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How do you know it's just PR theater, and that these companies aren't just trying to legitimately defend their reputation? You dismiss the entire story and clai

How do you know it's just PR theater, and that these companies aren't just trying to legitimately defend their reputation? You dismiss the entire story and claim that it's so obvious, but how can any of us know that right now? And, in the face of not knowing, why default to an explanation other than what has been given to us?

frenger 13y ago
"And, in the face of not knowing, why default to an explanation other than what has been given to us?" gut feeling based on existing evidence and experience.
jbjohns 13y ago
When it comes to security, your default position should always be one of extreme scepticism. Believing "what has been given to us" is what got us in this mess to begin with.
- dylangs1030 13y ago
  I understand what you mean, but I'm not opposed to extreme skepticism. It's alternative explanations that seem contrived that I'm opposed to. There is a difference between extreme skepticism in the face of one story, and postulating hypothetical scenarios that have equal or higher burdens or proof, and are less likely or more difficult to demonstrate. In fact, in terms of logic, the two are diametrically opposed.
devx 13y ago
Well it's obviously both. Why are they fighting against it now and not before? Because they fear losing customers. So how do they win or keep the customers? With "PR battles" such as these. I'm sure they want to win these cases, but they wouldn't do this in complete secret, would they? They want the public to know about it, hoping this way it gets them to gain a tiny bit of trust back.
grandalf 13y ago
The time to file a lawsuit was years ago when the programs started. Google and Microsoft are now in the same category of privatized government "partners" as Halliburton and Lockheed. This goes beyond simple diffusion of responsibility, leaders at Google and Microsoft were complicit in the crimes the NSA committed and did nothing to stop them. IBM was able to eventually live down its involvement in the holocaust. In today's world there is no excuse for a modern tech company led by wealthy, enlightened people to commit these kinds of wrongs. Ironically, it's as if Google's mantra became "Be Evil". Such doings (empowering the NSA, IRS, etc. to snoop on innocent people for the express purpose of entrapping them or contriving other evidence) are pretty much the definition of exactly the kind of insidious evil that one would hope to be able to trust its service providers not to engage in. My prediction is that within a few months as viable open source alternatives for Google and Microsoft services become available, we'll see lots of people leaving their cloud platforms/services.
- ptwiggens 13y ago
  Google has been suing for years. One of the few companies who has consistently gone to court for users privacy.
  - grandalf 13y ago
    But no individual at Google felt that even an anonymous tip to a reporter about the program was warranted? Doesn't add up.
    - davidw 13y ago
      Maybe the world is a bit more random than one in which overarching conspiracies rule everything. Snowden was pretty random, no? He could have stayed put and sold his data, or simply kept his mouth shut, but he did what he did when he did it. There are a lot of other people working there, and none of them were the ones to expose all of that crap. So maybe the people at Google valued their jobs more than doing the right thing. That hardly makes for some big plot.
    - dylangs1030 13y ago

frenger 13y ago

"And, in the face of not knowing, why default to an explanation other than what has been given to us?" gut feeling based on existing evidence and experience.

jbjohns 13y ago

When it comes to security, your default position should always be one of extreme scepticism. Believing "what has been given to us" is what got us in this mess to begin with.

dylangs1030 13y ago
I understand what you mean, but I'm not opposed to extreme skepticism. It's alternative explanations that seem contrived that I'm opposed to. There is a difference between extreme skepticism in the face of one story, and postulating hypothetical scenarios that have equal or higher burdens or proof, and are less likely or more difficult to demonstrate. In fact, in terms of logic, the two are diametrically opposed.

devx 13y ago

Well it's obviously both. Why are they fighting against it now and not before? Because they fear losing customers. So how do they win or keep the customers? With "PR battles" such as these. I'm sure they want to win these cases, but they wouldn't do this in complete secret, would they? They want the public to know about it, hoping this way it gets them to gain a tiny bit of trust back.

grandalf 13y ago

The time to file a lawsuit was years ago when the programs started. Google and Microsoft are now in the same category of privatized government "partners" as Halliburton and Lockheed. This goes beyond simple diffusion of responsibility, leaders at Google and Microsoft were complicit in the crimes the NSA committed and did nothing to stop them. IBM was able to eventually live down its involvement in the holocaust. In today's world there is no excuse for a modern tech company led by wealthy, enlightened people to commit these kinds of wrongs. Ironically, it's as if Google's mantra became "Be Evil". Such doings (empowering the NSA, IRS, etc. to snoop on innocent people for the express purpose of entrapping them or contriving other evidence) are pretty much the definition of exactly the kind of insidious evil that one would hope to be able to trust its service providers not to engage in. My prediction is that within a few months as viable open source alternatives for Google and Microsoft services become available, we'll see lots of people leaving their cloud platforms/services.

ptwiggens 13y ago
Google has been suing for years. One of the few companies who has consistently gone to court for users privacy.
- grandalf 13y ago
  But no individual at Google felt that even an anonymous tip to a reporter about the program was warranted? Doesn't add up.
  - davidw 13y ago
    Maybe the world is a bit more random than one in which overarching conspiracies rule everything. Snowden was pretty random, no? He could have stayed put and sold his data, or simply kept his mouth shut, but he did what he did when he did it. There are a lot of other people working there, and none of them were the ones to expose all of that crap. So maybe the people at Google valued their jobs more than doing the right thing. That hardly makes for some big plot.
  - dylangs1030 13y ago