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Could an Erasable Internet Kill Google?
zacharye writes "As Google's share price soars beyond $1,100, it seems like nothing can stop the Internet juggernaut as its land grab strategies continue to win over the eyes of its users and the wallets of its advertising clients. But an analysis published over this past weekend raises an interesting question surrounding a new business model that could someday lead to Google's downfall. Do we want an erasable Internet?"
Google is close to unusable unless you manually set it to show recent results. Old stuff on the internet is mostly noise and rot.
I bet more than 95% of everything older than 3 years is noise and rot that nobody has any use for.
Because the odds of me getting super powers and destroying Google are the same as companies choosing not to store data. They will either openly admit to it like Facebook and Google, or they'll just lie and do it anyway.
See subject.
Expanding though. Erasable internet is a very very small segment of internet data traffic. The whole point of something being erasable is that is only to be seen by one particular recipient. Given we are here on Slashdot, while logged into facebook, reading our email demonstrates pretty easily that ephemeral internet activities only make a tiny percentage of the total data.
We are still going to shop, browse, email, and post. Erasable internet is irrelevant to this.
This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen on Slashdot.
With absolutely nothing pushing the pendulum in the direction of increased privacy, I'm for an erasable Internet, just because nothing else is there to push in that direction. Governments love the info. Companies love it. People don't have the power or voice to state anything. So, it is obvious when someone comes along that sort of guarantees [1] a picture will disappear, people will flock to that service en masse since they are so tired of a large, WORM database. Post a pic on FB, it is there forever. Post it on a website, reputable search engines will slurp it up. Use robots.txt and a hidden URL, it gets slurped up anyway unless there is some type of active authentication.
A company that makes a peer to peer protocol to send encrypted messages where the key comes from multiple clients (and each client will not send the piece after the expiration date) is going to make money. People do want privacy, but it so incredibly hard to get that. If I wanted to send a photo to someone, and physically travelling is out of the picture, I'd have to get with them, set up gpg, then send it via that. Or, copy it onto offline media and snail mail it. Some firm that uses decent cryptography will make a mint just assuring people that a conversation has a high chance of staying stays private and vanishing after it was done.
[1]: How long the pic really remains on the company's server is a question, but to people, it is off the record.
Honestly, I think the impact on society of governments and organizations to rewrite history or remove history from the internet is a much more frightening concept than people being able to google your name and find out you were a twerp in your younger years.
The horse has to actually want that themselves. For an erasable internet to work, everyone in the chain would have to cooperate on that.
Where profit motives exist for tracking them, horses get watched going around the racetrack. The slaughterhouse wins in the end.
I don't think you can ask that question at all without first discussing if an "erasable internet" is even possible.
You know how data likes to be free? Well, it turns out it really enjoys being stored also.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The article doesn't mention any downfall of Google. The whole idea is a false dichotomy. Why can't both types of content exists. Oh, wait, they already do.
Just because something is erasable doesn't mean it has to be erased. Most useful content wants to be found. Erasing that content would be stupid.
Google's job is to help people find that content. There is a lot of competition to be found by google. I don't see the ABILITY to erase content an issue for Google.
Just because there are types of content like snapchat that are not meant to be searchable doesn't mean the downfall of Google.
http://snapchatleaked.com/
Nice idea but flawed...
Until we outlaw the NSA-Military-Corporate-Industrial Government's ability to do their "Big Data Spying" in the name of "security" no application / service will elude the rooms where they scrape your data & mail before it hits your application.
No mention of that in the article... but then you would not expect real reporting from a paper owned by Rupert Murdoch
"Memory" is critical to the operations of NSA in their war against United States Citizens.
Limiting or even removing the "memory" of the internet is a novel "left flank" to counter the NSA, so beloved by Obama and the National Democratic Committee, for obvious reasons (interim election 2014 and Presidential Election 2016, and the Obama Presidential Library Fund Committee).
Snicker snicker.
Most revenue models currently used are based upon the fact that Google knows who you are.
Once it becomes possible to use Google and other services anonymously Google will have a big problem.
That is the real question.
Partial answer coming.
November 2014.
Sure.
Can we have it?
No.
Wisdom goes that there are no stupid questions. This, however, is as close as you can get.
If you dry up the source of information that has allowed Google to dominate Internet search then it would hurt them financially. The biggest fear for them would be tougher privacy laws. Right now the Class Action E-Mail/Wiretapping case doesn't look too good for them so there may be some changes in the future for gmail users. The NSA fiasco with Snowden means that more people are asking pointed questions and Google and all the others who make money off of your personal data have to do a little walk on the tightrope. On one side they've pushed legislators away from enacting tougher privacy laws but now they're information has been hacked by the NSA yet they condemn that. The only reason Google exists is that it can mine information efficiently. Throw a few lawsuits and some new legislation into that mix and it suddenly gets very cloudy for them. Take a look at Google Glass for example, right now the thought of millions of people with always on cameras can become quite disturbing especially since you don't know where those images are going or what they may be used for. Sure there's the augmented reality take on it, but how will society take to it in the long run?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Google already provides this service, to the appropriate clients.
Just serach for Soros and ###ACK ###80x805 Disconnect
No brain, no pain.
If it's publicly viewable, it's archivable, which means someone will archive it, particularly if no one else is, so it's not erasable.
Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no'.
"News for nerds", edited by people who clearly don't understand how the internet works. If someone can read your data, they can save it and share it. An erasable internet is impossible.
What we need is Google health care. This tonsillectomy sponsored by advil.
Zoid.com
http://xkcd.com/979/ :)
The House Ways and Means Committee is considering making advertising non-deductable as a business expense. That would take a bite out of Google.
There are good arguments for a tax on advertising. Most Americans are "spent out"; they're spending almost everything they earn. The US personal savings rate is near an all-time low of 2%. In that situation, advertising can't create new demand. It's just a war between advertisers. So that's a good place to tax.
I miss the WebCrawler. Oh those were the days, when games used IPX and porn was in text form. Now get off my fucking lawn!!
There will never be an erasable internet.
You're missing one of the points. Real time dynamically changing content. What I see on website X at 1:38:25 pm, is 100% differet from what you see at 1:39:25 pm. Imagine constantly, or semi, changing Net contant on a massive scale. It wouldn't be saveable, except at the user end, and even then, you'd have to reserve it for something archival to slurp.
I don't know to what end it would serve, but it becomes and exponential storage increase to try an archive everything at every moment.
Time Machine, set to 10 seconds for the Internet? Not happening. Yet...
... a message on the thread in recent months.
It's the free/stored dual nature of data; which can be easily proven by passing data through a very narrow slit.
Let's hope it is not possible because the probability of living out some old novels like Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 might well be increased exponentially. After all if it is erasable and there is no public hard copy then: "We are at war with Eurasia, we have always been at war with Eurasia" becomes available at the touch of a switch, as well as the evidence to eliminate dissenters.
Yes.
Google wouldn't be hurt a bit by "erasing" the internet, they run mostly on advertising that just requires your current attention.
Data is a very naughty boy that way.
Real time dynamically changing content. What I see on website X at 1:38:25 pm, is 100% differet from what you see at 1:39:25 pm
That is not realistically going to happen of course. In reality most things change on a more life-like pace that is easily archivable for anyone that cares, or even those that just collect for the sake of collection.
But even in your presented case, you don't have to archive every iteration. Just snapshots, or trends, or some kind of summary about what was and how it shifted. There is always the possibility of storing some permeable shadow of a thing, no matter how often you try to change it.
One last thought; the saying "the more things change, the more they stay the same" exists for a very valid reason...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...he'll be heartbroken!
will there be a functioning erasable internet. At the moment, 99% - probably more - of the population do not care what data is collected about them or even that data is collected about them. Those who do care, opt out in whatever way they can. Google = internet or IE = internet are dominant thought patterns and will continue to be. Edward who? .......
And what use would be a site like that, except for some kind of art statement and short lived entertainment? People will post "Hey, check out this always changing site! What does it show to you?" for a day or two, and then it will successfully go into a dark corner, visited only by few outliers who like the randomness.
If you want it to be any useful, you'll need to provide a way for people to link to a specific item on your site. That's where crawlers step in - your frontpage can be always changing, they just need to collect the individual posts.
Leave Google alone finally.
This is boring and you are all pathetic.
That would be right if Google was how it was at the start. However Google is not how it once was as it is no more just a search engine. However, sure the laws in a country can change. That does not stop Google from moving its will-be-"illegal" server in a country where there will be no problem.
Could a chair fucking kill Google?
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
The answer: Yes, an erasable internet would kill the whole internet, of which Goolge is a part.
As it stands, the human race is the accumulation of human experiences (from our inherent interest in exploration, all the way down to what we put in our food and why). This information is integrated into the fabric of our consciousness, and when looked at from a global perspective, shows that evolution is actually going on. It's a bio-logic sense-making intelligence that needs nothing other than the human cortex (for "storage"). This kind of "memory" cannot happen in anything other than the fabric of the natural universe, AKA bio-logical beings.
But the tools of humanity, as they are, require their own "shelf" to reside. For the internet, the 'storage of data' is the very fabric of it's existence, it's "shelf" on which it resides. Like someone pointed out, looking at a forum from 13 years ago for information is the very reason for the internet. It was what everyone was excited about back in the late 80's-early 90's when we talked about what the internet is. However now since things like Facebook and twitter (or as the article talks about, Snapchat) have exposed the ridiculousness of humanity's ego, then that same ego wishes to remove the past, in order to preserve itself. This would be like removing roads because cars emit carbon that's causing global warming. Use the internet as it was originally designed or, like using any other tool incorrectly, you may break the tool, or whatever you're using the tool incorrectly on.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Both questions are useful. The question of whether an erasable internet is desirable is a separate one. Only a complete fucking idiot, asshole, or evil fuck would think so, however. Victors already write the history books, you want them to erase history as well?
There are two positive effects which come from the internet never forgetting. One, we will learn (eventually) that things are never forgotten, and learn to act accordingly. Two, we will learn (also eventually) that we are more the same than different, and hopefully learn to act accordingly.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The day browsers start bundling Ad Block by default.
There is no such thing as DRM, and apps to save "unsaveable" Snapchat images are legion.
This is a fool's quest, and whoever wrote this WSJ piece is woefully ignorant of their subject.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Google just puts you inside a bubble. That effectively erases the rest of the internet.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
I thought most data was streamed encrypted video by now. But anyway, IRC is erasable, and I don't see IRC killing Google.
The Recording and movie industries have spent decades trying to make an erasable Internet. In their fruitless endeavor they have been joined by countless embarrassed companies, politicians and countries. There is no such thing as an erasable Internet, and there never will be. The Internet isn't a single entity, it is an ecosystem made up of billions of parts with vastly different political, religious and personal views. None of which takes into account the crazy people, the Internet is full of crazy people, and you can't reason with them.
The article might as well be titled, Could we get rid of the tides if we didn't have a moon?
if you +1 the post, and it gets erased before anyone reads it, did you actually +1 the post?
Yes, you did. You publicly posted your stuff on the internet. You opted in to EVERYONE crawling and caching your site's data. (Yes, every browser caches your site in local memory in order to render it). Google takes the high road and obeys robots.txt in case you change your mind and don't want automated crawlers to read your site. Not everyone gives you that option.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The money the Fed is printing has to go somewhere. It certainly ain't going to the man in the street.
I'm not interested in an erasable Internet. The beauty of the Internet is how it saves data, conversation, ideas across time and makes them accessible to people now and in the future. The Internet is a repository of knowledge. Sure you have to filter out garbage, but that has always been the case since we first evolved memories.
The future of the internet is everything being safely and securely stored and accessible.
Is Unix Dead?
Will Martians Invade?
Is Pope Catholic?
Will Made-Ya-Look News Ever Cease
Google did not copy millions of books with little regard for the law. They were found by a court of law to have fully complied with the law. They copied millions of books *LEGALLY*. They followed copyright law. They may have gone right up to the edge of the law, but they respected it and did not cross it.
I don't think you can ask that question at all without first discussing if an "erasable internet" is even possible.
Snapchat proves that it's not only possible, but that it's also a rather popular idea.
What goes on Internet stays on Internet.
Hosts do more w/ less (1 file) @ a faster level (ring 0) vs redundant browser addons (slowing up slower ring 3 browsers) via filtering 4 the IP stack (coded in C, loads w/ OS, & 1st net resolver queried w\ 45++ yrs.of optimization):
---
APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:
http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74
(Details of hosts' benefits enumerated in link)
Summary:
---
A. ) Hosts do more than AdBlock ("souled-out" 2 Google/Crippled by default) + Ghostery (Advertiser owned) - "Fox guards henhouse", or Request Policy -> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4127345&cid=44701775
B. ) Hosts add reliability vs. downed or redirected DNS + secure vs. known malicious domains too -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3985079&cid=44310431 w/ less added "moving parts" complexity + room 4 breakdown,
C. ) Hosts files yield more speed (blocks ads & hardcodes fav sites - faster than remote DNS), security (vs. malicious domains serving mal-content + block spam/phish), reliability (vs. downed or Kaminsky redirect vulnerable DNS, 99% = unpatched vs. it & worst @ ISP level + weak vs FastFlux + DynDNS botnets), & anonymity (vs. dns request logs + DNSBL's).
---
* Addons are more complex + slowup browsers in message passing (use a few concurrently - you'll see) Addons slowdown SLOWER usermode browsers layering on MORE: I work w/ what you have in kernelmode, via hosts ( A tightly integrated PART of the IP stack itself )
APK
P.S.=> * "A fool makes things bigger + more complex: It takes a touch of genius & a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." - Einstein
** "Less is more" = GOOD engineering!
*** "The premise is, quite simple: Take something designed by nature & reprogram it to make it work FOR the body, rather than against it..." - Dr. Alice Krippen "I AM LEGEND"
...apk
Snapchat proves that it's not only possible,
You mean the one that various apps and workaround exist for to keep the supposedly deleted content?
Yeah, bonehead.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Privoxy, NoScript, AdBlock etc are your friends.
An erasable internet is a mistake. The technology of information storage is extremely important.
However, broad, opt-in privacy laws are an absolute necessity to safeguard the integrity of individual freedom so we can continue to improve the quality of human life around the globe. Those arguing against this are protecting their own greedy power/monetary interests.
What we desperately need, in the U.S. at least, is for these broad privacy laws to be set in constitutional stone. Without them, our grand experiment will fail fantastically.
Privacy is a human NEED and the only thing standing between us and tyranny. Those who hold all the privacy keys control all. Period.
It's all connected & Edward Snowden is a Human-race Hero for getting this conversation started. Let's not let obfuscation and propaganda derail this - its for our future and all our sakes.
This is going to sound silly, but I think Snapchat was the most important technology of 2013.
Mind that it's a WSJ article, and the author [very] likely has stock in Snapchat.
It's a funny, connected, world we live in nowadays.
I don't think you can ask that question at all without first discussing if an "erasable internet" is even possible.
Snapchat proves that it's not only possible, but that it's also a rather popular idea.
Before you get modded funny or troll, I'll bite- I've never used snapchat, but rather considered what I'd heard about it laughable for precisely the quote you responded to. Tell me, assuming that any accessor of the data on these 'erasable services' can just aim a VHS camcorder at the screen of their internet device, what exactly is prevented? We already have 'robots.txt' and similar methods to enable content not to be scraped (if the accessors do it voluntarily, just like voluntarily not aiming that VHS camcorder at the snapchat). So I just don't understand what new angle is being presented by snapchat, and I truly am too lazy to visit their website.
How about starting by defining what you mean by the term "erasable internet"? It could mean LOTS of different things.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
If Internet Relay Chat hasn't killed Google, how will Snapchat kill Google?
Snapchat does not improve anyones privacy. It would be nieve to think that the OS, browser, various plugins, ISP, various helper apps would not have cached the "erasable data".
What really needs to happen and what politicans like to dance around so as to avoid addressing is that ownership of personal data has to be clearly defined and re-purposing of shared personal data needs to be banned.
I log all my IRC chats. So it's certainly not erasable there. Many IRC channels - especially those supporting open source - are logged, published, and distributed; again not erasable there.
Sure, you can setup a new channel or have a one-to-one conversation with someone over IRC; but you still have no guarantee that no one in the middle is not logging the data or that the party on the other side is not logging the (unencrypted for them) data.
Many IRC channels - especially those supporting open source - are logged, published, and distributed; again not erasable there.
And many IRC channels ban publication of logs. For example, #wikipedia on Freenode has had a policy in the topic line: "public logging -> public flogging".
but you still have no guarantee that no one in the middle is not logging the data
Some chat clients support "off-the-record" messaging, which sets up a key exchange.
or that the party on the other side is not logging the (unencrypted for them) data.
Nor does Snapchat guarantee that the party on the other side hasn't wiped, unlocked, and rooted his device and isn't using a second device as a camera.
Pity users cannot erase junk that pollutes the Internet with stupid comments.
This article would vanish in a jiffy.
There are some sites that have vanished from the Internet entirely already. If way back machine didn't know about them and they're offline, it's a bitch to find any trace of them at all.
I use DuckDuckGo and Startpage mostly now for search. When I need to map directions I jump directly to google maps.