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Using LinkedIn and Facebook may be perceived these says as a practical necessity for many people, of course. There is such a thing as social networking effects. But using them is still overall a bad thing for society -- even ignoring the personal mental health effects: https://www.medicaldaily.com/s...

Essentially, profiling (or ratting on) your colleagues and friends/family and defining all your relationships to them to a central authority on an ongoing basis is in some sense immoral in a democracy when other decentralized alternatives exist (e.g. email, IRC, personal websites,and more). It is immoral because it pushes too much power (as information) into a few centers instead of keeping that power decentralized across society. It does not matter if those centers are industrial or governmental.

Giving up such information voluntarily to big central authorities is the kind of thing that anyone who went to public school in the 1960s or 1970s would have been taught reflected the values of Soviet Russia and its pervasive intelligence apparatus (e.g. listening in on all phone calls) -- not the values of a democratic USA.

As Mark Zuckerberg himself said, it is just dumb:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/...
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks

Of course, given such a high level of informational immorality over the past decade (trading privacy for convenience), the world indeed may have changed. It is possible there is no going back -- even as various people, myself included, have worked towards more decentralized communication alternatives.

Instead, we may have to consider, say, David Brin's "Transparent Society" as a different option. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Of course, there is likely a healthy balance of meshwork and hierarchy needed, so not all one or the other:
http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/me...
"Indeed, one must resist the temptation to make hierarchies into villains and meshworks into heroes, not only because, as I said, they are constantly turning into one another, but because in real life we find only mixtures and hybrids, and the properties of these cannot be established through theory alone but demand concrete experimentation."

No easy answers... But a big potential problem...

See also for the past:
https://ibmandtheholocaust.com...
"IBM and the Holocaust is the stunning story of IBM's strategic alliance with Nazi Germany -- beginning in 1933 in the first weeks that Hitler came to power and continuing throughout World War II. As the Third Reich embarked upon its plan of conquest and genocide, IBM and its subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies, step-by-step, from the identification and cataloging programs of the 1930s to the selections of the 1940s."

And for the present and near future, China's Social Credit system:
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
"Chinaâ(TM)s social credit system, a big-data system for monitoring and shaping business and citizensâ(TM) behaviour, is reaching beyond Chinaâ(TM)s borders to impact foreign companies, according to new research. The system, which has been compared to an Orwellian tool of mass surveillance, is an ambitious work in progress: a series of big data and AI-enabled processes that effectively grant subjects a social credit score based on their socia

Apparently the nice people at IBM are still trying to live down their cooperation with the Nazis in WW2, when they helped with the cataloging of undesirables in the concentration camps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_during_World_War_II

Yeah, it's true. The role of IBM's German subsidiary, known as Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft was documenting operations which allowed the Nazis to better organize their war effort, and in particular the Holocaust and use of Nazi concentration camps.

I don't think you'll find a Project Plaque for this in the lobby of IBM's main office, but I could be wrong. In any case, props to them for not getting involved this time.

-----------
More reading available at http://www.ibmandtheholocaust....

IBM and the Holocaust is the stunning story of IBM's strategic alliance with Nazi Germany -- beginning in 1933 in the first weeks that Hitler came to power and continuing well into World War II. As the Third Reich embarked upon its plan of conquest and genocide, IBM and its subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies, step-by-step, from the identification and cataloging programs of the 1930s to the selections of the 1940s.

Only after Jews were identified -- a massive and complex task that Hitler wanted done immediately -- could they be targeted for efficient asset confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, enslaved labor, and, ultimately, annihilation. It was a cross-tabulation and organizational challenge so monumental, it called for a computer. Of course, in the 1930s no computer existed.

But IBM's Hollerith punch card technology did exist. Aided by the company's custom-designed and constantly updated Hollerith systems, Hitler was able to automate his persecution of the Jews. Historians have always been amazed at the speed and accuracy with which the Nazis were able to identify and locate European Jewry. Until now, the pieces of this puzzle have never been fully assembled. The fact is, IBM technology was used to organize nearly everything in Germany and then Nazi Europe, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations, and ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads and organizing of concentration camp slave labor.

IBM and its German subsidiary custom-designed complex solutions, one by one, anticipating the Reich's needs. They did not merely sell the machines and walk away. Instead, IBM leased these machines for high fees and became the sole source of the billions of punch cards Hitler needed.

is protecting it's future employees, customers, and H1B visa holders.

IBM has been historically pretty good at doing this stuff--developing a system tailored for the sake of the technology itself. A past example of their success was helping governments with concentration camps and working with Germany to find Jews.

I have no reason to believe less of them this time succeeding in designing a system tailored to Beijing desire to experiment with pollution at the expense of their people's health.

Perhaps that is true of Watson Jr, who had a more public philanthropic image, but Sr. was a piece of work. I've read 'IBM And The Holocaust' cover to cover, a thoroughly researched and scholarly work - - http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.... and it's profoundly disturbing what was done in the name of profit. In the modern era you just need to look at IBM's record at stepping into South Africa during apartheid to help scoop up more profits. Profit and not morality is what drives most companies, especially if there are analyst expectations. IBM is no different. It seems treasonous to me that the current execs behave in a fashion that allows them to gorge themselves at the expense of the already hollowed out middle class in North America and sadly, I'm sure they sleep just fine.

What if I'm a satanist who just likes to use Jewish and Christian wrapping paper for kicks ?

They may well get some "kicks" after modern Aryans (or for that matter other fringe groups of crazies or opposing religions) hack or otherwise acquire the databases generated by Amazon and others that ignore history. Keep in mind when using your "customer card" at your grocery store that assumptions can be made from the groceries/items that you do or don't purchase. Purchasing or not purchasing pork for instance.

collaboration.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year !

Yours In Osh,
K. Trou t

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
"IBM and the Holocaust is a book by investigative journalist Edwin Black which details the business dealings of the American-based multinational corporation International Business Machines (IBM) and its German and other European subsidiaries with the government of Adolf Hitler during the 1930s and the years of World War II. In the book, Black outlines the way in which IBM's technology helped facilitate Nazi genocide against the Jewish people through generation and tabulation of punch cards based upon national census data."

Depends how you count:
Konrad Zuse - Z1 program-controlled computer ~ 1936. His Z3 was the world's first fully functional programmable computer ~ 1941.
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Zuse.html
and by "computer" people point to the IBM's Hollerith punch card technology.
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

Nope, IBM, was around in Hitler's time. So IBM gear and consulting is what IBM used.

 
    IBM - counting your Jews since 1933

They would probably also help in building concentration camps if enough money was in it.

IBM is always ahead of the competition...

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

IBM and the Holocaust

IBM and the Holocaust on Wikipedia

Yup, I was going to point out IBM and the holocaust. This really is just history repeating itself, and greed for the almighty dollar more important than human life and freedom.

"China that it sells in other nations in compliance with U.S. government regulations." I bet IBM did as well.

So let me get this straight, Microsoft files anti-trust charges against IBM in the EU? The same Microsoft the EU accuses of anti-trust and forced them to make "N" versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7?

Our could it be the real reason is that the EU wants to punish IBM because they are accused of selling IBM Mainframes and technology to the Nazis and Hitler during or before WWII that allowed them to run the holocaust more efficiently and tattoos of bar codes or numbers was used to track people targeted for death? That is why Neo-Nazis, Skinheads, and other white supremacist groups use IBM OS/2 and refuse to use Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, etc. :) OS/2 is the type of operating system Hitler himself would write if he was smart enough and had the knowledge and skill sets to do it. But based on further research I found out I was wrong and that Windows 7 is the true OS that Hitler would write.

Anyway before he had his plane crash that made him lose his memories and almost die, Steve Wozniak of Apple Computers was once quoted as having said "Never trust a computer you cannot throw out a window."

Look if Microsoft claims IBM competes with them and violates EU law, then why don't Microsoft develop their own Mainframe and then port Windows 7 or whatever to it and then see how well that sells? Maybe people would rather use IBM Mainframes and zOS, oh because it is better, faster, more stable, and has no known viruses that can infect it, plus it can run Linux in virtual machines if needed which is why IBM makes contributions to Linux and other FOSS software projects like Mozilla, etc.

Remember that SCO vs. IBM for Linux having SCO Unix code in it? Microsoft was behind that as well. The code they used in court was Minix code and not Linux code but once the judge figured that out and they got the real Linux code, well we discovered the truth, eh?

Besides in the EU, the Amiga is a much better system than a PC running Windows 7, amiright Amiga Fanbois and Fangurls? Apple's Mac and PC guys meet the Amiga Lady, and it literally blows their minds and heads at how much better the Amiga is than the Mac and PC. Amiga fans, we are back, and we are p*ssed!

You mean the victims of some of IBM's customers went through the roof?
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

IBM had no problems assisting a mass murder, so their endorsement of a proposal to tag human beings like cattle is highly surprising.

Business on demand, indeed!

Full disclosure: Yes, I am a disgruntled former employee.

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

They'd probably like to forget about supplying machines to Hitler as well.

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

Well, you might enjoy IBM and the Holocaust, then. Read it and scale to today's information technology and kill capability.

I thought that "Operation Aurora" proved that the Chinese government wasn't satisfied with censorship; they want to use every company as a means of tracking down undesirable members of society. Microsoft, through their recent statements, seems to be implicitly accepting China's methods and goals.

Oh, and IBM didn't build gas chambers. They (quoting Wikipedia, quoting "IBM and the Holocaust", by Edwin Black) "[helped] the Nazis organize and coordinate their efforts toward gathering and organizing all available information about their victims." They built the infrastructure the Third Reich wanted, capable of tracking millions of people, and as a result were quite instrumental in the ensuing holocaust.

You can read more about the book here and here.

but think about how much more effective they would have been if they had today's governmental "tools". Oh, wait: at least one of your exemplars did have a beta version. Hitler used IBM proto-computers everywhere.

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

it wasn't harmless to the Japanese Americans in WWII. nor was it harmless to the Jews in Nazi Germany just a few years before.

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

The fact is, IBM technology was used to organize nearly everything in Germany and then Nazi Europe, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations, and ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads and organizing of concentration camp slave labor.

i hear previous implementations using IBM hardware had some negative side effects back in the 1930s and 40s.

i'd rather not help you find the remaining bugs, thanks.

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

That's a very profitable idea but you might want to consult with IBM about how history views those who comply with fascism for monetary return.

I would definitely compare IBM's assistance in identifying, tracking and cataloging people for the Nazis during the Holocaust to PvP restrictions in World of Warcraft.

How about I develop a game that caters EXACTLY what the Chinese government would like, and then they use their overpowered censorship and propoganda to promote it and only it...

Question Marks

Profit?

That's a very profitable idea but you might want to consult with IBM about how history views those who comply with fascism for monetary return.

You know, you're right. It's not like there are any examples of governments working with large computer companies to monitor and track large populations of people. http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

Sorry to Godwin the thread, but yes, IBM is evil and should have been shut down decades ago and their war profiteering given to the survivors of their evil deeds. Frankly after they continued to do business with the Germans after Dec 1941 they should have been convicted for treason and the leaders shot or at the very least enjoyed long prison sentences.

But if there is ANY corporation in the world that deserves the tag evil then IBM would be it. You would be hard pressed to get more evil than genocide.

Ah yes the nazi speach, Americans never killed any native Americans, nor any black people, and the English never killed any Aboriginies or Indians, and the Spanish never killed any jews and the Portugese never killed any muslims. How long until history is rendered irrelevant? Is there a single employee left in IBM whom has been working there since 1941? Do you think anybody in IBM relates to these people from the early 40's? Do you relate to the murders of native Americans? Given that you are a US citizen that is. It is very easy to point fingers, isn't it? Before speaking about nazis, please do some research. I'm most certainly not promoting national socialism, but I am demoting your school for teaching you this nonsense about "axis of evil". Do you think they are satanic nazi blood drinking child molesting animal rapists? Or are they humans made from the same elements as you, with families and hopes and problems, much like yours? Think about it.

Sorry to Godwin the thread, but yes, IBM is evil and should have been shut down decades ago and their war profiteering given to the survivors of their evil deeds. Frankly after they continued to do business with the Germans after Dec 1941 they should have been convicted for treason and the leaders shot or at the very least enjoyed long prison sentences.

But if there is ANY corporation in the world that deserves the tag evil then IBM would be it. You would be hard pressed to get more evil than genocide.

And here is a website which documents that what you are saying is 100% accurate. So hopefully the mods will fix that guy's troll mods as IBM has been a Truly Evil(TM) corp for damned near over a century. I personally say don't let the door hit you on the way out you evil greedy bastards.

I personally think ALL of their profits from 1933-1945, WITH interest, should be seized and given to the survivors and their families, as they were so instrumental in the murder of millions. If you read the link I provided they even have documented where IBM workers would routinely go into the camps to service the machines (which were leased, not sold by IBM) so the Nazis could keep up with who they had murdered and by how. Real sick shit that company pulled.

It's been well documented for seven years now: http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

And how do you propose we do that? Allow them to dump toxins into YOUR backyard? Maybe bring back the 'good old days" of sweatshops and child labor?

These assholes aren't leaving us for the EU, which also disallows dumping of toxins and worker abuse. Nope, they are going to the good old third world, where they can poison and abuse to their evil little hearts content. And considering the companies history of putting profits above everything, including human lives and suffering, i say good fucking riddance. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

BTW we should take any and ALL tax breaks away from companies currently shipping their jobs overseas. if they want to move that is fine, but we sure as shit don't need to be giving them tax breaks to help pay for the move. If the third world wants to suck on a tailpipe and have air and water and soil unfit for humans then fine and dandy. But with out current oligarchy bending over backwards to big corps as it is, I personally say enough is enough. I am tired of "too big to fail", I am tired of tax breaks for companies that then fuck us with them, and I am tired of our laws being decided by who has the biggest checkbook. Maybe when the two parties have run us so far into the ground we look like Brazil we will line both of the parties against the wall and start over. Because as it is now we get royally fucked by the mega corps and it still isn't enough. Just look at the "superfund" sites dumped on us by corps like Haliburton as an example. I say we have kissed enough corporate booty, thanks ever so much.

I hate to go Godwin on the thread here, but it isn't like IBM hasn't found ways to use data to do evil things before.

Yes, and IBM has a thing about getting into bed with governments, although not always with good results. And you can be pretty sure nothing IBM is up to will be good for Americans given their tendency to take the money and run.

I am sorry... Since I know slashdot it has always been a community of relative smart people who know how to google. But here you go: http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/ I didn't know that book even had a site dedicated to it, but seriously, it's a good book. It's not a 'let us shame IBM book' but a good insight into the world as it was in 1937-1945. I can recommend it to anyone with an interest in those days.

I hate to go Godwin on the thread here, but it isn't like IBM hasn't found ways to use data to do evil things before.

And who is providing the Iranian government with the technical know-how to implement these censoring measures?

Is it private consultants? Is it foreign governments?

Is there sufficient know-how within Iran's pro-government citizenship to effect the censorship?

I'm very curious who, if anyone, is helping Iran's government do this. Because I do control a decent amount of spending, and I'd like to know if there's anyone I do business with that I should think twice about renewing contracts with. I'd be disappointed, and more than a bit shocked, if any of my suppliers are helping Iran do this. But there is precedent. And my (and my employer's) dollars can speak a lot louder than this comment.

No, but they can tell you who to shoot, and have. Information technology is really the most acute munition of war imaginable, particularly in internal warfare between a government and its people.

Interesting that you should mention Dachau and IBM in the same post. Without the help of IBM, the holocaust probably wouldn't have been nearly as successful.

No corporation has any allegiance to a country. The only goal of any for-profit corporation is increasing shareholder value, i.e. making money. If the people of any given country have to be sacrificed to that goal, it WILL be done.

IMNSHO, this is one of the main problems in America today. Corporations are given all the rights of citizens, but have none of the responsibilities. I for one welcome our new plutocratic overlords!

U.S. government: Any amount of the taxpayer's money to research how to kill other people and destroy their property.

And IBM can be relied upon to take any government's money to do exactly that.

IBM have a history of being so patriotic (to the almighty Reichsma^Wdollar).

Let's get this quite clear: any major corporation would happily have (by act or omission) you and your family die if (a) it assisted with profit-making; (b) they could get away with it. Anything less severe, such as shedding thousands of US jobs while demanding money collected at the point of a gun (that's "tax" to you and me), is not even on the radar of morally questionable.

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/ has a nice introduction to what AC was talking about.

A lot of those corporations still exist, in some form or other, but they keep that part of their corporate history quiet, you can be sure.

Ain't that the truth...

Even if I'm not as smart as most folks, I'd be a bit leery if such events had been aimed at me - since before my birth.

And my, isn't nano-science and remote sensing so advanced, lately.

My, my. Indeed.
And I'm holdin on to my 2c, thanks.

"but that won't sell me on using a file system named after a murderer"

Named after?! He wasn't a murderer when it was written and named dumbass, it was named *before* he became a murderer by *years*.

I suppose you never buy anything made by any subsidery of coke, put money into banks... you say you wanna switch another filesystem like JFS? From IBM? After their involvement with the Nazis?!!!!

Get real!

"using technology supplied by companies such as IBM, Honeywell, and General Electric."

IBM making money at the expense of morality; nothing new here.

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/articles/auschwitz.html

After all, the Nazi's and the Soviet's didn't need a DNA Database and Spy cameras to oppress their people. Oppression is a political issue, not a technological one.

"IBM and the Holocaust" by Edwin Black is an interesting read when considering the Ethics of Big Business and IT in particular. I made use of it for a similar assignment for a B.Sc.
There is a website for the book that might be useful if you can't get a copy (or read it) in time. http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

IBM selling surveillance equipment to oppressive governments?

If it weren't for the automation provided by IBM to the Third Reich, the Nazis would not have been able to keep tabs on and slaughter so many people. http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

'Do no evil.' isn't a motto IBM has, or ever will, adopt.

It's just like the old days, IBM looking for ways to "enhance security" and help the good old boys at the Department of Homeland Security (or, as the Germans called it, Schutzstaffel (S.S.)).

The important thing is, just like they had no idea their technology was helping make the holocaust more efficient and were just making a buck, it's completely unimaginable that the Chinese might continue to use it to crack down on dissidents afterwards.

There's another reason one might want to avoid IBM products: active collaboration with Nazi Germany.

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

Many popular companies of course had ties to the Nazis, but IBM's seem particularly strong. I'm surprised they are not more haunted by this legacy.