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I've always wondered whether Google ever digs into communications in a situation where they're trying to decide whether to acquire a company. It seems like read

I've always wondered whether Google ever digs into communications in a situation where they're trying to decide whether to acquire a company. It seems like reading a company's email would be a reliable source of information about whether they're on a genuine trajectory or whether e.g. they're having trouble with their investors. I've never looked into whether it'd be illegal for them to do so. Surely in the EU it would be illegal, because privacy protection seems to be a serious concern there, but I don't know about the US. If you use Google Talk, every conversation you've ever had will be recorded and indexed and tied back to you. If you use gmail, same deal. Even your drafts of unsent emails will be. If you use AIM, same deal: every conversation you've ever had on it will certainly be logged somewhere and tied back to you. Yada yada, same deal for almost every chat program, because almost every chat program has no clientside encryption. If it does, it's not very popular, or it's hard enough to use to where people will think you're paranoid if you ask them to go out of their way to "download this chat program that lets us talk without anyone logging it." I think the endgame here is to watch what you say. It's safest to assume every text conversation is public. How many of us have said something in text to our families or friends that we'd be extremely uncomfortable saying publicly? It's a little unsettling. Then again, hopefully when the TextSecure people ship their browser-based chat program things will improve somewhat, because you'll be able to talk to someone else without the conversation being duly noted. (There will probably still be metadata that ties you to the fact that you're talking to someone, but at least the content will be protected.) Hopefully it will be easy to use... I wonder if they need any help in that capacity.

sheetjs 13y ago
> It's safest to assume every text conversation is public. Sadly, people who have been saying this for more than a decade were derided as paranoid.
paul 13y ago
No. That's not just evil, and most likely illegal, it's stupid too. It's too easy for something like that to leak, and the damage would be enormous.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- sillysaurus3 13y ago
  Hi Paul. Sorry, I didn't mean to write a conspiratorial comment about Google. I meant to call attention to the fact that every textual conversation you've ever had has probably been logged, and just because our legal and cultural framework presently frowns upon digging through those logs, that may not always be the case in the future. The logs will persist even after our cultural norms change. So it seems important to come up with a technological solution to the problem of how to communicate without all of it being logged. It's a difficult problem because it's hard to get other people to actually use whatever you come up with. That's why I'm crossing my fingers that TextSecure's browser plugin will take off, because if it's as easy to use as email and as powerful as email, it could have a very tiny chance of becoming the next popular communications platform. At that point no one would have to trust any company to preserve privacy, which seems valuable. EDIT: I'm confused why my comments were moved to the bottom of this thread, because they don't seem offtopic. For example, the second topmost comment is also about encryption: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7731216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7731216
  - nutjob2 13y ago
    "the fact that every textual conversation you've ever had is logged" That's patently untrue. What are you basing that on besides your own paranoia?
    - sillysaurus3 13y ago
      The fact that if law enforcement demands access to your conversations, companies can readily produce them.
      - moultano 13y ago
        Naturally you only hear about the times companies could produce them, and not all of the times they couldn't.
nutjob2 13y ago
Google paranoia deserves its own entry in the DSM V.
zubairov 13y ago
Good point, however as you already noted, it's not a single app or single chat client that can change the situation - it's the acceptance of it among the bigger community. It's not a technical but an educational topic where ecosystem leaders should take the responsibility to educate ordinary people (not just HN readers) on that. I strongly believe this kind of initiatives should have a strong legal/governmental support and/or control.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Theodores 13y ago
> I've always wondered whether Google ever digs into communications in a situation where they're trying to decide whether to acquire a company. Go upstream to the Snowden 'allegations' and apply that idea to Lockheed Martin. They can get every government contract they want or whatever war they want because they know what their rivals bids are (because they built the NSA). Plus they run all of the computer security in D.C. and there is no way that any communication in 'elected government' misses their eyes.
- PeterisP 13y ago
  Reading all gov't internal communication shouldn't be a master key to getting info on rival bids. Even sloppy bidding processes in random third world countries include the concept of sealed bids - noone in government should have any info on any bid amounts before the bidding is closed; if Lockheed Martin wants to know my bid before making theirs, then they'd have to wiretap me. Of course, there are many other options for fraud and espionage, but getting rival bid amounts before due time shouldn't be one of them.

sheetjs 13y ago

> It's safest to assume every text conversation is public. Sadly, people who have been saying this for more than a decade were derided as paranoid.

paul 13y ago

No. That's not just evil, and most likely illegal, it's stupid too. It's too easy for something like that to leak, and the damage would be enormous.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
sillysaurus3 13y ago
Hi Paul. Sorry, I didn't mean to write a conspiratorial comment about Google. I meant to call attention to the fact that every textual conversation you've ever had has probably been logged, and just because our legal and cultural framework presently frowns upon digging through those logs, that may not always be the case in the future. The logs will persist even after our cultural norms change. So it seems important to come up with a technological solution to the problem of how to communicate without all of it being logged. It's a difficult problem because it's hard to get other people to actually use whatever you come up with. That's why I'm crossing my fingers that TextSecure's browser plugin will take off, because if it's as easy to use as email and as powerful as email, it could have a very tiny chance of becoming the next popular communications platform. At that point no one would have to trust any company to preserve privacy, which seems valuable. EDIT: I'm confused why my comments were moved to the bottom of this thread, because they don't seem offtopic. For example, the second topmost comment is also about encryption: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7731216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7731216
- nutjob2 13y ago
  "the fact that every textual conversation you've ever had is logged" That's patently untrue. What are you basing that on besides your own paranoia?
  - sillysaurus3 13y ago
    The fact that if law enforcement demands access to your conversations, companies can readily produce them.
    - moultano 13y ago
      Naturally you only hear about the times companies could produce them, and not all of the times they couldn't.

nutjob2 13y ago

Google paranoia deserves its own entry in the DSM V.

zubairov 13y ago

Good point, however as you already noted, it's not a single app or single chat client that can change the situation - it's the acceptance of it among the bigger community. It's not a technical but an educational topic where ecosystem leaders should take the responsibility to educate ordinary people (not just HN readers) on that. I strongly believe this kind of initiatives should have a strong legal/governmental support and/or control.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Theodores 13y ago

> I've always wondered whether Google ever digs into communications in a situation where they're trying to decide whether to acquire a company. Go upstream to the Snowden 'allegations' and apply that idea to Lockheed Martin. They can get every government contract they want or whatever war they want because they know what their rivals bids are (because they built the NSA). Plus they run all of the computer security in D.C. and there is no way that any communication in 'elected government' misses their eyes.

PeterisP 13y ago
Reading all gov't internal communication shouldn't be a master key to getting info on rival bids. Even sloppy bidding processes in random third world countries include the concept of sealed bids - noone in government should have any info on any bid amounts before the bidding is closed; if Lockheed Martin wants to know my bid before making theirs, then they'd have to wiretap me. Of course, there are many other options for fraud and espionage, but getting rival bid amounts before due time shouldn't be one of them.