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Google CEO Schmidt Predicts End of Online Anonymity
Andorin writes "A tweet from the EFF pointed me to a short article detailing part of Eric Schmidt's speech to the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe on August 4. According to Schmidt, true transparency and anonymity on the Internet will become a thing of the past because of the need to combat criminal and 'anti-social' behavior. 'Governments will demand it,' he says, referring to full accountability and a 'name service for people,' possibly hinting towards mandatory Internet passports. The CEO of Google also made a couple of somewhat creepy references to the availability of information: 'If I look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use artificial intelligence, we can predict where you are going to go ... show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are. You think you don't have 14 photos of yourself on the internet? You've got Facebook photos!'"
Yeah no photos of me ... no Facebook account!
...masturbates to the thought of attaching your name to your every click. Film at eleven.
What Schmidt actually meant was "True transparency and anonymity on the Internet will become a thing of the past because we here at Google can make a bundle by eliminating it. Advertisers, governments, you want it, we got it!"
I am officially gone from
He wants to know who you are for marketing and advertising purposes to increase corporate profits. The rest is the usual FUD. That is all.
--jdp Maintainer of VisEmacs
What worries me isn't his opinion, or what he thinks is coming. What worries me is his lack of resistance to it and his acceptance of "oh well, that's how it's going, that's what we'll do".
This seeming blazay attitude, coupled with his comments a while back where he said something like "People only need privacy when they're doing something they shouldn't be" really worries me, since he commands a lot of power and sway online. Eric, imagine if someone posted a video of you taking a dump and posted it on youtube, your views on privacy and "I have nothing to hide" might change...
He's probably right in that every government will want online identity, of course they would. But it's up to us to battle for "what is right" and we always hoped Google would help us. If he just rolls over and accepts it, that's terrible for us.
He is right. I do not like it, but he is right.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
What about 99% of the population who won't take the time to carefully maintain pseudo anonymous identities?
Fuck 'em. It's their complacency and ignorance that has put us in this situation, and is forcing their betters to waste inordinate amounts of their time developing cryptographic and other methods of protecting the privacy they should be able to enjoy be default.
They get exactly what they deserve.
I rather doubt that would pass Constitutional muster in the United States, given that SCOTUS has an extensive history of upholding the right to anonymous political discourse. I also doubt it would fly in the Scandinavian countries. Not so sure about the rest of the world (the British seem to be competing with themselves to see who can surrender their civil liberties the fastest....) but that's not really my concern as an American.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
There's been a war regarding privacy for a long time. Now days in the legal system it's all 'think of the children and this will help stop terrorists' on the internet it's all 'Look at these awesome features you can get if you just give us all your personal info and colonic map.' Everyone wants to make the idea of privacy seem like you're trying to hide something but that's nothing further than the truth. You let the government in you let them compile huge dossiers on you (more so than they do now) and all you do is hand them everything they need. Because there is no telling what it looks like you do to an outside person or what they can make it look like you do in a Court room. It's the same reason why my lawyer always tells me to never speak to the cops, you never know what some casual thing you say will be used to hang you, or in this thing casual thing you do. Bottom line is you can have my privacy when you come and take it from me, and I won't let it go with out a fight.
And Google wonders why nobody wants to join their social network? Schmidt makes Zuckerberg look good.
No I don't.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The U.S. could always just create some new law, like the USA PATRIOT Act, that can bypass the constitution. They could even retroactively change laws if it suits their goals (make it easy for yourself and keyword search "retroactive legislation" here).
Of course these endeavors to find and punish 'criminal' and 'anti-social' behavior has, and will have to do with; sex, drugs, political descent, everything that is anti-war and anti violence. So that, like usual, the government will prop-up legislation that supports oppression and the jail economy and will punish things that involve pleasure (demonizing them as sinful and evil, and destructive to the [much cliched] 'moral fiber' of society). Of course these laws will only affect the common man, and not the rich and their corporations (again, read the link [suits their goals (make it easy for yourself and keyword search "retroactive legislation" here)] above as just one example.)
The common man will have to live with their wits and luck on their side. Everybody else will have "diplomatic" immunity.
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You can encrypt it *today*. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow, encryption alone becomes cause for suspicion and legal investigation.
We certainly don't want people being "anti-social" Goodness me, that's such an awful crime. We should start subsidizing and prescribing Soma. We must all be calm, beautiful, peaceful, placated, obeying zombies using the internet the way it is intended - to buy stuff and consume government directed news.
No, we changed the spelling. Do stop reading books and keep up!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
It simply provides an entirely new avenue to execute the same exploits people could use before the Internet. It all ultimately comes down to practicing good OPSEC. Before the Internet and particularly social networking became popular, were you one of those people whom would brag to your friends about a new big screen TV and home theater system you installed? Your friends talk to other people too, those other people might decide you are a good target now. Were you that person who took the boxes for your brand new TV and home theater system and put them on the curb? You just advertised to your neighbors and passerby's that you have a collection of items worthy of stealing.
Fast forward to the Internet as it is today. Did you take a bunch of pictures of your new setup and post them on Facebook, photobucket, a home theater discussion board, etc? Even worse, did you take the pictures with a smartphone or camera that has GPS features and because you didn't know any better did you post the pictures online with GPS coordinates embedded in the exif data? Same exploits, different medium. As long as people are uneducated they will continue to be exploited.
Facebook isn't really the area of new risk. The area that's going to see the most impact if his prediction of "Internet Passports" is that of whistle-blowers, the non-violent but anti-establishment types, and of course the "criminal class", the never-to-be-forgiven felons, sex offenders and so on who are already locked out (by policy) of Facebook; people who are criminal by law such as adult drug users or polygamists who are actually engaged in consensual, informed, adult activities (which, IMHO, makes the government the actual criminal entity.) And I've probably forgotten some important other classes of people who need anonymity in order to pursue even normal Internet activity -- certainly if they're going to speak their minds in a hostile environment, whatever the current public opinion of them is. For some people, simply being atheist is enough to earn them severe censure in their own communities. Who are we to say they *must* be outed?
I really don't think it's a good idea to support repressive ideas like Schmidt's. Anonymity is what enables many of the "squeaky wheels" in the system; lose it, and you force those people truly underground, making even the act of speaking anonymously on the Internet a crime, instead of just a choice.
This is really a highly repressive idea -- it's not going too far to call it evil, frankly. An "Internet Passport" would be a very bad thing for the tatters of liberty and freedom we have left in the USA. For countries that have even less freedom, the Internet is the single gateway to freedom of expression that depends upon anonymity. Anonymous voices from repressive countries bring the world's attention to the plight of various individuals and classes; they really do make a difference. Should those people need an "Internet passport", their ability to speak out will be outright amputated.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It is easy to decode what he was really saying What he says is not really a prediction, it is an admission that Google stores uniquely identifiable data about everything its users do. He is probably right that many of us have predictable search/browsing habits. He is offering to sell Governments a product that matches a browsing profile with users.
I have nothing that I can think of to hide, I think that this kind of thing sits poorly with Google's claim of not being evil.
Shall we all use Microsoft's search product instead?
Of course, it is hard to blame google. Most of us rely on an expensive service they produce for free, and have not been very picky about the terms of service before we have done so.
Dude, this is mind-bogglingly dumb. Sure, you have the right to go die in a ditch. You also have the right to stop eating and starve, or the right to hold your breath until you pass out. Practically speaking, though, no one chooses to die in a ditch, starve, or pass out (with certain minor exceptions, and in those cases I doubt you really care what the government has to say about it anyway). What drives me crazy about libertarianism is that they prioritize the "freedom" to do something absolutely no one wants to do over the freedom of access to things people actually do want - like health care.
Have they ever taken your picture? If so, you probably do have Facebook photos.