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Patriot Act Haunts Google Service

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the patriot-act-so-good-at-making-friends dept.

The Globe and Mail has an interesting piece taking a look at Google's latest headache, the US Government. Many people are suddenly deciding to spurn Google's services and applications because it opens up potential avenues of surveillance. "Some other organizations are banning Google's innovative tools outright to avoid the prospect of U.S. spooks combing through their data. Security experts say many firms are only just starting to realize the risks they assume by embracing Web-based collaborative tools hosted by a U.S. company, a problem even more acute in Canada where federal privacy rules are at odds with U.S. security measures."

4 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. Unbelieveable! by Flakeloaf · · Score: 5, Informative

    You mean, if I enter personal information on a free web server run by some organization whose business model is the harvesting and sale of personal information, that my personal information might not be kept private?

    Horror of horrors.

    --

    Am I the only one who heard Roxette to sing "I'm gonna get blitzed for some sex"?

  2. Re:VIRUS ALERT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This has a spoofed link whose structure identical to this post http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=496946&cid=22837250 which, when clicked on, downloads a virus, brings up dozens of pages in Firefox in seconds and tries to use mailto: BEWARE curious people.

  3. Re:Don't keep logs by AHuxley · · Score: 5, Informative

    Its the NSA at the choke points of google's wonderful optical roll out that should have most of you thinking a bit harder.
    Google wants to play nice in Asia, the NSA upgrades in Hawaii.

    http://cryptome.org/google/kunia-us.htm

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  4. This could work by fv · · Score: 5, Informative

    I agree that exposing the extent of this could definitely help. When I received multiple FBI subpoenas in 2004 for Insecure.Org web logs, I notified Nmap users and it was posted to various web sites, including Slashdot.

    After all of that press four years ago, the subpoenas stopped and I haven't received another one since. Maybe it is just a coincidence, but I'm happy about it nonetheless.

    In other Nmap news, version 4.60 was just released. You might want to download it with Tor though, just to be on the safe side in case the subpoenas resume :).

    -Fyodor