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This is true, just days ago there was a proposal of a Google tie-up with Election Commission of India [1]. The proposal allowed Google to offer services for the

This is true, just days ago there was a proposal of a Google tie-up with Election Commission of India [1]. The proposal allowed Google to offer services for the General Elections in India to be held in 2014. Google proposed free online voter registration besides making available vital details of voter EPIC card numbers and polling station locations. While this did stir up a concern among the political parties and got some column inches and airtime in mainstream media, I think it should have deserved a lot more attention. I was quite surprised that many people I know don't even have a clue that this happened about a week ago. With all the recent spying revelations, this was seen as a huge security risk. Nevertheless, the Election Commission of India later dropped plans to partner with Google after spying fears [2]. [1] http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2014-01-07/india/45954589_1_voter-facilitation-security-concerns-tie-up http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2014-01-07/india... [2] http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/01/09/india-elections-google-idINDEEA080CQ20140109 http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/01/09/india-elections-goo...

DannyBee 13y ago
"The proposal allowed Google to offer services for the General Elections in India to be held in 2014. Google proposed free online voter registration besides making available vital details of voter EPIC card numbers and polling station locations." I started and used to run these programs for Google. I'm not sure what you are implying is done with this data, but security and privacy are always the highest priority. Google does this stuff for completely altruistic reasons. It's not even part of .com anymore, it's part of .org. The goal is to help people know where to vote. Nothing more, nothing less. If you'd like to tell me what conspiracy you think this is part of, ...
- pavanred 13y ago
  The point I was trying to make was that when it comes to security, privacy etc there isn't as much debate and media interest as I think should be in India. In this case there were concerns voiced that the Election commission neither consulted all the stake holders nor consulted political parties to discuss this. And, of course with the revelations of US agencies indulging in widespread spying and intelligence gathering, sharing vital data pertaining to Indians citizens to a foreign company was perceived as a security risk. I did not imply that there is a conspiracy. I just think when there are concerns about security and privacy, as in this case, there should be a louder discussion.
  - DannyBee 13y ago
    "The point I was trying to make was that when it comes to security, privacy etc there isn't as much debate and media interest as I think should be in India." Fair enough. Note when I started this, Google was essentially one of the only players in this space who didn't want data that had PII in it (in the US, things like voter files get sold quite a lot). Still true, sadly For national ID systems, most of it was something like "ID xxx through zzz vote at YYY". where xxx to zzz was some very large range. For those systems that required fine grained data (like Peru, I believe), our design was to give them secure one way hashes to use on the data before giving it to us so that we never had any info, just something we could key on (we would then proxy api calls to do the actual national id lookups or something so again, we never saw the id's) AFAIK, none of these ever panned out for other reasons. At least when I was running it (and i doubt things have changed in the past 8 months, it's the same people other than me), there was a zero percent chance we would have ever agreed to receive any "vital data" at all. I haven't looked heavily into all this, but I have very strong doubts any info about people would have actually been asked for or given. You know how the press tends to understand nuanced technical detail. In most cases where these stories happen, sad truth is the real reason is losing control of voter suppression.
- whatevsbro 13y ago
  > Google does this stuff for completely altruistic reasons. But of course. Just like they help the NSA rape people's privacy for purely altruistic reasons? Don't Be Evil and all, right? Does a country really need Google's help with running elections? Does it help, for example, that vote counts are just values in a database somewhere?
  - DannyBee 13y ago
    If you want to do a crappy NSA troll, and personally attack the work I did, you'll need to do better than this. As for whether a country really needs the help, i'm just going to say "yes". You clearly have no concept the logistics and IT competence that are actually involved in things like disseminating accurate voting location information in the average country.
    - whatevsbro 13y ago
      > If you want to do a crappy NSA troll, and personally attack the work I did, you'll need to do better than this. Well, I haven't actually made any negative comments about your work, so I can't see where that's coming from.
      - DannyBee 13y ago
        Surely you did. You said it wasn't done for purely altruistic reasons, implying that there was an alterior motive for doing this. I proposed, created, and set up the voting information work. I was responsible for their mission, for hiring everyone who worked on them (again until last year), etc. Implying it wasn't done for altruistic reasons, when i've told you it was, is certainly a personal attack in this case. It is calling me a liar.
        whatevsbro 13y ago
        Look, there's no reason to take this personally. Here's the original claim I took issue with: > Google does this stuff for completely altruistic reasons. You are not Google, are you? I'm saying that Google is not an altruistic company, as evidenced by their helping the NSA spy on everyone all over the world. It's highly unlikely that Google would do anything related to elections for "purely altruistic reasons". You personally may well be working for Google without any evil intentions, but that's not something I've argued against. OK?
- woah 13y ago
  The NSA has forced Google to lie to us about other stuff, and they have also been heavily spied upon and infiltrated without knowing it. you may be sitting in the ball pit, drinking the cool aid from the cafeteria, but all the "omg conspiracy theory" stuff has been proven to be true.
  - DannyBee 13y ago
    Ignoring all the claims here, can you explain the relevance to the current discussion? As mentioned, we have refused any info that has PII in it, so what exactly is there that would be taken? (This is even true in countries where it's publicly available info)

DannyBee 13y ago

"The proposal allowed Google to offer services for the General Elections in India to be held in 2014. Google proposed free online voter registration besides making available vital details of voter EPIC card numbers and polling station locations." I started and used to run these programs for Google. I'm not sure what you are implying is done with this data, but security and privacy are always the highest priority. Google does this stuff for completely altruistic reasons. It's not even part of .com anymore, it's part of .org. The goal is to help people know where to vote. Nothing more, nothing less. If you'd like to tell me what conspiracy you think this is part of, ...

pavanred 13y ago
The point I was trying to make was that when it comes to security, privacy etc there isn't as much debate and media interest as I think should be in India. In this case there were concerns voiced that the Election commission neither consulted all the stake holders nor consulted political parties to discuss this. And, of course with the revelations of US agencies indulging in widespread spying and intelligence gathering, sharing vital data pertaining to Indians citizens to a foreign company was perceived as a security risk. I did not imply that there is a conspiracy. I just think when there are concerns about security and privacy, as in this case, there should be a louder discussion.
- DannyBee 13y ago
  "The point I was trying to make was that when it comes to security, privacy etc there isn't as much debate and media interest as I think should be in India." Fair enough. Note when I started this, Google was essentially one of the only players in this space who didn't want data that had PII in it (in the US, things like voter files get sold quite a lot). Still true, sadly For national ID systems, most of it was something like "ID xxx through zzz vote at YYY". where xxx to zzz was some very large range. For those systems that required fine grained data (like Peru, I believe), our design was to give them secure one way hashes to use on the data before giving it to us so that we never had any info, just something we could key on (we would then proxy api calls to do the actual national id lookups or something so again, we never saw the id's) AFAIK, none of these ever panned out for other reasons. At least when I was running it (and i doubt things have changed in the past 8 months, it's the same people other than me), there was a zero percent chance we would have ever agreed to receive any "vital data" at all. I haven't looked heavily into all this, but I have very strong doubts any info about people would have actually been asked for or given. You know how the press tends to understand nuanced technical detail. In most cases where these stories happen, sad truth is the real reason is losing control of voter suppression.
whatevsbro 13y ago
> Google does this stuff for completely altruistic reasons. But of course. Just like they help the NSA rape people's privacy for purely altruistic reasons? Don't Be Evil and all, right? Does a country really need Google's help with running elections? Does it help, for example, that vote counts are just values in a database somewhere?
- DannyBee 13y ago
  If you want to do a crappy NSA troll, and personally attack the work I did, you'll need to do better than this. As for whether a country really needs the help, i'm just going to say "yes". You clearly have no concept the logistics and IT competence that are actually involved in things like disseminating accurate voting location information in the average country.
  - whatevsbro 13y ago
    > If you want to do a crappy NSA troll, and personally attack the work I did, you'll need to do better than this. Well, I haven't actually made any negative comments about your work, so I can't see where that's coming from.
    - DannyBee 13y ago
      Surely you did. You said it wasn't done for purely altruistic reasons, implying that there was an alterior motive for doing this. I proposed, created, and set up the voting information work. I was responsible for their mission, for hiring everyone who worked on them (again until last year), etc. Implying it wasn't done for altruistic reasons, when i've told you it was, is certainly a personal attack in this case. It is calling me a liar.
      - whatevsbro 13y ago
        Look, there's no reason to take this personally. Here's the original claim I took issue with: > Google does this stuff for completely altruistic reasons. You are not Google, are you? I'm saying that Google is not an altruistic company, as evidenced by their helping the NSA spy on everyone all over the world. It's highly unlikely that Google would do anything related to elections for "purely altruistic reasons". You personally may well be working for Google without any evil intentions, but that's not something I've argued against. OK?
woah 13y ago
The NSA has forced Google to lie to us about other stuff, and they have also been heavily spied upon and infiltrated without knowing it. you may be sitting in the ball pit, drinking the cool aid from the cafeteria, but all the "omg conspiracy theory" stuff has been proven to be true.
- DannyBee 13y ago
  Ignoring all the claims here, can you explain the relevance to the current discussion? As mentioned, we have refused any info that has PII in it, so what exactly is there that would be taken? (This is even true in countries where it's publicly available info)