[ELECTRON] it's a google world ....

Wed Mar 3 09:36:02 UTC 2010

Google are becoming the new Microsoft. I'm seeing quite a few people
becoming uneasy with them and starting to move their mail and calendar etc
away. As someone pointed out to me the other day, Microsoft were kind of OK
around the time of Windows 3.11, when people used things like Wordperfect
for word processing, there were lots of other 3rd party apps in use, and
free stuff (much of it crappy shareware, granted). And it just started to
get bad around Windows 95/98, when they'd eradicated most the competition
for apps, and you were locked in to a MS software stack. Same seems to be
happening with Google - they want you to use all their online apps. Add to
this the concerns raised in the newsletter Simon forwarded and recent issues
with Buzz etc.

Apple are getting worse, too, with the iPad adopting the locked-down
approach taken with the iPhone. What happens to all these shiny iPhones and
iPads when Apple decides that your model is out of fashion, and that you
need a new one. Can you load leaner, free software on on to it and pass it
on to a relative, school or charity etc? Not if Apple have their way. They
would rather the device became no use to anybody, and that you were burdened
with yet more landfill. Apple used to be cool - but it seems that with a
growth in market share they decided that they can start to play fast and
loose with their customer's freedoms. I'm also seeing people on the more
techy, clued up end moving away from Apple. Hopefully this will continue.
Like Google, their products may be shiny and appear refreshing, but they're
ultimately as good for you as a diet of McDonalds and Chewits, and the
DRM that Apple bakes in is like lard in the digital ecosystem.

Cheers,

Andrew

On (21:39 02/03/10), Simon Yuill wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> 
> =================== english ===================
> February 2010 Newsletter
> Google special edition
> 
> ----------------------
> Contents:
> 
> * Google: creepy and evil
> * How to protect your privacy online
> 
> 
> Google: creepy and evil
> -----------------------------
> 
> Google's motto of "don't be evil" has been key to the company's success.
> In the year 2000, Google was the only search engine that did not
> privilege search results from advertisers, a significant factor in
> Google's rapid rise. Maybe Google's new motto should be "don't be
> creepy". Recently, CEO Eric Schmidt said Google is "trying not to cross
> what we call the creepy line" when it comes to gathering personal data [1].
> 
> However, Eric Schmidt wasted no time in crossing the creepy line when in
> December, he told an interviewer that "If you have something that you
> don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first
> place." In effect, the head of the corporation with the most
> surveillance data in the world has just announced that if you are
> innocent you should have nothing to hide. As many people have noted,
> Schmidt's statement is hypocritical and disturbing [2][3]. His logic is
> nearly identical to the totalitarian assertion that if you want free
> speech, maybe you shouldn't be saying anything controversial.
> 
> Eric Schmidt's comments are particularly troublesome in light of
> Google's recent changes in policy. In March of 2009, Google reversed its
> long held policy against behavioral surveillance [4]. Now, Google tracks
> the behavior of internet users in order to serve people more precisely
> targeted advertising. In February of 2010, the Washington Post revealed
> that Google again reversed existing policy by forging an information
> sharing partnership with the NSA (the super secretive electronic spying
> arm of the US government) in order to combat "cyberattacks" [5].
> 
> In both cases, we are told not to worry because Google will only be
> sharing data that has been anonymized (i.e. personally identifying
> information is removed). But there is plenty of cause for alarm. Recent
> research has shown how social media sites leak large amounts of personal
> information to their advertising partners [6] and how exceptionally
> difficult it is to create a dataset that cannot be de-anonymized [7][8][9].
> 
> In fact, the US defense department has a new initiative based exactly on
> this principle [10]. Called 'Digital DNA', the goal is to develop a
> digital fingerprint database much like the databases of DNA stored by
> many national governments. The goal is precisely to identify particular
> individuals from data commonly thought to be anonymous--the tiny traces
> of digital footprints we leave behind whenever we use a computer.
> 
> Despite all this, Google continues to assure its users that there is
> nothing to worry about. After all, if you have a lot of time on your
> hands, you can use the Google dashboard to adjust a complex array of
> privacy "self-care" settings. The problem is, the dashboard only applies
> to data directly tied to a Google account and it ignores all the many
> ways Google retains indirect and easily de-anonymized data on you. For
> example, it does not let you remove the location data Google keeps on
> you every time you send an email to a gmail user.
> 
> Google wants our trust. We are asked to put faith in the wizard behind
> the curtain who controls the largest assemblage of data the world has
> ever known. Google's new motto is clear: "don't be so evil that people
> start to notice." We are starting to notice.
> 
> 
> How to protect your privacy online
> ----------------------------------------------------
> 
> Working on this issue is really a social problem, not an individual
> problem. Asking individuals to spend a lot of time practicing 'privacy
> hygiene' is both impractical and politically dubious. Creating privacy
> online, in our opinion, should be done communally by supporting
> alternatives.
> 
> However, there are some things which we recommend that are mostly
> 'install and forget' measures, and don't require ongoing or tedious
> maintenance.
> 
> If you use Firefox, a web browser we recommend
> (http://help.riseup.net/mail/#use_firefox), you can install various
> extensions to use when browsing. Firefox is free software, and community
> members have written software to add new features, and anybody can
> download these extensions (see https://addons.mozilla.org/ for more
> information about Firefox extensions.)
> 
> Here are some Firefox extensions that we recommend:
> 
> * GoogleSharing (https://we.riseup.net/help/googlesharing)
> * Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-Out (TACO) (http://taco.dubfire.net/)
> * Adblock Plus (http://adblockplus.org/en/)
> 
> You can also do web searches at https://ssl.scroogle.org/ - add this
> to your search engine menu by adding
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12506
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------
> [1] "Google trying not to cross 'the creepy line'"
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10392435-265.html
> 
> [2] "Google CEO Eric Schmidt Dismisses the Importance of Privacy"
> http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/Google-ceo-eric-schmidt-dismisses-privacy
> 
> [3] "My Reaction to Eric Schmidt"
> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/my_reaction_to.html
> 
> [4] "Privacy Groups Rip Google's Targeted Advertising Plan"
> http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/161086/privacy_groups_rip_googles_targeted_advertising_plan.html
> 
> [5] "Google to enlist NSA to help it ward off cyberattacks"
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020304057.html
> 
> [6] "Social networks make it easy for 3rd parties to identify you"
> http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2009/09/which-user-clicked-on-viagra-ads-ask-myspace-and-facebook.ars
> 
> [7] Mielik??inen, Taneli. 2004 "Privacy Problems with Anonymized
> Transaction Databases".
> http://www.springerlink.com/content/rukljup9muhtrpcu/
> 
> [8] Shmatikov, Vitaly and Arvind Narayanan. 2008. "Robust
> De-anonymization of Large Sparse Datasets (How To Break Anonymity of the
> Netflix Prize Dataset)".
> http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/shmat_oak08netflix.pdf
> 
> [9] Shmatikov, Vitaly and Arvind Narayanan. 2009. "De-Anonymizing Social
> Networks". http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/shmat_oak09.pdf
> 
> [10]"Pentagon Searches for ???Digital DNA??? to Identify Hackers"
> http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/01/pentagon-searches-for-digital-dna-to-identify-hackers/
> 
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-- 
Andrew Back
a at smokebelch.org