Slashdot Mirror
Patriot Act Haunts Google Service
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."
The war over privacy in the U.S. was fought during the last eight years and common people lost. Nothing is secure. No information is out of reach of any government agency that decides it wants it, and there are no legal protections. Laws are in place now to make sure that our old image of privacy can never be restored, no matter what the current presidential candidates might claim. They don't us t have that privacy back because it does not serve their purpose.
The war was fought. We lost. I don't blame people from other nations for being concerned but if they haven't already lost privacy where they live they soon will, and it isn't coming back.
ever look at the kind of data stored in an online CRM, like salesforce.com? complete sales records, every email to every client, all the product defect issues. Maybe the SEC and the IRS may decide to look at raw data and not wait for the auditor report to come back.
I think the problem is assuming that Congresscritters are patriotic on the whole or that they have any thoughts outside of ensuring their own re-election.
All they have to do is shout "Think of the children" or "We need this to fight terrorism" and the majority who have no interest in delving into the consequences of any given action will line up behind them like good little citizens.
While I am not one of the Google faithful I must say that your criticism is at best miss placed.
Google has fought when the US government wanted them to turn over customer records in the past. They do not seem to cooperate with the US government anymore than is required by law. Anytime you use a hosted service you loose some privacy. Once the data leaves your systems you have lost some privacy and control.
If you want to scream at Google for not living up to there "Don't be evil" line. I suggest that there following US laws it far less evil than their good relationship with China.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Never mind the fact that almost no one except serious geeks have even heard of, much less actually understands, public key encryption.
'Mark you out?' The fact of the matter is, everything we transmit outside of the firewall is subject to surveillance these days. And most companies have no clue how much of their data is crossing the firewall every day.
I don't know why people are getting their knickers in a knot over Google, when the main problem lies with the US backbone carriers, who - with only one known exception - have opened their networks to constant and widespread monitoring by US security agencies. Google at very least had the guts to fight a public legal battle with the Feds over release of even sanitised data.
The story here may be the danger to companies when they bring these companies inside the firewall, but again, refusing to trust Google is a funny place to start enforcing data integrity. The plain and simple fact is that the greatest threat of corporate data leaks is from staff who, whether through sins of omission or commission, carry sensitive data on laptops, thumb drives, CDs without any protections whatsoever.
I'd like to believe that data protection regimes are so advanced in these companies that the potential threat posed by Google and other online services is the main concern, but I find that impossible to do. I have to conclude, therefore that this is nothing more than a tiny kernel of truth wrapped in chocolatey FUD-ness that PHBs and corporate counsel love so much.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Here in Canada this has been a big deal now for the last couple of years. I've been at many IT meetings where tracking down what was hosted on US-based servers and removing it back to Canada has been on the agenda. We're not perfect here but we do have PIPEDA, the protection of privacy act, binding our ISPs. You need access to data, convince a judge and get a warrant. That's the rule of law.
That this US government data free-for-all has not been a big deal to American sysadmins has been a source of more than a little concern and confusion to us here north of the border. As long as there remains an Emperor in the White House rather than a President I guess there will be no movement on this.
Erased White House email, backups, and hard drives without penalty despite a legal court order? That's some government you guys have running there. You might want to do something about it.
annex The Great White North
Be very careful! Look what happened the last time the US fell out with Canada! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Washington
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Who dat?
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
...why anyone would entrust any data of any importance at all, secret or not, to free services provided by an advertising agency. I can see using it to plan your frat party or organize Little League games, but using it for business?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I quite agree. If there is no enemy, one will be invented. Like stereotypes, there's always some truth involved in making a particular group "the enemy," but that's just to make it plausible among the masses. No critical thought required to accept that some new group is Public Enemy #1.
I'm rather surprised more aggressive measures to circumvent US communications and all other paths of commerce and communications haven't been attempted. Wanna do warrantless wiretaps on foreigners? Fine. Watch the foreigners build new lines of communications that do not connect to the U.S. Wanna log, fingerprint, probe and scan all foreigners who happen to fly over or through the U.S.? Fine. Watch the foreigners start to build airports in Mexico and Canada to avoid U.S. soil. Wanna monitor and observe all foreign commerce through U.S. banks? You get the idea.
At some point, the rest of the world will tire of these policies and take step to make the U.S. less relevant.
Tangential, but I find that small groups of people can restore faith in humanity, while it generally takes the actions and behaviors of large groups to dash it.