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Google Brazil Pressured to Give Up Names
Kordau writes "Google Brazil is under pressure to release user info from Orkut, relating to a child porn investigation by the Brazilian government. Google Brazil maintains that the info officials want is held on US servers and if they want the info, they should talk to Google USA."
There is a much better reuters article here - I suggest you read that rather than the linked article.
The first four paragraphs of the article contain the story (not too much there) - the rest is fluff - and inaccurate fluff at that - I'm going to go completely OT to look at some of the absurdities it contains:
The Brazilian case highlights an issue that has been brewing for sometime over the information that search engine and other internet companies keep on their databases about their users.
No, it doesn't highlight that - the cases are not similar in any form, other than both involving large internet companies
The recent blunder made by AOL in which the internet company erroneously published 20 million search requests....
Erroneously? AOL deliberately published the search requests.
Early this year, Google successfully defended a subpoena from the US Department of Justice to hand over its data in another child porn investigation case.
Calling that a "Child porn investigation case" is one of the most misleading statements I've ever heard. It was a "porn on the 'net fishing expedition."
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Why should an innocent company (forgetting that this is Google) be forced to give up information unless they are the one under investigation for wrong doing, unless the company is government funded of course?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Really? It would just create a big market oportunity for a local search engine to appear and compete. And I'd exchange all the flashy-search-engines of the world for a single child abuse less any time.
Don't store the data in the first place.
"I don't need drugs to enjoy this, just to enhance it" - Otto
Warning: Corny karma killing post above.
It's not hard to go through the proper channels to supeona information regarding criminal prosecution. Google Brazil is a separate entity from Google USA. Google Brazil CAN'T be forced to give up the information because it doesn't have it. It's like if I moved to Brazil and they supeona'd me for information my father had. It isn't mine to give up, not to mention I don't have it.
I don't know where to start.
First of all, not everything you can tack up on a wall is legal. Child porn, for example.
And not everything you can get on such a wall is legal either. Child porn, for example.
No offence, but I cannot really express how blatantly stupid seems to me what you just wrote.
My 0.02 cents
What happens the next time they want the same info for some other reason? Start off playing the "think of the children" card, and things will be much easier when a foreign power wants the info for a person who is wanted for being suspected of a lesser crime, for criticising their government on the Internet, or for being someone who a corrupt official doesn't like.
Please note I have no idea what the Brazilian government is like, and the above examples may be off base for them (at least presently,) so this isn't meant to be a dig at the Brazilian administration. My point is, there are now and will always be governments out there who would really enjoy the chance to extract info on certain people through nervous US-based Internet companies.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I think this is what most people missing in the article... everyone is saying that they should just give up the info and be done with it.
It's not that Google Brazil WON'T hand over the info. They CAN'T hand it over, because they don't have it. Apparently the Brazillian goverment thinks otherwise though...
I wonder if what you experienced is exactly how it feels to be a non-English speaker using the internet on any other English-dominated site. :-/
Hell, I am Brazilian and also gave up!
The problem is that, really, Orkut has an innocent design that is mostly defenseless to spam. Spam is spam, and the fact that I can understand what is written on it just makes it worse, not better.
In Brazil we don't have a president that does illegal wiretaps and even admits that publicly nor companies disclosing personal information about without permission nor Guantanamo, so I feel my freedoms are better respected here than in the USA.
Who cares? That's about like my whining about "how it feels" to be a non-japanese speaker on 2ch. Your question would be a lot more poignant if you were talking about english speakers invading non-english forums.
I have an orkut account - some of the information like an gmail address is necessary to sign in. The rest of the information on your profile is entiely optional. They don't even have to ask google for the profile information - make a fake account and stick up a photo of some girl in a swimsuit and get a freind request and you get to see it as soon as its approved.
The stupid thing is they expect criminals to be providing orkut with any legit info - for a long time my address was in Svalbard and the Jan Mayen Islands. This violates your TOS but really meh.
I don't know if orkut keeps a record of what IP address you login from but its also probably useless with people login in from random places or using TOR. Sure there is google search info linked to your gmail account and we all know about googles 2038 cookie but delete your cookies after each session and search from the the main google page or the firefox bar or use a public computer or whatever and you avoid that.
So I'm seriously confused by what data these guys are asking google for. The profile info which is likely to be the most useful if there is some accurate information is public or easy to get once you get authorized as a friend. I suspect they just want anything they can get their hands on and want to sort through it later. This is probably more work than they realize, and they will more than likely end up buried in a mound of data. They are probably better of doing some actual on the ground detective work.
Also do Googlenauts define targeted advertising as enhancing the user experience - because my definition tends to lean more towards Adblock.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
I wonder if what you experienced is exactly how it feels to be a non-English speaker using the internet on any other English-dominated site.
There is a difference between an immigrant feeling overwhelmed by the language of the country he moved to and a native feeling overwhelmed by an influx of immigrants.
Nor do we. We have an interpretation by the Supreme Court that guarantees privacy. One that may change over time (and already has begun to, in some cases).
Big deal. It states this in that good ol' 200+ year old document. That doesn't mean we are getting the privacy that is guaranteed. The president is tapping into our phone conversations as we speak. Random people are having their bags dumped out and scrutinized at the airports. Arab-americans are being harassed just because of their nationality.
Our privacy is a constitutional right in the US, but we don't have it. The president won't be impeached over it. Which would you rather have, actual freedom or the illusion of guarandeed freedom?
I got nothin'
This is exactly the tactic used by so many in power to get their foot in the door of eliminating privacy: Choose an issue that causes anyone who disagrees to look like a criminal, and get people to voluntarily give up their freedoms and privacy. Now that you have a precedent set for getting access to that information, you can do it for basically any reason - and abuse of power is just a step away.
I don't trust anyone enough to give them that kind of power in the first place.
There's a saying, and I will paraphrase because I don't remember the exact words..
"I would rather one guilty man remain free than compromise the freedoms of a thousand."
See, that's what so few people understand - the price of freedom is eternal vigilance (Thomas Jefferson). What this means is that freedom is actually an incredibly difficult social system to maintain, and still retain justice and order. But it is that struggle, that effort, that makes the ends so worthwhile - it is the very definition of honor and integrity.
And that is why so many people find freedom so frustrating [read: people we elect to leadership]... they know they don't deserve it.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
Unfortunately, actions like these establish that irritating little fellow called "precedent." Once authorities in Brazil and other countries realize they can strong arm a company into turning over personal information (whether based on the child porn pretext or otherwise, regardless of how solid that pretext is), you can kiss privacy goodbye.
But more than that, you can kiss justice and government oversight goodbye. When the government can have more information on you than YOU have on you, you know the balance of power has shifted way too far in the government's favor. That's the kind of world in which you fear your own government more than any terrorist.
I am not willing to open those kinds of doors. If that means some guilty people are harder to prosecute, that's what that means - that is the price of freedom. It makes sure that the vast majority remain free. Arguing otherwise requires arguing that the vast majority of free people are in fact criminals, which is a simply ridiculous claim to make - and if one were to rely on the claim that the law makes most people criminals (even for minor infractions like jay-walking or littering), one really should consider the idea that there's something wrong with the law.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
They want the IP addresses associated with any sessions opened by . So, they'll cross-reference with the ISPs that own those guys, and get: (1) the financial info used to pay for the ISP and/or (2) the address of the phone that dialed (in the case of dial-up) or the address of the cable/adsl-modem installation, so they can grab the guys.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
It's not that Google Brazil WON'T hand over the info. They CAN'T hand it over, because they don't have it. Apparently the Brazillian goverment thinks otherwise though...
Actually, it's more like the first. The justice knows that their servers are not here, they are not stupid. They just want Google Brazil to talk their headoffice and ask this information, they are telling them this for a long time.
Google Brazil is Google too, just like Microsoft Brazil is Microsoft, and Yahoo Brazil is Yahoo. It's just not in the USA. If they can open a office here to sell services and send the money back to the USA, they surely can handle the legal obligations about their company here.
Pedophiles and racists are chatting online. Read my lips. Big Fucking Deal. In a free society, people should be entitled both to their views, and to discuss those views with like minded individuals. The majority of society happens to find these views highly offensive. Tough Shit. Liberty isn't as selective as most mobs. I refuse to sacrafice society on the altar of public outrage because a few sickos are typing objectionable content. "Apology to crime". What kind of a fucking country is Brazil anyway!?
To those who would cry; "Oh but these groups are inherantly evil and morally wrong!", let me tell you something about "inherant" evil and morality. There are countries in the world where clitorectomies are not only considered legal, but morally correct. In fact, a grown woman with a clitoris is considered inherantly immoral. You might scoff at the notions of "primitive" societies, but let it first be noted that the US has highest circumcision rate in the developed world. You'll find plenty of people with "inherantly's" on both sides of that debate.
Morals change. Oh boy do they change. Racism, pedophilia, facism were once not only legal, but moral as well. They were regarded as virtues in many societies at one point in time or another. You want the sad truth. Morals change with the tides. I'll trust in what's legal long before I trust in what's "moral".
Left to the media and the mob, our society would embrace old status quos just as quickly as it would condenm them. Right now the media is making money from outrage against child porn. Give it a few decades and they'll be calling for "tweenage" weddings to be legalised, or for segregation to be reestablished. Will you want to listen to them then? Do you think the legligatures and companies should be so quick to kow-tow?
So fuck moral outrage. It's like a fashion fad. Google knows this. They respect peoples rights, even if they abhor their actions. And so should everyone. If you don't like it, then move to a totalitarian state. Or Brazil, where my above "apology to crime" is in fact illegal.
May the Maths Be with you!
You'd give up the information age to stop soemone from spanking their kid?
Why not? Where has the "information age" really benefited mankind as a whole? All it's got to show is more social inequity (digital divide), more crime, new forms of crime, more rich people getting richer and more poor people getting poorer. The "information age" is all about personal web pages to fuel some self-aggrandizing ego, inane forums where inane people post their irrelevant views and more hollow pursuits.
Trash it. It won't be missed but by nerds which count for nothing anyway.
flying an airplane is a privlege, like driving. in my state, if you get pulled over under a suspision of dwi, and you refuse an alchohol test, you lose your privlege to drive. if you don't want your bag searched on an airplane, don't fly.
.1 second. i don't think it's right, but i find my self doing it too. some of the brightest people on earth aren't american, or western european, or white, etc.
Would you care if cops randomly pulled you over to search your trunk, you know, just because? Maybe your make and model of car was recently used in some terrorist exploit? Driving is a priviledge, so according to your logic you shouldn't care at all. Just don't drive!
and personally, i don't care if bush is listening to my phone calls. he would probably be bored to tears.
You don't care, but I do and so do millions of other americans. And if I was a member of the Democratic party, I certainly would care if Bush was listening to my phone calls regarding campaign strategy.
and i'm not touching the last part, because i agree with that one. there was a study that said (don't ask me where it was, i heard it on the radio) that people decide if someone is trustworthy with in the first
Agreed.
I got nothin'
> illegal opinions
Illegal opinions are a great danger to society.
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