Google 'reveals user' over Gmail child abuse images

[Horus]

I'm a pretty big privacy advocate. Can't say this bothers me in the least.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Google is a private company. I see nothing wrong with what they did and think they made the right move.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Well, the guy committed a crime. If you know that a crime is being committed, it is your duty to report it.

Google did the right thing but that's a REALLY bad argument. What if the pics were of him smoking a joint instead?

[pbrower2a]

Tough luck to the perp.

I have no desire or tolerance for criminal images. One takes full consequences for broadcasting oneself committing an illegal act because the act is itself illegal.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I agree that it was the responsible thing for Google to do.

That being said, is it also responsible to report users who share movies and music files? Right now Google is being selective in what it reports. When does that change?

Probably never, since Google would lose a ton of users if it did that.

I agree, but what happens when all the big companies agree that they have the resources to easily crack down on this stuff? Or when the government forces their hands? That's what's scary. If they're all doing it, you can't really opt out.

Either way, I really think the internet will be a disgusting, sanitized place come 2050.

[Deus Naturae]

I agree that it was the responsible thing for Google to do.

That being said, is it also responsible to report users who share movies and music files? Right now Google is being selective in what it reports. When does that change?

Probably never, since Google would lose a ton of users if it did that.

I agree, but what happens when all the big companies agree that they have the resources to easily crack down on this stuff? Or when the government forces their hands? That's what's scary. If they're all doing it, you can't really opt out.

Either way, I really think the internet will be a disgusting, sanitized place come 2050.

I don't think they all would of their own initiative, assuming we're talking about cracking down on illegal file sharing. Even if most of them started doing it (which I also doubt would happen), the competitive advantage to be gained from being the only major company not to would be too great to pass up.

The prospect of government compulsion is more concerning, but I think if that happened you'd have pretty big resistance like with SOPA and any attempt would end up dead. You might be right about that last part, but who knows really.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Well, the guy committed a crime. If you know that a crime is being committed, it is your duty to report it.

Google did the right thing but that's a REALLY bad argument. What if the pics were of him smoking a joint instead?

I don't think there's really a duty to report that (although I don't think there's a "duty" to report child abuse either), but I wouldn't say that Google was "wrong" if it passed along pictures of people smoking pot.

[dead0man]

Yeah, but as somebody else said upthread, they'd never do it because of the backlash it would bring.  The only backlash from this is going to be from opedo types and the "privacy is more important than everything else in the entire world" guys.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Yeah, but as somebody else said upthread, they'd never do it because of the backlash it would bring.  The only backlash from this is going to be from opedo types and the "privacy is more important than everything else in the entire world" guys.

Yeah, those in power never do wildly unpopular dumb things.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/political-fallout-over-schiavo/

[dead0man]

Did you quote the wrong post or something?

[Beet]

Except it's easy to avoid if you're a tinfoil hat wearer.  So it's nowhere near as good as Orwell's.

Except contrary to dystopian fantasies, the so called lone tinfoil hattie or lone wolf is no threat to the system. By dropping out of society, they have already removed themselves from relevance. Real power and control comes from managing the masses, and this is what companies like Google have the power to do. Sure, you might be able to avoid their products with a few conscientious people, but as soon as you start to become relevant, they know you- And the more influential you are, the more you show up on their radar. And they may know you at that point better than you know yourself. It's the mass movements and mass phenomena (such as, for example, the Arab Spring) that companies like Google now have the Eye over.

Second of all, even if you are a lone operator, unless you are doing something such that the cost of allowing one of these companies to see what you are doing outweighs the convenience if the service they provide, most people will accept their loss of privacy. This is insidious, for it seems like something voluntary, even when the person making the decision would rather protect their privacy. For instance, let's say I don't want Apple or Google to know what I'm doing on my smartphone. But let's say that means I can't buy an iPhone or android phone. I'm left with Windows or Blackberry. But the quality if those phones are so much worse, and Id still be giving up my habits to a giant corporation, so there's very little benefit and a high cost. Not buying a smartphone has an even higher cost, since now everyone is expected to have one, and even my boss expects it. So I give in and buy an android phone. Repeat that over virtually every consumer in the country and you have a situation where technology itself, as it invades our lives, strips us of our privacy and essentially turns us into guinea pigs for these secretive, powerful corporations.

[dead0man]

The paranoia is strong with this one.

You can have extreme privacy or you can join the 21st century.  You can't have both.  Google isn't <scary voice>EVIL</voice>.  Google, like the vast majority of the "they" you speak of want nothing more than to make money and ensure that they will make money next year.  They don't give two sh**ts one way or the other about your privacy, at least any further than how it or the lack of it affect their bottom line.  They don't keep an "E"ye on you to blackmail you or to make sure you don't smoke weed, they keep an eye on you so they know what to try and sell you.  You can view it as a horrible thing if you want, but it's not.  It's what companies have always done, Google (and the other "they") just have a lot more data at their finger tips.

[Beet]

You can have extreme privacy or you can join the 21st century.

You just summed up the precise problem far more succinctly than I could have. The loss of privacy is now taken with such fatalism, inevitability, that it is now being equated (almost accurately) with the march of time. "Lose your privacy and join the 21st century, or be stuck in the past!"

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The fact that Google seeks profits does not, in my estimation, make them benevolent. It makes them the same as any other amoral, profit-seeking entity. The same objection (benevolent inspector), of course, can and usually is made about any loss of privacy. "Why, it's okay if the NSA violates the fourth amendment, they're just looking out for our interest. You don't trust the government? They would never take advantage..." and so on. No, I don't trust Google. An entire generation is now growing up with no conception of what privacy even means, as previous generations understood the term. And I see very little public debate about this issue.

For just as the industrial revolution opened up whole new levels of extreme inequality, in wealth and in power, so does the information revolution open up whole new levels of inequality, the inequality of information, which was not even conceivable 20 years ago. The power not only to invade the private communications of individuals but to monitor, track, study, analyze, model, predict, and ultimately manipulate entire populations and their social behaviors. And unlike the industrial revolution, where the wealth of the nouveau riche, or the power of Gatling-gun equipped European empires was on public display for all to see, this revolution has largely been occurring invisibly.

[pbrower2a]

You can have extreme privacy or you can join the 21st century.

You just summed up the precise problem far more succinctly than I could have. The loss of privacy is now taken with such fatalism, inevitability, that it is now being equated (almost accurately) with the march of time. "Lose your privacy and join the 21st century, or be stuck in the past!"

There has never been an inherent right to disseminate pornography of any kind, and although we can tolerate much pornography such as we allow does not include child porn (which is a play-by-play of rape). At the same time we have a great liberalization of laws relating to erotic materials other than 'revenge porn' whose release violates any pretense of consent of a participant. The same technology that allows the freer dissemination of pornography  also makes it easier for law enforcement to squelch child porn and 'revenge porn'.   

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The fact that Google seeks profits does not, in my estimation, make them benevolent. It makes them the same as any other amoral, profit-seeking entity. The same objection (benevolent inspector), of course, can and usually is made about any loss of privacy. "Why, it's okay if the NSA violates the fourth amendment, they're just looking out for our interest. You don't trust the government? They would never take advantage..." and so on. No, I don't trust Google. An entire generation is now growing up with no conception of what privacy even means, as previous generations understood the term. And I see very little public debate about this issue.

For just as the industrial revolution opened up whole new levels of extreme inequality, in wealth and in power, so does the information revolution open up whole new levels of inequality, the inequality of information, which was not even conceivable 20 years ago. The power not only to invade the private communications of individuals but to monitor, track, study, analyze, model, predict, and ultimately manipulate entire populations and their social behaviors. And unlike the industrial revolution, where the wealth of the nouveau riche, or the power of Gatling-gun equipped European empires was on public display for all to see, this revolution has largely been occurring invisibly.
[/quote]

A giant corporation. media or not, has the right and duty to protect its income stream on behalf of its shareholders and the simultaneous right to protect the obvious interests of its customers. If Google must collaborate with the US government to squelch child porn or revenge porn -- so be it. If Google wishes to decide to be a family-friendly company and close itself to porn -- then such is its prerogative. Media companies also have the right to define themselves as 'family-friendly' or as 'fun' restrained only by legal constraints.

[dead0man]

You can have extreme privacy or you can join the 21st century.

You just summed up the precise problem far more succinctly than I could have. The loss of privacy is now taken with such fatalism, inevitability, that it is now being equated (almost accurately) with the march of time. "Lose your privacy and join the 21st century, or be stuck in the past!"

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The fact that Google seeks profits does not, in my estimation, make them benevolent. It makes them the same as any other amoral, profit-seeking entity. The same objection (benevolent inspector), of course, can and usually is made about any loss of privacy. "Why, it's okay if the NSA violates the fourth amendment, they're just looking out for our interest. You don't trust the government? They would never take advantage..." and so on. No, I don't trust Google. An entire generation is now growing up with no conception of what privacy even means, as previous generations understood the term. And I see very little public debate about this issue.

For just as the industrial revolution opened up whole new levels of extreme inequality, in wealth and in power, so does the information revolution open up whole new levels of inequality, the inequality of information, which was not even conceivable 20 years ago. The power not only to invade the private communications of individuals but to monitor, track, study, analyze, model, predict, and ultimately manipulate entire populations and their social behaviors. And unlike the industrial revolution, where the wealth of the nouveau riche, or the power of Gatling-gun equipped European empires was on public display for all to see, this revolution has largely been occurring invisibly.

Look man, I get where you're coming from.  It's an understandable position and I have sympathy for you as you and other people like you are not ever going to get the level of privacy you desire (without moving to a mountain top in Alaska, surviving off what you can hunt, gather and grow yourself).  I wish you could, but there is no way to have the level of tech we have now, use that tech and keep everything you do private.  Every time you do anything on the internet you are giving TONS of information to many many devices (have you ever done a tracert?  very informative), some of which has to collect some of your information just for your sh**t to work.  It's as if you're walking through dozens of people's front yards holding a sign with lots of information on it.  You can encrypt emails, you can go to websites through proxies, you can avoid companies that suck, but you can't use the internet and NOT give information about your computer and your computer's address, that's how the internet works.
"Hey, I'm Beet, this is my address, I'm sending out a post to Atlas, here is the post, please send back confirmation that you got the post, thank you!"
That information goes though dozens of devices before it reaches the Atlas, all of which now know who you are, where you are and what your post is.

As I said earlier, you can use proxies (not here, and with good reason), but you are still sending out the information, the proxy can't be the first thing your information hits after it leaves your house, probably not even in the first 5 or 6 things it hits (granted most of those will be inside your own ISP, but not all of them) and then you're giving your information to a possibly shady group of people.  And I have a theory that things going through proxies are MORE likely to be "looked" at by the govt as people that do illegal things would use proxies to do those illegal things.  I don't know if that's true or not, but it's a logical step for the govt to take if they are into snooping (which they clearly are).

I'm rambling, and probably am not addressing your points as well as I should, I'm in a bit of a hurry.  My point is, I have sympathy for you, I'm sorry you can't have the tech AND the privacy, wish you could, but I also understand that it's never going to happen.


(if you or anybody else wants to see how and what a tracert does, you can google it or ask me and I'll walk you through it.  Basically it just shows you every device your information hits between you and the info's destination, and how long it takes between each hop.)

[dead0man]

Now that I'm back home....

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It used to show locations after the IP addresses, not sure when that stopped.  It's still easy to find out where each one is, but you'd have to look 'em up by hand.

Looking up some of the IP's above, it does seem like it goes directly from my ISP to Google and not hitting any third parties(the IPs starting with 68 and 10 are from Cox and the 72, 209 and 64 are all Google), I did not expect that.

And one to here

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Now that one did hit the "backbone"...and for some reason directed my sh**t down to Venezuela(the one at line 8 before the time out).

[Beet]

dead0man-- I think you've missed my points-- although understandably. I'm not advocating getting rid of the Internet or Google here. Luddism, although an understandable reaction to the Industrial Revolution, proved unworkable in the long run (I know what a tracert is-- I work in IT). And the ability to see more of what people are doing has certain benefits- in catching child pornographers, or in epidemiology, for instance (although in the case of child pornographers and other criminals and terrorists, they want to engage in private abuses, so an easy solution for them is to simply stop using technology vis-a-vis their illegal activities. Ironically, it's those who are "innocent" or have nothing to hide who are the most vulnerable to having our privacy given away and our actions manipulated).

The point here is not to roll back the clock but to address the vast new issues and power imbalances that the aggregation of so much information - which was once considered private - has created. It must be recognized that the public has an interest in knowing what information is being collected about it, and to what uses this information is being put to. This is perfectly addressable through regulations, for example, that require corporations to report what information they are collecting on consumers and how they are using it, and perhaps, making the raw data available for academics and social scientists to also study this information and use it to advance public knowledge. I would have no problem with such corporations being compensated for such data. Of course, certain things-- such as anti-competitive behaviors, would be prohibited. I would elaborate more, but it would take time, and I am on lunch break.

[MaxQue]

Does privar is really breached? I mean, the volume of emails sent is so big, it would take thousands of employees just to read them all.

[pbrower2a]

The right to privacy has never applied to criminal deeds.

[Beet]

Does privar is really breached? I mean, the volume of emails sent is so big, it would take thousands of employees just to read them all.

There are entire (growing) fields of study devoted to this topic. No, one does not need an army of people to sit there and read through emails-- analytic methods or other forms of research can be used to single out those of interest.

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No one has said it does.

To take just one small example, suppose any of you young people who are in college or university want to conduct a survey of a few hundred people for the purposes of your academic work-- for a paper whose results will be published and available to the general public, and whose motive is not profit but learning and the general advancement of knowledge. You would still have to go through a rigorous review process and get approval from a local Institutional Review Board. Usually you would also have to provide assurance that you will safeguard "the rights and welfare of human research subjects." (Source). And yet companies like Facebook and Okcupid may conduct behavioral research on thousands, even millions of people with impunity. These two cases we only know because they publicly admitted it. Given the backlash against Facebook, many users did not sign up to be a part of such experiments. Over time they will amass an awesome amount of knowledge about human behaviors, and will be able to manipulate the public to an increasingly high degree. What is to stop companies from abusing this power?

[dead0man]

dead0man-- I think you've missed my points-- although understandably. I'm not advocating getting rid of the Internet or Google here. Luddism, although an understandable reaction to the Industrial Revolution, proved unworkable in the long run (I know what a tracert is-- I work in IT). And the ability to see more of what people are doing has certain benefits- in catching child pornographers, or in epidemiology, for instance (although in the case of child pornographers and other criminals and terrorists, they want to engage in private abuses, so an easy solution for them is to simply stop using technology vis-a-vis their illegal activities. Ironically, it's those who are "innocent" or have nothing to hide who are the most vulnerable to having our privacy given away and our actions manipulated).

The point here is not to roll back the clock but to address the vast new issues and power imbalances that the aggregation of so much information - which was once considered private - has created. It must be recognized that the public has an interest in knowing what information is being collected about it, and to what uses this information is being put to. This is perfectly addressable through regulations, for example, that require corporations to report what information they are collecting on consumers and how they are using it, and perhaps, making the raw data available for academics and social scientists to also study this information and use it to advance public knowledge. I would have no problem with such corporations being compensated for such data. Of course, certain things-- such as anti-competitive behaviors, would be prohibited. I would elaborate more, but it would take time, and I am on lunch break.

Aye, I thought I might have been off base.  I really don't disagree with you that much, I'm just not as concerned....perhaps I should be.

I suspect it's pages like this.... http://maps.google.com/locationhistory
and
https://history.google.com/history/

I find the first one more worrisome than the second, but I can totally understand why people wouldn't want certain bits of that info (at either link) to get out.

(and by the way, if any of you clicked on those and were disturbed by what you saw, go here and fix your sh**t.)

[MaxQue]

What is supposed to be those pages? The first one shows me a blank map, the second ask me a password.

[dead0man]

If you use Google for your email or other stuff they "track" you.  The first one shows (or would show) you where you been on the selected day.  To the hour.  The other one shows your interneting.

[tik 🪀✨]

I am loving Beet's concerned advocacy for stuff lately. Stereotypically people with his points of view on these things are so incoherent and ridiculous, it's refreshing to read a logically consistent plea.

I think the case for a renewed look at privacy protections falls on deaf ears because most of us (myself included) don't perceive it as being a tangible thing when we interact online. If I physically leave my blinds open and walk around naked, I worry about my neighbors seeing me. I close doors and hide away my sex toys when family and friends are visiting. I vote in a private booth. These very close, tangible examples are real privacy that I can feel, I can foresee the consequences of breaking it vividly and protect myself from embarrassment or unwelcome results. But when I use modern technology privacy isn't as real. I download an app that requires certain permissions - I don't ask why or even bother scrolling down to read them. It's not like this app seeing my business is going to then effect me negatively with family, friends, or coworkers. So it's not real and I don't care.

So far companies are not abusing their power to such an extent that it normally and easily causes someone stress in the real world if they're not careful. This isn't a reason to not care (ie refuse to legislate to regulate and protect rights) because we never know what the future of these corporations may bring.

On the other hand gathering and analyzing the non-specific data of millions (or billions) of people is kind of amazing and fascinating. Advertisers were already trying to suss out consumers to finely tune their tools to increase sales - now they are obscenely powerful. If they remain sufficiently disconnected I don't care if they cater their advertising to their impression of me. But, I'm not everyone. And I do find it inconvenient that when I browse some sites my personal social predilections are revealed. I don't like having to worry that my phone may be discovered by people I'd prefer didn't know about certain traits of mine.

[dead0man]

I am loving Beet's concerned advocacy for stuff lately. Stereotypically people with his points of view on these things are so incoherent and ridiculous, it's refreshing to read a logically consistent plea.

Yes, very much so.  Thank you Beet for putting forward the position without sounding like a nut.

I agree with the rest of your post too Tik, but that part I really wanted to stress.