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Privacy, technology and actual freedom overlap massively. Stories like this making it to HN are important since many of the people working at Google that had in
by jmward01 6mo ago
Privacy, technology and actual freedom overlap massively. Stories like this making it to HN are important since many of the people working at Google that had interactions with this, either by creating the tech or being aware of internal policy changes, read HN. Additionally many founders and decision makers in companies read these stories because it hit HN. Knowing that Google will do this changes your legal calculations. Should I trust them to store my company's data? Will they honor their BAA requirements if they are ditching other promises they made?
People may be tired of seeing stories like this appear on HN, but getting this story exposure to this group is exactly why they need to hit the homepage.
- shevy-java 6mo ago> People may be tired of seeing stories like this appear on HN I am not tired of that at all. But you have people be tired of tons of things, on reddit too. That should not distract discussions. If technology is involved I think it perfectly fits HN and in this regard, the state uses technology to sniff after people - without a real legal, objective cause. It's almost as if the current administration attempts to inflate court cases to weaken the system, e. g. until judges say "no, that's too much work, I just auto-convict via this AI tool the government gave me".
- smallmancontrov 6mo agoThe number of HNers who were earnestly arguing that this was the party of free speech indicates that this absolutely needs to be on the HN front page. > the administration’s rhetoric about cracking down on students protesting what we saw as genocide forced me into hiding for three months. Federal agents came to my home looking for me. A friend was detained at an airport in Tampa and interrogated about my whereabouts.
- traderj0e 6mo ago[flagged]
- selectodude 6mo agoDemocrats have so far not been led by the nose into bombing Iran and fucking up the global economy so I’m not sure how one can keep saying that with a straight face.
- wredcoll 6mo agoIt's pretty pathetic when the best argument you can make is a whataboutism that isn't even equivalent.
- smallmancontrov 6mo agoIf "led by the nose into bombing Iran" isn't being "owned by Israel," what is?
- traderj0e 6mo agoIt totally is. Democrats got led into Israel's wars too. Interestingly the support was different, like Trump got money from the Adelsons and Biden from pro-Israel lobbies.
- vel0city 6mo ago> Democrats got led into Israel's wars too. Which ones?
- jlarocco 6mo agoHave people already forgot about Gaza?
- vel0city 6mo agoThe US was involved in Gaza? The United States was actively spending billions dropping munitions there? When? Under which administration was the US directly involved in bombing Gaza? Can you further clarify how the US was involved in the war in Gaza, and how that was the Democrats getting involved? And do you really feel that involvement was anywhere near what is happening or comparable with Iran at the moment?
- wredcoll 6mo ago> The number of HNers who were earnestly arguing that this was the party of free speech Do you think any of them were sincere?
- smallmancontrov 6mo agoI work in this industry. I sample the same distribution in person. I don't think they were, I know they were.
- hn_acc1 6mo agoI'm seeing it in a lot of younger tech people. We had a NASA presentation at work about air quality and that forest fires are one of our biggest problems in CA. TWO separate people (from maybe 20-25 attending) brought up "do you think that if we managed our forests better, this could help?" (clearly talking about the crazy "raking the forests" Trump rhetoric). It blows my mind how "intelligent" people can be this stupid.
- kelnos 6mo ago> "do you think that if we managed our forests better, this could help?" (clearly talking about the crazy "raking the forests" Trump rhetoric) Were they clearly actually talking about that? If that was their question, word-for-word, it's a good question! We are not managing our forests all that well. No, we shouldn't be doing Trump's dumbass raking "idea", but we should be doing controlled burns, at minimum.
- headsman771 6mo agoI remember hearing about forest mismanagement long before Trump's presidential runs. It's curious how many people complaining about right wing talking points associate it solely with Trump.
- vel0city 6mo agoWhile Trump's "raking the forest" take is clearly uninformed and unintelligent, there's a substantial kernel of truth to longstanding forest management policies making some of these wildfires worse than what they could have been. We've been artificially suppressing fires far too long in a lot of these places, for example. Not that this is the only factor in play here on a lot of these fires, and once again I do agree Trump's take is idiotic and ultimately he's not helping but pouring gasoline on the issue. Just pointing out, we definitely aren't managing our forests well for a multitude of reasons. https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/12/12/twenty-year-study-confirms-california-forests-are-healthier-when-burned-or-thinned/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/12/12/twenty-year-study-confi...
- ifyoubuildit 6mo agoI'm all ears if you've got someone that we can put in power that won't rat fuck us when it comes to privacy or civil liberties. Bonus points if they aren't just slightly less bad than the other guy.
- smallmancontrov 6mo agoKamala was a lot less bad than Trump. It wasn't close.
- drnick1 6mo ago[flagged]
- bigfudge 6mo agoI'm not sure if you're joking and this is a backhanded compliment to Harris, or you're sincere in your belief that what Trump will negotiate is going to be better than the Obama deal he ditched in the first term. I hope you're joking!
- smallmancontrov 6mo agoThat's what they said about Obama, but he got Iran to give up their stockpile of enriched Uranium, give up enrichment beyond 4%, and submit to a severe inspection program. All for unfreezing less money than Trump has spent so far on the Iran War, let alone the $200B that he wants, let alone the economic damage from the Hormuz shutdown, let alone the $5T that happened last time a Republican asked to spend $200B on a quick little war. At the time, the Republicans whined incessantly about how soft Obama was. But they sure enjoyed dropping those Obama Bombs last year that he commissioned as a Plan B. Obama spoke softly, carried a big stick, and hammered out a brilliant deal. Trump bragged loudly, tore up the deal, swung the stick he inherited, missed, and fell in the oil. Sad. At the time, Israel whined incessantly about how Iran was going to secretly enrich anyway. But their own intelligence from compromising the enrichment program shows in hindsight that this was not the case and Iran was behaving themselves. That's why I base my expectations on track records, not on Republican whining.
- hgoel 6mo agoI was definitely one of those useful idiots, not on here though
- celdon25 6mo agoIf it helps you feel better, I voted for free speech and feel that the administration did not hold up their end of the deal. The FTC’s recent “debanking” letter to the payment processors is just theater until something changes. I’ll leave it at that.
- miltonlost 6mo agoYou found that after the first administration, in the end, he had earned your vote for Free Speech?
- daveguy 6mo agoSome people weren't paying much attention to "politics" until Dumpty started going full crazy. Still unclear exactly when that started.
- nancyminusone 6mo agoI don't really think he's even gotten that much crazier than his admittedly high 2016 baseline. He has gotten a lot better at execution of said craziness, especially after realizing consequences would be slow and few.
- vel0city 6mo ago> the administration did not hold up their end of the deal Trump? Not holding up his end of the deal? Who could have seen that coming!
- fragmede 6mo agoThe Art of the Deal!
- celdon25 6mo agoOh don’t get me wrong, I’m unironically looking forward to the other shoe dropping next term, so that we can finally get a generation of politicians that can bring on the great reset. Too much legacy software running on the kernel and it can no longer be maintained.
- FuriouslyAdrift 6mo agoFreedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences of that speech
- delecti 6mo agoIt does if those consequences are imposed by the government.
- rootlocus 6mo agoSo I'm free to murder, I'm just not free from the consequences of murder?
- emmelaich 6mo agoDepends what the consequences are, obviously.
- brigandish 6mo agoWhat is freedom of speech a freedom from?
- muddi900 6mo agoFreedom of speech is the freedom from State retailiation. What the hell are you on about?
- StanislavPetrov 6mo ago>The number of HNers who were earnestly arguing that this was the party of free speech indicates that this absolutely needs to be on the HN front page. The number of HNers (and people at large) who think that both corporate parties don't vehemently oppose free speech and privacy is disturbing. Right now, today, a massive number of Democrats who have spent years decrying Trump (and Republicans as a whole) as fascists are lining up to support a "clean" reauthorization of section 702 of FISA, which allows (despite the phony claims of its supporters) the warrantless and unconstituional surveillance of US citizens (and others). If our government was controlled fascists, why would anyone give them the power to spy on anyone without a warrant? Because it's all kabuki theater and everyone in DC is part of the same team, and you ain't on it.
- hgoel 6mo agoI don't think "both sides" works very well when one side has been supporting the murder of citizens for exercising their free speech, calling for denaturalization of citizens for expressing the wrong opinions or being from the wrong community, openly suppressing criticism by threatening to revoke broadcast licenses and barring reporters from DoD briefings for not taking sufficiently flattering photos. I don't think anyone posting here thinks that Democrats are pro-free speech and pro-privacy, and it would be great if we could have politicians that truly support free speech and privacy rights. But of the options currently available, one is much less bad than the other.
- bit-anarchist 6mo agoWell, the "worst" side has currently returned to power, the other hasn't. There's no reason to belive that the other side wouldn't become worse in its own way to further solidify its power. Before you talk about priors, remember that Trump's 1st turn also wasn't as unhinged as this. While it is okay, perhaps advisable, to temporarily support the current less worse side, try to not build house for people that would gladly step on you once your usefulness runs out. As OP said: it's a small club, and you ain't in it.
- 6mo ago
- sam345 6mo agoKnowing that Google will do what changes your calculation? Abide by the law? I would be surprised if Google's so-Called promise to notify the subject of the inquiry was not couched in terms of being subject to legal requirements. Companies are not activists, and they shouldn't be expected to act like activists.
- traderj0e 6mo agoGoogle is acting like an activist here. They went after this guy willingly. They were also very eager to supply weapon tech to Israel when the Gaza war started, far more eager than they ever were to supply it to our own country. Leadership was letting employees push back, then all of a sudden in ~2023 they told everyone to shut up and physically gated off the HQ. Then told everyone to shut up even more after some people broke into Thomas Kurian's office. Maybe the founders have personal reasons. Sergey Brin called the UN antisemitic for calling out genocide in Gaza.
- valeriozen 6mo ago[dead]
- dnnddidiej 6mo agoThere is no architectural design where some covert team in Google can't exist to leak out data. After all the system needs to be able to let the user see their data. Unless they go open source, e2e encrypted, user managed keys and key backups, and user verification of client code. Which also means ad free.
- angry_octet 6mo agoThat is very much not possible at Google. Attempting to do it covertly would trigger any number of alerts.
- ButlerianJihad 6mo agoI don't think you understand how silo'd the workers are at a place like Google. Their physical plant security, as well. They do security like any other federal defense contractor would. When you call in to Support at Google, you'll get someone who is a specialist in a certain thing, and they have access to only the tools and data necessary to do their particular job with your account. They rely on your disclosure of stuff to them. I often find myself uploading files to Drive, or images to Photos, and sharing them Public so that the Googler can follow a link. As an anecdotal example, I've visited Waymo depots a couple of times. (Not actually Google, but a sister company under Alphabet.) The depot is completely nondescript, and I wouldn't have identified it if I didn't know what it was. There are a few Visitor parking spaces up front. And the front entrance leads to a Security Desk. The waiting room has about 4 chairs and a table of interesting design. The Security Guard will see you know. And there's a door beyond. I was there to pick up "Lost & Found" items. You basically get the impression that security is tight as a drum. The guards can be kind of informal; there are employees circulating in and out; but ain't nobody going to exfiltrate a bunch of data, if they appreciate their freedom and civil rights.
- dnnddidiej 6mo agoAnd yet... this debacle. Snowden. etc.