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Despite all the people that think he sounds like a lunatic, is any of what he is saying a lie? Lots of people who sound like lunatics but aren't telling lies ar

Despite all the people that think he sounds like a lunatic, is any of what he is saying a lie? Lots of people who sound like lunatics but aren't telling lies are worth listening to, I think. So, he's putting a lot of "these guys are all evil" spin on it, but then again, all the connections he is making seem to be true. Whether it means Google is in bed with the US government or not is up to the reader (with nudging from him, of course), but I don't anyone confronted with this many factual connections between a CEO of a mega corporation and government actors could simply write this off as "lunacy". I think most people in the tech industry (and sadly not many people outside it) have already realized the Google is very very big-brothery.

mkal_tsr 12y ago
What I've always found interesting in the nebulus of Assange/Google/NSA/etc. is 90%+ of the time, people only focus on this as it if is only as US-gov issue. As if Russia, India, China and others haven't developed similar systems of surveillance. It's not to say that any system is wrong or right (whole different debate for another time) ... but it just astounds me that people look at what was leaked/released/unclassified and say, "well, look at all the threats to the US, look at what we need to protect. it's for our safety" completely ignoring that other governments and organizations are also developing similar systems. In my mind, it should just be treated as a baseline of possibility/capability.
- _nedR 12y ago
  Everybody and their grandmothers know that Russia, India, China are using everything within their means to spy on the world, and their citizens. Its the US hypocrisy of whining about this, while doing as much and more is what gets people.
- hardwaresofton 12y ago
  But a lot of those other countries are fundamentally different (or at least they are on paper... specifically old constitution paper) than the US. When the US does it, it's hypocrisy (because of written law, and what we supposedly stand for), when the other countries do it it's not questioned because their citizens don't have the same protection by a long shot. So while contradictory, I think (partially) that it IS a US-gov issue -- other countries it's a non-starter because they don't have the same rights (or claim the same things).
  - mkal_tsr 12y ago
    True. But then an easy way to clarify my point would be ... when you make a connection with a server, can you verifiably prove your packets haven't been intercepted at any point and recorded by a foreign entity (for sake of this point, China/Russia) or undisclosed corp, given everything known about certain TLA security agencies? And that's kinda what makes things interesting ... that conflict drives innovation on both ends of the spectrum. The next decade is going to be interesting, that's for sure, heh.
    - hardwaresofton 12y ago
      Yeah, pretty sure the answer is no (though it's funny, we wouldn't have any idea how bad it really was, and maybe still don't, without the whole PRISM thing).... yeah, the next decade is definitely going to be interesting.
chj 12y ago
> I think most people in the tech industry (and sadly not many people outside it) have already realized the Google is very very big-brothery. .. and is politically oriented. For example, the China government hacking incident was blown way out of proportion, greatly damaging the company's business in there. The consequence is still hurting them that Google services are now almost inaccessible in China.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- xnull2guest 12y ago
  "The company, which in 2010 blamed China for an attack on its computer networks, said it recently discovered the Gmail campaign, which "appears to originate from Jinan, China," and targeted specific individuals." - http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/china-hacks-google.html http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/china-hacks-go... "Chinese hackers who breached Google’s servers several years ago gained access to a sensitive database with years’ worth of information about U.S. surveillance targets, according to current and former government officials." - http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/chinese-hackers-who-breached-google-gained-access-to-sensitive-data-us-officials-say/2013/05/20/51330428-be34-11e2-89c9-3be8095fe767_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/chines... There's a reason PRISM and others go through the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Courts. China hacked the interface US intelligence agencies were used to request Chinese surveillance targets and information. This is why they've lost business in China.
larrybrin 12y ago
I don't expect Google to gather personal information for the government. However, I expect them to continue to adopt the political role of the mainstream media: furthering an agenda which is * pro Israel, * anti-China, * anti-Russia, * ambivalent towards Europe, and * anti-racist (except when this racism is against Palestinians, Muslims living in Muslim countries, or Chinese living in China). Like the media, I think the main role Google will play is by controlling how information is spread through youtube. Google already plays a political role by * promoting certain political agendas directly, * making a big show of not removing "Innocence of Muslims" * while at the same time quietly censoring equivalent "anti-Semitic" videos in Europe (e.g. "Jews and Gun Control"). Apart from that, Google is a big part of the internet infrastructure, and so they naturally work with the government to keep this secure. I think this is the extent of their technical cooperation with the government. The political stuff they mainly do of their own accord because of the political views of their executives. EDIT: Jared Cohen sounds like a guy they hired to further a fairly mainstream liberal/Jewish agenda (to spread openness and democracy around the world, especially Muslim countries) through very mundane means. However on occasion he decided to do a lot of crazy stuff like "regime change" of his own accord (see wikileaks stratfor emails), much against the desires of Google.
- andrewfong 12y ago
  Spreading openness and democracy around the world is part of the "Jewish agenda"?
  - sitkack 12y ago
    True for all the Jews I know.
michaelochurch 12y ago
Some of it's clearly true, even if it's the more prosaic part of it. The Google founders clearly have links to some evil people. If you attend the neo-Nazi rally[0] in Davos or the Bilderberg Group, you're meeting up with some rotten human beings who have both the power and the desire to do the world harm. [0] Godwin does not apply because they actually are white supremacists. I wouldn't accept the whole story uncritically. The thing about conspiracies and "conspiracy theories" is that lower-case-c conspiracies happen all the time. There isn't one Conspiracy to rule them all (that's an adolescent fantasy; if it did exist, you could slaughter them all in the room where they meet, and save the world) and the Bilderberg group doesn't have as much power or importance as is ascribed to it, and just as the various crime families don't identify with any single animal called "the Mafia", there isn't a cohesive "Power Elite" or "Illuminati". Google isn't at the center of The Conspiracy because it doesn't exist. However, people (and especially the sorts of people who tend to acquire power in large organizations) are naturally conspiratorial. When it suits their self-interest, people conspire. Given the company that is now available for the Google founders to keep, and the published fact that, to some extent, they do so, it's obvious based on these links, with the Google founders attending Murdoch's private parties. that Google is going to be involved in some dirty shit. Should it surprise anyone? The Valley is filthy. That's only news to the clueless. This is, as Assange admits, largely speculation when it comes to motives. However, I think there's more truth in what he's putting forward than 99% of people in tech will want to admit.
- jamesaguilar 12y ago
  > Godwin does not apply because [the Bilderberg Group] actually are white supremacists. Basis for this accusation? Can't find anything about it except for from Stormfront and Alex Jones, neither of which count as basis for anything. It is Godwin if you accuse people of being Nazis without evidence, FYI.
valas 12y ago
How do you define a "lie"? It is full of misinformation and omission of fact which then creates a false narrative. There are a few options then: a) Assange is omitting important facts intentionally (which I don't think is the case). In this case you can call this misinformation a "lie". b) Assange truly believes in the narrative and honestly thinks the important facts are not that important. In this case, well, he is a bit of a lunatic... Some examples of omission/misinformation: 1. DARPA funding. He omitted that perhaps 30-50% of all PhD students in one or another way get DARPA funding. 2. "$2M contract with NSA in 2003". He omitted that Google was selling it's "Search Appliance" left and right in 2003 and NSA was just a small fish. 3. "Caught redhanded with handing petabytes of data... via PRISM". He forgot to mention that Google was bound by law to comply with NSL and warrants and was one of the first ones among all the companies to push for more transparency. 4. "Google Maps are shopped to Pentagon". He forgot to mention that Google sells access to maps to everyone and Pentagon is just a small fish. 5. When talking about lobbying, he stops explaining why Google lobbies. It doesn't lobby for more contracts, like Lockheed, it lobbies for less regulation in search ;-) I could go on. Overall, I would say, the Lockheed-Google analogy is deeply flawed. Just follow the money. Google does not care for government contracts - virtually all of it's revenue is from ads. The key asset for Google is user trust, which as you can see, is very hard to retain. If user trust is lost, Google is toast. Why would it then have any incentive to bed with the government? Disclosure: I work for Google. I sit next to security folks (not physical security, mind you). Everyone I know here is super super pissed about Keyscore, wiretaps, NSL, etc.
- xnull2guest 12y ago
  Replying only to your comment about sitting next to security professionals. I am a security professional at another large company. I and my team mates are also all pissed about XKeyScore etc. But it doesn't bubble up all the way through upper management. Because at some point there's section 215 of the Patriot Act, NSLs, and CALEA. It's the compliance and legal folk who implement key and data escrow. The security folks are mostly not working to defend against nation states - although they will partner with other companies in the field and with the government to share intelligence about ongoing campaigns and fingerprints.
- Argorak 12y ago
Natsu 12y ago
The biggest problem for me is that it simply doesn't matter if I trust today's Google 100%. The fact is that it's a company and eventually the leaders will die, leave or retire. Even if I claim that Google [today] is 100% pure, honest and ethical, that trust isn't transferable to Google [tomorrow] that will have all of its resources and all of its databanks to mine someday. And that's a problem. Rationally we shouldn't let them occupy too high a pedestal or trust them too far, or we run the risk of regretting it later, when it's too late.
- wutbrodo 12y ago
  I think this is an important point that a lot of people miss. An entity having too much power is a concern separate from what you think they'll do with that power: there are always situations where your current understanding of their "morality" will no longer be valid (i.e. coercion by gov'ts as with the NSA, change in leadership as in your example). People seem to have an intuitive sense of this but don't have the brains to comprehend it so they land up on "Google has the potential to be evil so therefore they're evil now".

mkal_tsr 12y ago

What I've always found interesting in the nebulus of Assange/Google/NSA/etc. is 90%+ of the time, people only focus on this as it if is only as US-gov issue. As if Russia, India, China and others haven't developed similar systems of surveillance. It's not to say that any system is wrong or right (whole different debate for another time) ... but it just astounds me that people look at what was leaked/released/unclassified and say, "well, look at all the threats to the US, look at what we need to protect. it's for our safety" completely ignoring that other governments and organizations are also developing similar systems. In my mind, it should just be treated as a baseline of possibility/capability.

_nedR 12y ago
Everybody and their grandmothers know that Russia, India, China are using everything within their means to spy on the world, and their citizens. Its the US hypocrisy of whining about this, while doing as much and more is what gets people.
hardwaresofton 12y ago
But a lot of those other countries are fundamentally different (or at least they are on paper... specifically old constitution paper) than the US. When the US does it, it's hypocrisy (because of written law, and what we supposedly stand for), when the other countries do it it's not questioned because their citizens don't have the same protection by a long shot. So while contradictory, I think (partially) that it IS a US-gov issue -- other countries it's a non-starter because they don't have the same rights (or claim the same things).
- mkal_tsr 12y ago
  True. But then an easy way to clarify my point would be ... when you make a connection with a server, can you verifiably prove your packets haven't been intercepted at any point and recorded by a foreign entity (for sake of this point, China/Russia) or undisclosed corp, given everything known about certain TLA security agencies? And that's kinda what makes things interesting ... that conflict drives innovation on both ends of the spectrum. The next decade is going to be interesting, that's for sure, heh.
  - hardwaresofton 12y ago
    Yeah, pretty sure the answer is no (though it's funny, we wouldn't have any idea how bad it really was, and maybe still don't, without the whole PRISM thing).... yeah, the next decade is definitely going to be interesting.

chj 12y ago

> I think most people in the tech industry (and sadly not many people outside it) have already realized the Google is very very big-brothery. .. and is politically oriented. For example, the China government hacking incident was blown way out of proportion, greatly damaging the company's business in there. The consequence is still hurting them that Google services are now almost inaccessible in China.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
xnull2guest 12y ago
"The company, which in 2010 blamed China for an attack on its computer networks, said it recently discovered the Gmail campaign, which "appears to originate from Jinan, China," and targeted specific individuals." - http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/china-hacks-google.html http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/china-hacks-go... "Chinese hackers who breached Google’s servers several years ago gained access to a sensitive database with years’ worth of information about U.S. surveillance targets, according to current and former government officials." - http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/chinese-hackers-who-breached-google-gained-access-to-sensitive-data-us-officials-say/2013/05/20/51330428-be34-11e2-89c9-3be8095fe767_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/chines... There's a reason PRISM and others go through the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Courts. China hacked the interface US intelligence agencies were used to request Chinese surveillance targets and information. This is why they've lost business in China.

larrybrin 12y ago

I don't expect Google to gather personal information for the government. However, I expect them to continue to adopt the political role of the mainstream media: furthering an agenda which is * pro Israel, * anti-China, * anti-Russia, * ambivalent towards Europe, and * anti-racist (except when this racism is against Palestinians, Muslims living in Muslim countries, or Chinese living in China). Like the media, I think the main role Google will play is by controlling how information is spread through youtube. Google already plays a political role by * promoting certain political agendas directly, * making a big show of not removing "Innocence of Muslims" * while at the same time quietly censoring equivalent "anti-Semitic" videos in Europe (e.g. "Jews and Gun Control"). Apart from that, Google is a big part of the internet infrastructure, and so they naturally work with the government to keep this secure. I think this is the extent of their technical cooperation with the government. The political stuff they mainly do of their own accord because of the political views of their executives. EDIT: Jared Cohen sounds like a guy they hired to further a fairly mainstream liberal/Jewish agenda (to spread openness and democracy around the world, especially Muslim countries) through very mundane means. However on occasion he decided to do a lot of crazy stuff like "regime change" of his own accord (see wikileaks stratfor emails), much against the desires of Google.

andrewfong 12y ago
Spreading openness and democracy around the world is part of the "Jewish agenda"?
- sitkack 12y ago
  True for all the Jews I know.

michaelochurch 12y ago

Some of it's clearly true, even if it's the more prosaic part of it. The Google founders clearly have links to some evil people. If you attend the neo-Nazi rally[0] in Davos or the Bilderberg Group, you're meeting up with some rotten human beings who have both the power and the desire to do the world harm. [0] Godwin does not apply because they actually are white supremacists. I wouldn't accept the whole story uncritically. The thing about conspiracies and "conspiracy theories" is that lower-case-c conspiracies happen all the time. There isn't one Conspiracy to rule them all (that's an adolescent fantasy; if it did exist, you could slaughter them all in the room where they meet, and save the world) and the Bilderberg group doesn't have as much power or importance as is ascribed to it, and just as the various crime families don't identify with any single animal called "the Mafia", there isn't a cohesive "Power Elite" or "Illuminati". Google isn't at the center of The Conspiracy because it doesn't exist. However, people (and especially the sorts of people who tend to acquire power in large organizations) are naturally conspiratorial. When it suits their self-interest, people conspire. Given the company that is now available for the Google founders to keep, and the published fact that, to some extent, they do so, it's obvious based on these links, with the Google founders attending Murdoch's private parties. that Google is going to be involved in some dirty shit. Should it surprise anyone? The Valley is filthy. That's only news to the clueless. This is, as Assange admits, largely speculation when it comes to motives. However, I think there's more truth in what he's putting forward than 99% of people in tech will want to admit.

jamesaguilar 12y ago
> Godwin does not apply because [the Bilderberg Group] actually are white supremacists. Basis for this accusation? Can't find anything about it except for from Stormfront and Alex Jones, neither of which count as basis for anything. It is Godwin if you accuse people of being Nazis without evidence, FYI.

valas 12y ago

How do you define a "lie"? It is full of misinformation and omission of fact which then creates a false narrative. There are a few options then: a) Assange is omitting important facts intentionally (which I don't think is the case). In this case you can call this misinformation a "lie". b) Assange truly believes in the narrative and honestly thinks the important facts are not that important. In this case, well, he is a bit of a lunatic... Some examples of omission/misinformation: 1. DARPA funding. He omitted that perhaps 30-50% of all PhD students in one or another way get DARPA funding. 2. "$2M contract with NSA in 2003". He omitted that Google was selling it's "Search Appliance" left and right in 2003 and NSA was just a small fish. 3. "Caught redhanded with handing petabytes of data... via PRISM". He forgot to mention that Google was bound by law to comply with NSL and warrants and was one of the first ones among all the companies to push for more transparency. 4. "Google Maps are shopped to Pentagon". He forgot to mention that Google sells access to maps to everyone and Pentagon is just a small fish. 5. When talking about lobbying, he stops explaining why Google lobbies. It doesn't lobby for more contracts, like Lockheed, it lobbies for less regulation in search ;-) I could go on. Overall, I would say, the Lockheed-Google analogy is deeply flawed. Just follow the money. Google does not care for government contracts - virtually all of it's revenue is from ads. The key asset for Google is user trust, which as you can see, is very hard to retain. If user trust is lost, Google is toast. Why would it then have any incentive to bed with the government? Disclosure: I work for Google. I sit next to security folks (not physical security, mind you). Everyone I know here is super super pissed about Keyscore, wiretaps, NSL, etc.

xnull2guest 12y ago
Replying only to your comment about sitting next to security professionals. I am a security professional at another large company. I and my team mates are also all pissed about XKeyScore etc. But it doesn't bubble up all the way through upper management. Because at some point there's section 215 of the Patriot Act, NSLs, and CALEA. It's the compliance and legal folk who implement key and data escrow. The security folks are mostly not working to defend against nation states - although they will partner with other companies in the field and with the government to share intelligence about ongoing campaigns and fingerprints.
Argorak 12y ago

Natsu 12y ago

The biggest problem for me is that it simply doesn't matter if I trust today's Google 100%. The fact is that it's a company and eventually the leaders will die, leave or retire. Even if I claim that Google [today] is 100% pure, honest and ethical, that trust isn't transferable to Google [tomorrow] that will have all of its resources and all of its databanks to mine someday. And that's a problem. Rationally we shouldn't let them occupy too high a pedestal or trust them too far, or we run the risk of regretting it later, when it's too late.

wutbrodo 12y ago
I think this is an important point that a lot of people miss. An entity having too much power is a concern separate from what you think they'll do with that power: there are always situations where your current understanding of their "morality" will no longer be valid (i.e. coercion by gov'ts as with the NSA, change in leadership as in your example). People seem to have an intuitive sense of this but don't have the brains to comprehend it so they land up on "Google has the potential to be evil so therefore they're evil now".