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EFF: Trust Twitter — Not Apple Or Verizon — To Protect Your Privacy
tdog17 writes "Verizon and MySpace scored a zero out of a possible six stars in a test of how far 18 technology service providers will go to protect user data from government data demands. Twitter and Internet service provider Sonic.net scored a perfect six in the third annual Electronic Frontier Foundation 'Who Has Your Back?' report. Apple, AT&T and Yahoo ranked near the bottom, each scoring just one star. 'While we are pleased by the strides these companies have made over the past couple years, there’s plenty of room for improvement. Amazon holds huge quantities of information as part of its cloud computing services and retail operations, yet does not promise to inform users when their data is sought by the government, produce annual transparency reports, or publish a law enforcement guide. Facebook has yet to publish a transparency report. Yahoo! has a public record of standing up for user privacy in courts, but it hasn't earned recognition in any of our other categories. Apple and AT&T are members of the Digital Due Process coalition, but don’t observe any of the other best practices we’re measuring. ... We remain disappointed by the overall poor showing of ISPs like AT&T and Verizon in our best practice categories.'"
EFF never said "Trust Twitter — Not Apple Or Verizon — To Protect Your Privacy"
The EFF ranks these companies based on what they say they do for privacy. Nobody knows what they actually do. For all we know, Twitter may be an FBI/CIA front, or bound by some gag order. You can't trust online providers at all, and any use of an online service is a calculated risk, trading some privacy for some utility. Publishing this kind of nonsense, the EFF does more harm than good, by giving users a false sense of privacy and security.
This isn't who to trust, this is who is the least worst when it comes to handing over your information to the government or various corporate interests using the government as their proxy (RIAA, etc.).
Nothing in this report accounts for how the companies themselves treat your private data, just how they respond to requests from law enforcement.
none of it, not even slashdot either
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
See US appeals court rules prosecutors can demand Twitter account information and people encounter many more problems using twitter.
"Nobody wants to read insightful, factual stories about actual things"
You are wrong. Indeed there are many who only want to by lead by the nose and trust the media in what they are told, watch American Idle and be happy.
But there are just as many - if not more that see the fraud. There's not many around here though. That's why I like to poke the stick in one in a while to see what bites.
I mean can't you see the bias, the obvious stinking lying agenda driven bias of the media pushing socialist policies and socialists onto the public like flies attracted to shit? You very well know what the reaction to these facts would be if the parties were reversed.
I am just calling for some actual reporting and actual journalism - politics aside, how can you argue against that?
That means "Trust Apple and Verizon less than you would trust Twitter... if you trusted Twitter".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This says I should trust google with all my data
Actually, it says that Google is better than Microsoft or Facebook at protecting user's data from government requests, and much better than Apple or Amazon (to pick a few). Trust is not implied; companies are scored on items on which they should be distrusted. Google scores nearer the better end of that scale than Microsoft or Facebook, and companies like Apple (unsurprisingly) are among the worst.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Really? Their packaging is rarely larger than the item it encases by half an inch to an inch in each dimension. What makes you think they're high on the list of over packagers?
Because their boxes are seriously overbuilt. The box an iPhone comes in is very nice but is far more robust and expensive packaging than is actually required for the purpose of safely conveying the product to customer's hands. They use it for marketing and to convey a sense of quality but there is no question that they over package their products.
I really appreciate the assurances of random anonymous giggling internet tough guys.
They really help me sleep at night.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Yes, because contrary to all the pro-Microsoft, anti-Google FUD that gets posted around, Google is one of the few companies that's actually done a fairly decent job of protecting data. Even in the case where they collected a bunch of Wifi data with their street cars there's a) No evidence they did anything with it, and b) It was them who approached the various government agencies responsible for protecting privacy around the globe admitting they fucked up rather than simply deleting it and trying to cover it up.
Compare this to companies like Microsoft, whom I know has sold my MSN contact list details on given that links have been made to people with whom I have zero connection other than via MSN messenger on Facebook and LinkedIn and Facebook that has explicitly broken the law by breaching the Data Protection Act by allowing friends to opt 3rd party companies in to accessing my data - something which only I can legally do.
Therein lies the problem, the gulf between the FUD spread by Microsoft and Facebook about Google and the reality of how bad Google actually is is quite large. I've yet to find one shred of evidence of Google passing my data on without my permission, or in a way I did not expect, which is more than can be said by just about every other tech company including companies like Oracle that explicitly send me marketing e-mails despite explicitly opting out on sign up.
As the summary points out, Google also publishes a transparency report and such, and provides links to original copies of DMCA requests where they've received them and had to act on them. This is all far more than most other companies.
It's not that I'm a fanboy, I can't particularly say I support any company given that they're there to make money off me at the end of the day so hence I can never trust that they have my best interests at heart, but what I can personally judge companies on is the reality of how they've acted with regards to me personally, and both right now and historically, Google is still by far one of the most ethical tech companies out there based on empirical evidence in my experience.
For one, Google doesn't seem to need to pay for stupid FUD campaigns that have become so obvious and annoying that Microsoft and others have been doing so prominently. That alone says a lot.
Why should Twitter waste effort sending any private data to the government when the government can just easily hack Twitter accounts?
bio->bi_end_io(bio, error);
Yup, FUD's strong there. Just for most popular example:
If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place
... Or if you have attention span longer than one second and don't just repeat a sound bite:
If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time. And it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities.
So a warning not to trust third parties online becomes "Let them eat cake!"
The only one I can think of is apparently passing user contact information to the developers of apps in Google Play. I didn't realize they did this, and to date the information has not been abused, but I wasn't aware they did it.
Even in the case where they collected a bunch of Wifi data with their street cars there's a) No evidence they did anything with it, and b) It was them who approached the various government agencies responsible for protecting privacy around the globe admitting they fucked up rather than simply deleting it and trying to cover it up.
Not claiming Microsoft isn't worse than Google, but you might be interested to know that point b is not entirely correct. It is the version often being repeated on sites like Slashdot, for some reason, but the actual sequence of events as extensively covered in European press as it happened:
Google actually first guaranteed the German authorities that they were not collecting anything. And first after the German authorities despite this assurance still demanded a full audit of the data anyway, did Google do their disclosure. In a situation where they would have been found out anyway. (trying to delete data after being requested for auditing would be a major crime)
I'm not saying this is making it more or less of an innocent screw-up from Google, your point a still stands, I'm just saying what the sequence of events in this story actually were.
That's just the business and legal structure of a marketplace versus a store. Consider the Ebay and Amazon marketplaces, which have the same basic structure. They provide the venue for sale and can even process sales, but your transaction is actually with the merchant rather than Google, Ebay, or Amazon.
This distinction is extremely important from a business and legal liability perspective. For example, a marketplace is clearly eligible for a DMCA safe harbor exception for copyright violations, but a store generally isn't, because the store owns the customer relationship and vets the goods sold.
So, the only way to change this would be for Google to move to a store model like Apple's App Store, along with all the legal liability that comes with it and most likely necessitating a slow, manual review process like Apple has.
At the end of the day you have to show some sense. It is almost impossible for even the major tech companies to safeguard their own info. Why do you think they can safeguard yours? If there is something you are doing that you don't want people to know about the last place you need to put info about it is on the internet. Laws aside that is just plain stupid. If someone guarantees your privacy on the internet assume it is a lie and life will be better for you. Honestly if I was engaged in criminal activity I wouldn't even have a cell phone. It is nothing more than a tag along snitch.
Nobody wants to read insightful, factual stories about actual things,
No, it's like pop music. The demographic that is most profitable is idiots, therefore most of the industry is geared to compete for that idiot demographic. With music, most of the people buying has been tweens and teenagers who have nothing better to do with their time and listen to whatever shit their friends are listening too. It's convenient to the music industry too, because bands and singers which are nothing more than a face and a good producer are cheaper: you can make the next one hit wonder and pay them nothing. Musicians who you would describe as real artists with talent, they usually aren't willing to whore themselves out for 15 seconds of fame and a really small paycheck.
With news geared towards the masses, it has been discovered that people who tune in every night and spend money whatever they see ads for, those people dislike challenging journalism, they like stories that confirm their own beliefs and what they think is true. They like simple moral outrage. Which is easier and cheaper to do than real journalism anyway. They can make a better profit by going after those people, so they do.
It says nothing about the whole population, it only is an indication of profitability.
IIRC someone or some entity was storing all the tweets anyway. You have no privacy there to protect - it's explicitly public. It's almost like the EFF is trolling for the government in this case - put your private life out there in public so the government won't even have to ask anyone to violate your privacy to investigate you ;-)
I'm not sure I fully agree. If their product came damaged because of cheap packaging, the world would be up in arms about a $500+ device being damaged during shipping.
Apple could use considerably less expensive packaging and still keep the product safe. In a past life I owned a company that shipped about 10,000 custom packages a year. I know from first hand experience that Apple's packaging is more than is necessary to keep the product (reasonably) safe. While it is very nice, Apple's packaging is done the way it is for marketing.
Also, Apple packaging is mostly just cardboard which is easy to recycle.
Just because something can be recycled doesn't mean one should use more of it. The phrase "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" indicates the order in which those things should be done. It's better to Reduce than the Reuse and better to Reuse than Recycle. Apple could easily reduce their cardboard use by using thinner cardboard while still keeping their products intact for delivery. Since the boxes are so nice they also could offer to reuse them if you drop them off at one of their stores. Paper making is a nasty, wasteful process which consumes copious energy and water and recycling paper is only marginally less so.
And I'm sure Apple has done the analysis to ensure that if they could use thinner cardboard, they would to save money. Because when you're selling 100M+ of a device, saving 1 cent on cheaper cardboard is a reduction of $1M. And we know how Apple prides itself on its margins.
As for wastefulness of paper - note that making electronics involves using tons of nasty chemicals and poisons, tons of water and lots of energy as well.
You realize by putting Apple in the title (presumably to troll us, since it wasn't the two that were ranked the bottom) guarantees that no one will click the link?
The pro-apple people will dismiss it and go right to comments. The apple-haters never read these articles, just post crap that wasn't in the article (and get modded 5).
The uninterested parties skip them over.
And those driven completely insane try to talk sense . . . oh wait. Noooooo!
And I'm sure Apple has done the analysis to ensure that if they could use thinner cardboard, they would to save money.
I'm sure they have as well and they've chosen to use thicker cardboard than necessary for marketing reasons. It takes a little searching to find but Apple has admitted publicly that their packaging is very much overbuilt to convey an image of quality from the moment you get your hands on the box. It's actually quite a clever detail and my guess is that they believe (perhaps rightly) the perception of quality is worth more revenue than the cost savings from using only the minimum amount of packaging required.
As an example, the last time I bought a phone from Apple it was shipped to me direct from the factory. They could have packaged it in the box that it shipped in but instead they packaged the phone's box inside another box which is wasteful. I understand why they did it but that does not mitigate the fact that they used more packaging that was actually necessary. The very nice iPhone box was entirely unnecessary in that case and served no functional purpose regarding delivery.
As for wastefulness of paper - note that making electronics involves using tons of nasty chemicals and poisons, tons of water and lots of energy as well.
Very true but largely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. It doesn't follow that just because the electronics were toxic to produce that somehow mitigates the environmental impact of paper production. That's like saying we should ignore a misdemeanor because the same person committed a felony as well. Apple could reduce their paper usage but has chosen not to do so for marketing reasons.
Absolutely but the difference is that whilst Microsoft, Facebook et. al. seem happy to sell your data as is and without even bothering to anonymise it to whoever has a bit of cash even if that means breaking privacy laws in some of the jurisdictions they operate then they do, but in contrast, Google at least doesn't seem to.
It's that subtle difference between not giving a shit about where your data goes and what happens to it with Microsoft and Facebook and actively profiting off it's distribution, even if illegal compared to at least trying their best to keep it safe and secure with companies like Google and Twitter that really matters.