this treasure trove of surveillance state data, when that matters most.
- mindslight 9mo ago
  > Schmidt is actually from OG Internet circles where many people were aware of privacy issues, and who were vigilant against incursions. > But perhaps he had a different philosophical position. Or perhaps it was his job to downplay the risks I feel that as the consumer surveillance industry took off, everyone from those OG Internet circles was presented with a choice - stick with the individualist hacker spirit, or turncoat and build systems of corporate control. The people who chose power ended up incredibly rich, while the people who chose freedom got to watch the world burn while saying I told you so. (There were also a lot of fence sitters in the middle who chose power but assuaged their own egos with slogans like "Don't be evil" and whatnot)
  - neilv 9mo ago
    Yes, I remember that period of conscious choice, and the fence-sitting or rationalizing. The thing about "Don't Be Evil" at the time, is that (my impression was) everyone thought they knew what that meant, because it was a popular sentiment. The OG Internet people I'm talking about aren't only the Levy-style hackers, with strong individualist bents, but there was also a lot of collectivism. And the individualists and collectivists mostly cooperated, or at least coexisted. And all were pretty universally united in their skepticism of MBAs (halfwits who only care about near-term money and personal incentives), Wall Street bros (evil, coming off of '80s greed-is-good pillaging), and politicians (in the old "their lips are moving" way, not like the modern threats). Of course it wasn't just the OG people choosing. That period of choice coincided with an influx of people who previously would've gone to Wall Street, as well as a ton of non-ruthless people who would just adapt to what culture they were shown. The money then determined the culture.
    - mindslight 9mo ago
      Sorry, I didn't mean to write out the hacker collectivists. I said "individualist" because to me hacking is a pretty individualist activity, even if one's ultimate goal is to contribute to some kind of collective. Or maybe I just don't truly understand collectives, I don't know. But yes, individualists and collectivists mostly cooperated and coexisted. I'd say this is because they were merely different takes on the same liberating ground truths. Or at least liberating-seeming perceptions of ground truths...
  - AndrewKemendo 9mo ago
    100% that is exactly what happened and in public Just invoking Richard Stallman will prove it because the smear campaign on him was so thorough. Linus seems to be the only one that made it out.
    - jacquesm 9mo ago
      And barely so.
- ciupicri 9mo ago
  OG = Original Gangster?
  - sixothree 9mo ago
    It's mostly meaning "original". The OG XBox for example.
  - bad_haircut72 9mo ago
    Yes but its a slang term that just means original/old-school now (unless you're an actual criminal maybe).
  - crucialfelix 9mo ago
    Yep, the 70s Crips and Ice-T somehow made it into everyday speech.
- jorts 9mo ago
  It was probably a decade ago and I recall using something within Google that would tell you about who they thought you were. It profiled me as a middle eastern middle aged man or something like that which was… way off.
  - giancarlostoro 9mo ago
    I think you're on about the ad preferences settings or whatever? I usually wipe those.
  - sgc 9mo ago
    If I were extremely cynical, I would suspect they might have intentionally falsified that response to make it seem like they were more naive than they actually were.
    - tga_d 9mo ago
      I suspect the more likely scenario is they don't actually care how accurate these nominal categorizations are. The information they're ultimately trying to extract is, given your history, how likely you are to click through a particular ad and engage in the way the advertiser wants (typically buying a product), and I would be surprised if the way they calculate that was human interpretable. In the Facebook incident where they were called out for intentionally targeting ads at young girls who were emotionally vulnerable, Facebook clarified that they were merely pointing out to customers that this data was available to Facebook, and that advertisers couldn't intentionally use it.[0] Of course, the result is the same, the culpability is just laundered through software, and nobody can prove it's happening. The winks and nudges from Facebook to its clients are all just marketing copy, they don't know whether these features are invisibly determined any more than we do. Similarly, your Google labels may be, to our eyes, entirely inaccurate, but the underlying data that populates them is going to be effective all the same. [0] https://about.fb.com/news/h/comments-on-research-and-ad-targeting/ https://about.fb.com/news/h/comments-on-research-and-ad-targ...
      - giancarlostoro 9mo ago
- junofan 9mo ago
  Having met him one time he seemed like just a really intense dude who embodied the chestnut “the CEO is the guy who walks in and says ‘I’m CEO’.” I dunno if there’s more to it than that.
  - dfdf2 9mo ago
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37457418/eric-schmidt-mistress-accuses-him-rape-spying-google/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37457418/eric-schmidt-mistress... erm hes a creep, claimed to be rapist... not many redeemable qualities.
- KennyBlanken 9mo ago
  The research that kicked off Google was funded by US intelligence orgs. Stop pretending like Schmidt was or is "one of the good guys." They all knew from day one what the score was.
  - dfdf2 9mo ago
    Hes def not a good guy lmao. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37457418/eric-schmidt-mistress-accuses-him-rape-spying-google/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37457418/eric-schmidt-mistress...
    - llbbdd 9mo ago
      [flagged]
- hluska 9mo ago
  It wasn’t a stunt and there was nothing questionable about it. I’m amazed by how easily people shit all over journalists - it really has to end because it is precisely how truth dies. Here’s a question - since you have such strong feelings did you write the editor of the piece for their explanation?
- hsuduebc2 9mo ago
  If it was his job to downplay the risk's then he absolutely deserved at least this. Google or any other US company will not be defending your's or anyone's else's data. It's not only that they doesn't want to(which they dont) but they simply can't. You must comply with the law and you do not want to currently piss off anyone's at the top.
Fnoord 9mo ago
Nowadays we got doxing laws in my country, but... the guy behind Palantir (look up where that name stems from, too) is called Peter Thiel.
spondyl 9mo ago
For some specific quotes, here are some excerpts from In The Plex: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34931437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34931437 Eric had also once said in a CNBC interview "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
KennyBlanken 9mo ago
Thiel lost his shit because Gawker mentioned he was gay in an article on their site. Something _everybody_ in Silicon Valley already knew. Then he goes and forms what essentially amounts to a private CIA. How about Musk? He felt he had a right to hoover up data about people from every government agency, but throws a massive temper-tantrum when people publish where his private jet is flying using publicly available data. How about Mark Zuckerberg? So private he buys up all the properties around him and has his private goon squad stopping people on public property who live in the neighborhood, haranguing them just for walking past or near the property. These people are all supremely hypocritical when it comes to privacy.
- red-iron-pine 9mo ago
  i hate defending thiel since hes literally destroying society, but he didn't get mad at gawker just for outing him he got mad at gawker for deliberately outing him right as he went to meet the saudis for negotiations. a country that literally executes gay people. at best it strained the negotiations and made things awkward, and at worst could have put him in peril. you dont just out people without their consent, and that goes for rich or poor.
  - blactuary 9mo ago
    So he was willing to make a business deal with the country that executes gay people, as long as HE wasn't in danger? Legitimizing their regime is perfectly OK if it doesn't affect him? The fact that he was negotiating with them makes that incident look even worse for him, not Gawker
  - Bluescreenbuddy 9mo ago
    "you dont just out people without their consent, and that goes for rich or poor." Nah fuck him. If you're closeted and funding anti-queer causes and politicians you deserve to be outed.
    - FireBeyond 9mo ago
      He wasn't even closeted - there were pictures all over his public social media of him shirtless on gay cruise ships. Hardly on the DL.
dfdf2 9mo ago
Eric Schmidt the rapist? https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37457418/eric-schmidt-mistress-accuses-him-rape-spying-google/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37457418/eric-schmidt-mistress... He's got a whole lotta people doing over-time trying to bury this.
- assimpleaspossi 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - njhnjhnjhnjh 9mo ago
    [dead]
  - 20after4 9mo ago
    Abusive relationships aren't always easy to escape. Even more so when the partner is extremely rich and powerful.
    - assimpleaspossi 9mo ago
      I missed this further in the article. She broke up with him four years after the first claim of rape only after she found out he was with a 22-year old. So she didn't have any problems "escaping" the relationship.
      - blactuary 9mo ago
        This is gross man. Abusive relationships are way more complicated than that, judging someone in this situation because you read one article about it is out of line
        assimpleaspossi 9mo ago
        It's the article supplied. If you have another article that says anything different, then supply it. If you have further insight into this specific instance, give it.
wutwutwat 9mo 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
- pardon_me 9mo ago
  Remember this when considering seeking medical help for an embarrassing symptom.
  - wutwutwat 9mo ago
    I wasn't sharing that because I think he's right. I was sharing it to show what kind of person we are talking about...
webdoodle 9mo ago
And this is what every hacker on the planet should be doing: exposing all of the secrets of the rich parasites. Leave them no quarter, no place too hide.

Sebguer 9mo ago

Back in the day, Google eng had pretty unguarded access to people's gmails, calendars, etc. Then there was a news story involving a Google SRE grooming children and stalking them through their google accounts...

neilv 9mo ago

That questionable-sounding stunt by the media outlet wasn't comparable: Google/Alphabet knows much more about individuals than addresses, salary, and political donations. Google/Alphabet knows quite a lot about your sentiments, what information you've seen, your relationships, who can get to you, who you can get to, your hopes and fears, your economic situation, your health conditions, assorted kompromat, your movements, etc. Schmidt is actually from OG Internet circles where many people were aware of privacy issues, and who were vigilant against incursions. But perhaps he had a different philosophical position. Or perhaps it was his job to downplay the risks. Or perhaps he was going to have enough money and power that he wasn't personally threatened by private info that would threaten the less-wealthy. We might learn this year, how well Google/Alphabet protects this treasure trove of surveillance state data, when that matters most.

mindslight 9mo ago
> Schmidt is actually from OG Internet circles where many people were aware of privacy issues, and who were vigilant against incursions. > But perhaps he had a different philosophical position. Or perhaps it was his job to downplay the risks I feel that as the consumer surveillance industry took off, everyone from those OG Internet circles was presented with a choice - stick with the individualist hacker spirit, or turncoat and build systems of corporate control. The people who chose power ended up incredibly rich, while the people who chose freedom got to watch the world burn while saying I told you so. (There were also a lot of fence sitters in the middle who chose power but assuaged their own egos with slogans like "Don't be evil" and whatnot)
- neilv 9mo ago
  Yes, I remember that period of conscious choice, and the fence-sitting or rationalizing. The thing about "Don't Be Evil" at the time, is that (my impression was) everyone thought they knew what that meant, because it was a popular sentiment. The OG Internet people I'm talking about aren't only the Levy-style hackers, with strong individualist bents, but there was also a lot of collectivism. And the individualists and collectivists mostly cooperated, or at least coexisted. And all were pretty universally united in their skepticism of MBAs (halfwits who only care about near-term money and personal incentives), Wall Street bros (evil, coming off of '80s greed-is-good pillaging), and politicians (in the old "their lips are moving" way, not like the modern threats). Of course it wasn't just the OG people choosing. That period of choice coincided with an influx of people who previously would've gone to Wall Street, as well as a ton of non-ruthless people who would just adapt to what culture they were shown. The money then determined the culture.
  - mindslight 9mo ago
    Sorry, I didn't mean to write out the hacker collectivists. I said "individualist" because to me hacking is a pretty individualist activity, even if one's ultimate goal is to contribute to some kind of collective. Or maybe I just don't truly understand collectives, I don't know. But yes, individualists and collectivists mostly cooperated and coexisted. I'd say this is because they were merely different takes on the same liberating ground truths. Or at least liberating-seeming perceptions of ground truths...
- AndrewKemendo 9mo ago
  100% that is exactly what happened and in public Just invoking Richard Stallman will prove it because the smear campaign on him was so thorough. Linus seems to be the only one that made it out.
  - jacquesm 9mo ago
    And barely so.
ciupicri 9mo ago
OG = Original Gangster?
- sixothree 9mo ago
  It's mostly meaning "original". The OG XBox for example.
- bad_haircut72 9mo ago
  Yes but its a slang term that just means original/old-school now (unless you're an actual criminal maybe).
- crucialfelix 9mo ago
  Yep, the 70s Crips and Ice-T somehow made it into everyday speech.
jorts 9mo ago
It was probably a decade ago and I recall using something within Google that would tell you about who they thought you were. It profiled me as a middle eastern middle aged man or something like that which was… way off.
- giancarlostoro 9mo ago
  I think you're on about the ad preferences settings or whatever? I usually wipe those.
- sgc 9mo ago
  If I were extremely cynical, I would suspect they might have intentionally falsified that response to make it seem like they were more naive than they actually were.
  - tga_d 9mo ago
    I suspect the more likely scenario is they don't actually care how accurate these nominal categorizations are. The information they're ultimately trying to extract is, given your history, how likely you are to click through a particular ad and engage in the way the advertiser wants (typically buying a product), and I would be surprised if the way they calculate that was human interpretable. In the Facebook incident where they were called out for intentionally targeting ads at young girls who were emotionally vulnerable, Facebook clarified that they were merely pointing out to customers that this data was available to Facebook, and that advertisers couldn't intentionally use it.[0] Of course, the result is the same, the culpability is just laundered through software, and nobody can prove it's happening. The winks and nudges from Facebook to its clients are all just marketing copy, they don't know whether these features are invisibly determined any more than we do. Similarly, your Google labels may be, to our eyes, entirely inaccurate, but the underlying data that populates them is going to be effective all the same. [0] https://about.fb.com/news/h/comments-on-research-and-ad-targeting/ https://about.fb.com/news/h/comments-on-research-and-ad-targ...
    - giancarlostoro 9mo ago
junofan 9mo ago
Having met him one time he seemed like just a really intense dude who embodied the chestnut “the CEO is the guy who walks in and says ‘I’m CEO’.” I dunno if there’s more to it than that.
- dfdf2 9mo ago
  https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37457418/eric-schmidt-mistress-accuses-him-rape-spying-google/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37457418/eric-schmidt-mistress... erm hes a creep, claimed to be rapist... not many redeemable qualities.
KennyBlanken 9mo ago
The research that kicked off Google was funded by US intelligence orgs. Stop pretending like Schmidt was or is "one of the good guys." They all knew from day one what the score was.
- dfdf2 9mo ago
  Hes def not a good guy lmao. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37457418/eric-schmidt-mistress-accuses-him-rape-spying-google/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37457418/eric-schmidt-mistress...
  - llbbdd 9mo ago
    [flagged]
hluska 9mo ago
It wasn’t a stunt and there was nothing questionable about it. I’m amazed by how easily people shit all over journalists - it really has to end because it is precisely how truth dies. Here’s a question - since you have such strong feelings did you write the editor of the piece for their explanation?
hsuduebc2 9mo ago
If it was his job to downplay the risk's then he absolutely deserved at least this. Google or any other US company will not be defending your's or anyone's else's data. It's not only that they doesn't want to(which they dont) but they simply can't. You must comply with the law and you do not want to currently piss off anyone's at the top.

Fnoord 9mo ago

Nowadays we got doxing laws in my country, but... the guy behind Palantir (look up where that name stems from, too) is called Peter Thiel.

spondyl 9mo ago

For some specific quotes, here are some excerpts from In The Plex: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34931437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34931437 Eric had also once said in a CNBC interview "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

KennyBlanken 9mo ago

Thiel lost his shit because Gawker mentioned he was gay in an article on their site. Something _everybody_ in Silicon Valley already knew. Then he goes and forms what essentially amounts to a private CIA. How about Musk? He felt he had a right to hoover up data about people from every government agency, but throws a massive temper-tantrum when people publish where his private jet is flying using publicly available data. How about Mark Zuckerberg? So private he buys up all the properties around him and has his private goon squad stopping people on public property who live in the neighborhood, haranguing them just for walking past or near the property. These people are all supremely hypocritical when it comes to privacy.

red-iron-pine 9mo ago
i hate defending thiel since hes literally destroying society, but he didn't get mad at gawker just for outing him he got mad at gawker for deliberately outing him right as he went to meet the saudis for negotiations. a country that literally executes gay people. at best it strained the negotiations and made things awkward, and at worst could have put him in peril. you dont just out people without their consent, and that goes for rich or poor.
- blactuary 9mo ago
  So he was willing to make a business deal with the country that executes gay people, as long as HE wasn't in danger? Legitimizing their regime is perfectly OK if it doesn't affect him? The fact that he was negotiating with them makes that incident look even worse for him, not Gawker
- Bluescreenbuddy 9mo ago
  "you dont just out people without their consent, and that goes for rich or poor." Nah fuck him. If you're closeted and funding anti-queer causes and politicians you deserve to be outed.
  - FireBeyond 9mo ago
    He wasn't even closeted - there were pictures all over his public social media of him shirtless on gay cruise ships. Hardly on the DL.

dfdf2 9mo ago

Eric Schmidt the rapist? https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37457418/eric-schmidt-mistress-accuses-him-rape-spying-google/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37457418/eric-schmidt-mistress... He's got a whole lotta people doing over-time trying to bury this.

assimpleaspossi 9mo ago
[flagged]
- njhnjhnjhnjh 9mo ago
  [dead]
- 20after4 9mo ago
  Abusive relationships aren't always easy to escape. Even more so when the partner is extremely rich and powerful.
  - assimpleaspossi 9mo ago
    I missed this further in the article. She broke up with him four years after the first claim of rape only after she found out he was with a 22-year old. So she didn't have any problems "escaping" the relationship.
    - blactuary 9mo ago
      This is gross man. Abusive relationships are way more complicated than that, judging someone in this situation because you read one article about it is out of line
      - assimpleaspossi 9mo ago
        It's the article supplied. If you have another article that says anything different, then supply it. If you have further insight into this specific instance, give it.

wutwutwat 9mo 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

pardon_me 9mo ago
Remember this when considering seeking medical help for an embarrassing symptom.
- wutwutwat 9mo ago
  I wasn't sharing that because I think he's right. I was sharing it to show what kind of person we are talking about...

webdoodle 9mo ago

And this is what every hacker on the planet should be doing: exposing all of the secrets of the rich parasites. Leave them no quarter, no place too hide.