7 ms·

The problem with all the denials is that journalists say "Google is doing X" and Google responds "We aren't doing Y" and everyone debates whether Y = X, Y is a

by signed0 13y ago

The problem with all the denials is that journalists say "Google is doing X" and Google responds "We aren't doing Y" and everyone debates whether Y = X, Y is a subset of X, or Y is something completely different. I feel as if so much could be cleared up if they would simply respond line by line to the stories by the NYTimes and Washington Post.

jmillikin 13y ago
http://www.theonion.com/articles/the-onion-urges-barack-obama-to-come-clean-about-t,32466 http://www.theonion.com/articles/the-onion-urges-barack-obam...
- signed0 13y ago
  Weird, somehow extra characters are being added to the end of that url. Removing the trailing / fixes it. http://www.theonion.com/articles/the-onion-urges-barack-obama-to-come-clean-about-t,32466 http://www.theonion.com/articles/the-onion-urges-barack-obam...
  - jmillikin 13y ago
    a'a Thanks, fixed. Looks like HN is over-escaping some values -- click the 'link' link to this post and see how the first line is over-escaped in the title bar?
zobzu 13y ago
They just have to say "the governement does not have any kind of access to the data we host, in any other way than through a court order". but i doubt they'd say that. they already seem to say they get very regular requests (which could be 10 or 100 000 or more) that are just "hey please give us that we need it".
- kllrnohj 13y ago
  Google & Facebook have literally said exactly that. You are just refusing to believe them for some reason.
masterzora 13y ago
It's not even that. The journalists say "Google is doing X" so Google responds "We aren't doing X" and suddenly internet commenters everywhere are taking that as evidence that Google is doing Y and Z because they aren't X. It's ludicrous.
waterlesscloud 13y ago
This denial says "or a so-called drop box", which puts it in direct contradiction to what government officials have told the press. Which, unfortunately, puts the rest of the denial into question for me as well.
- aniket_ray 13y ago
  Disclaimer: I'm an engineer on the Google+ backend infrastructure team. I am not a US citizen. I've been an HNer longer than I've been at Google. These accusations are seriously getting out of hand. This is also seriously getting so illogical that I've considered whether it's even worth posting a response. Is accusing someone with a badly created powerpoint presentation now enough for such a massive storm? Yesterday, Larry gave a thorough point to point denial to the Washington Post article. Conspiracy theorists@HN moved the goalpost and started talking about how if Google isn't doing X they must be providing data to NSA servers. Now that David Drummond has come out and denied that Google's not doing Y, some HNers start complaining that he's lying even though there's no evidence to the contrary. Google has committed its fair share of mistakes but as employees inside the company we have always stood by our users and a lot of these attacks are indirectly questioning our moral character. Larry and especially David have created a culture where we push back when the government makes overreaching user data requests. These push backs have been happening for years. Google has even gone to courts questioning the constitutional validity of NSLs. (source: [1]). There are times when courts uphold the Government request. Google publishes these in its Transparency report ([2]). The claim that these guys are willfully lying on this issue is completely out of character with what their actions have been till date. You say that government has already admitted that they access the data. Where? Do you mean the Verizon CDRs? Or are you using the flimsy PPT as evidence? Maybe your source is one the myriad of articles that have used the powerpoint as their source. Or maybe your source is one of those of another articles that use other badly sourced article as their sources. Maybe you mean Obama's statement that the government does track emails. In that case, being in technology, I hope you realize that being a MITM email snooper is one of the easiest things to do. That's why you never ever use email for secure communication. Maybe you don't understand these "nerd-y" things (yes, I was a shocked too when a HNer threw that at me), but I implore you to logically think about this story. Yesterday, there were a flurry of posts that were seeing a conspiracy in how Mark Zuckerberg's and Larry's response were similar. Why have we HNers turned into conspiracy theorists now? It was only later when some sane voices pointed out that they were each responding to the specific points raised by the original WaPo article, that that controversy died down. Of course no one seems to mention that the original WaPo post has retracted several claims especially about companies being in the know. [3] Some conspiracy theorists@HN have even talked about spies infiltrating as Google engineers. Are you guys serious? The level of control/monitoring/logging that happens to employees at Google when accessing any data at Google (even when you're just trying to debug why processing that data is crashing your server) is so huge that this just won't be a feasible strategy for these spies. Also, with all these checks in place it's impossible to get hold of information without a lot of flags being raised. Even if we assume that all US based engineers at Google are somehow government spies (a preposterous claim which I'm sure someone must have made on HN by now), Google has engineers outside US. Engineers who have access to the same alerting/monitoring systems that would alert them if such unauthorized data access was happening. Those engineers would not be bound by any US government imposed gag order that conspiracy theorists here seem to claim. I've even had someone claim on HN that because Google worked with NSA to protect Chinese human rights activists from spying attempts/hacking attacks, Google's helping NSA spy on US citizens. This is so illogical that it makes no sense to me. I've had the opportunity to have worked with Yonatan's team and I have immense respect for him. I also completely mirror his feelings [4]. Any massive data sharing/accessing would be really hard to do without this turning up in some shape or form in front of me and if this were happening I would not be at Google. Most of us engineers would not be. Enough with the personal attacks questioning our values. Now to the bigger question, if a democratically elected US "government" is making and forcing private individuals and organizations to follow extra-constitutional norms. Shouldn't you actually take this issue up with your local senator/representative? Contact them: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_c... http://www.house.gov/representatives&#x2F http://www.house.gov/representatives/ Doesn't being in a representative republic mean that that's how you solve the problems you're having with your government. I was one of those who were mystified by the current president's oratory. Yet, I also believe that if something is not right it's time to use the proper channels to have your voice heard. How many of you are US citizens and have written multiple posts here on HN since yesterday but haven't called your local representative yet? Now is the time. These witch hunts without evidence, all these conspiracy theories, the attempts to find fault with every statement being made; these are not what HN should be about. Let's actually do something to bring about some real change. Sources: [1] - http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57587003-38/judge-orders-google-to-comply-with-fbis-secret-nsl-demands&#x2F http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57587003-38/judge-orders-g...; [2] - https://www.google.com/transparencyreport&#x2F https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/ [3] - http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanhall/2013/06/07/washington-post-updates-hedges-on-initial-prism-report&#x2F http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanhall/2013/06/07/washingt...; [4] - https://plus.google.com/103389452828130864950/posts/huwQsphBron https://plus.google.com/103389452828130864950/posts/huwQsphB...

by signed0 13y ago

jmillikin 13y ago

http://www.theonion.com/articles/the-onion-urges-barack-obama-to-come-clean-about-t,32466 http://www.theonion.com/articles/the-onion-urges-barack-obam...

signed0 13y ago
Weird, somehow extra characters are being added to the end of that url. Removing the trailing / fixes it. http://www.theonion.com/articles/the-onion-urges-barack-obama-to-come-clean-about-t,32466 http://www.theonion.com/articles/the-onion-urges-barack-obam...
- jmillikin 13y ago
  a'a Thanks, fixed. Looks like HN is over-escaping some values -- click the 'link' link to this post and see how the first line is over-escaped in the title bar?

zobzu 13y ago

They just have to say "the governement does not have any kind of access to the data we host, in any other way than through a court order". but i doubt they'd say that. they already seem to say they get very regular requests (which could be 10 or 100 000 or more) that are just "hey please give us that we need it".

kllrnohj 13y ago
Google & Facebook have literally said exactly that. You are just refusing to believe them for some reason.

masterzora 13y ago

It's not even that. The journalists say "Google is doing X" so Google responds "We aren't doing X" and suddenly internet commenters everywhere are taking that as evidence that Google is doing Y and Z because they aren't X. It's ludicrous.

waterlesscloud 13y ago

This denial says "or a so-called drop box", which puts it in direct contradiction to what government officials have told the press. Which, unfortunately, puts the rest of the denial into question for me as well.

aniket_ray 13y ago
Disclaimer: I'm an engineer on the Google+ backend infrastructure team. I am not a US citizen. I've been an HNer longer than I've been at Google. These accusations are seriously getting out of hand. This is also seriously getting so illogical that I've considered whether it's even worth posting a response. Is accusing someone with a badly created powerpoint presentation now enough for such a massive storm? Yesterday, Larry gave a thorough point to point denial to the Washington Post article. Conspiracy theorists@HN moved the goalpost and started talking about how if Google isn't doing X they must be providing data to NSA servers. Now that David Drummond has come out and denied that Google's not doing Y, some HNers start complaining that he's lying even though there's no evidence to the contrary. Google has committed its fair share of mistakes but as employees inside the company we have always stood by our users and a lot of these attacks are indirectly questioning our moral character. Larry and especially David have created a culture where we push back when the government makes overreaching user data requests. These push backs have been happening for years. Google has even gone to courts questioning the constitutional validity of NSLs. (source: [1]). There are times when courts uphold the Government request. Google publishes these in its Transparency report ([2]). The claim that these guys are willfully lying on this issue is completely out of character with what their actions have been till date. You say that government has already admitted that they access the data. Where? Do you mean the Verizon CDRs? Or are you using the flimsy PPT as evidence? Maybe your source is one the myriad of articles that have used the powerpoint as their source. Or maybe your source is one of those of another articles that use other badly sourced article as their sources. Maybe you mean Obama's statement that the government does track emails. In that case, being in technology, I hope you realize that being a MITM email snooper is one of the easiest things to do. That's why you never ever use email for secure communication. Maybe you don't understand these "nerd-y" things (yes, I was a shocked too when a HNer threw that at me), but I implore you to logically think about this story. Yesterday, there were a flurry of posts that were seeing a conspiracy in how Mark Zuckerberg's and Larry's response were similar. Why have we HNers turned into conspiracy theorists now? It was only later when some sane voices pointed out that they were each responding to the specific points raised by the original WaPo article, that that controversy died down. Of course no one seems to mention that the original WaPo post has retracted several claims especially about companies being in the know. [3] Some conspiracy theorists@HN have even talked about spies infiltrating as Google engineers. Are you guys serious? The level of control/monitoring/logging that happens to employees at Google when accessing any data at Google (even when you're just trying to debug why processing that data is crashing your server) is so huge that this just won't be a feasible strategy for these spies. Also, with all these checks in place it's impossible to get hold of information without a lot of flags being raised. Even if we assume that all US based engineers at Google are somehow government spies (a preposterous claim which I'm sure someone must have made on HN by now), Google has engineers outside US. Engineers who have access to the same alerting/monitoring systems that would alert them if such unauthorized data access was happening. Those engineers would not be bound by any US government imposed gag order that conspiracy theorists here seem to claim. I've even had someone claim on HN that because Google worked with NSA to protect Chinese human rights activists from spying attempts/hacking attacks, Google's helping NSA spy on US citizens. This is so illogical that it makes no sense to me. I've had the opportunity to have worked with Yonatan's team and I have immense respect for him. I also completely mirror his feelings [4]. Any massive data sharing/accessing would be really hard to do without this turning up in some shape or form in front of me and if this were happening I would not be at Google. Most of us engineers would not be. Enough with the personal attacks questioning our values. Now to the bigger question, if a democratically elected US "government" is making and forcing private individuals and organizations to follow extra-constitutional norms. Shouldn't you actually take this issue up with your local senator/representative? Contact them: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_c... http://www.house.gov/representatives&#x2F http://www.house.gov/representatives/ Doesn't being in a representative republic mean that that's how you solve the problems you're having with your government. I was one of those who were mystified by the current president's oratory. Yet, I also believe that if something is not right it's time to use the proper channels to have your voice heard. How many of you are US citizens and have written multiple posts here on HN since yesterday but haven't called your local representative yet? Now is the time. These witch hunts without evidence, all these conspiracy theories, the attempts to find fault with every statement being made; these are not what HN should be about. Let's actually do something to bring about some real change. Sources: [1] - http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57587003-38/judge-orders-google-to-comply-with-fbis-secret-nsl-demands&#x2F http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57587003-38/judge-orders-g...; [2] - https://www.google.com/transparencyreport&#x2F https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/ [3] - http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanhall/2013/06/07/washington-post-updates-hedges-on-initial-prism-report&#x2F http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanhall/2013/06/07/washingt...; [4] - https://plus.google.com/103389452828130864950/posts/huwQsphBron https://plus.google.com/103389452828130864950/posts/huwQsphB...