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Eric Schmidt: Anxiety Over US Spying Will "Break the Internet"
jfruh writes Oregon Senator Ron Wyden gathered a group of tech luminaries to discuss the implications of U.S. surveillance programs, and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt didn't mince words. He said that worries over U.S. surveillance would result in servers with different sets of data for users from different countries multiplying across the world. "The simplest outcome is that we're going to end up breaking the Internet."
Restore the prohibitions against spying and require real warrants to engage. No more dragnets.
Things are just going to keep getting worse until it happens.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I like how the title of the article is "Jitters over US surveillance..." implying that the surveillance itself isn't the problem, we just need to get comfortable with it.
Did he mean "breaking" as in: services becoming more federated instead of being governed by 1 or 2 mega-corporations?
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
As usual, creative people will find solutions to make the spying irrelevant.
From decentralizing and conception to storing data where the US (and others) cannot legally reach it etc.
The US and other agencies dug themselves a hole. They have shown us they are weary of strong encryption standards and good security practices by individuals.
They've shown us that we cannot trust them to use data responsibly and that we should avoid sharing anything with them.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
"It's interesting how people embrace the cloud and social sites and all it brings. "
Yeah and how they complain when from that cloud their private Photos emerge, where they have a cock in their mouth.
Or, alternatively use descent crypto and security procedure.
i.e: don't count on the US and everybody else behaving correctly (As if there were any chance that Russia and China would stop spying) (or US for that matter. They'll simply spin another secret tree-letter agency that they can denying knowing it exists).
instead count of the fact that there will always be fuckers somewhere on the net, and keep best practices to avoid becoming yet again a victim whoever might it be.
Things like end-to-end encryption (total encryption between the two users communicating like OTR, CryptoCat, Jitzi, etc., not only on each leg to/from the server like HTTPS), making GPG more userfriendly, making Tor more popular, etc.
then dragnet or not, user will be safer on the average, even from non-law abiding 3rd parties. (Not only safe from NSA, but safe from script kiddies too).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Actually some of it already started happening before the NSA being busted:
for the SWIFT payment processing, the financial information of European users are mirror on two NON-US nodes for very obvious reasons (IRS, etc.)
only US users might have one of the two mirrors of their data on US soil.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Every country (and reasonably sized corporation) on the planet is doing the same thing, always has done the same thing, always will do the same thing. Only fools believe their online activity is safe from snooping or ever will be.
My problem is that I want to control my data by placing it on systems under my control. Storing everything on Google is fine for Eric Schmidt because Eric Schmidt owns (many shares and a significant amount of control) of Google. Storing everything on Google is not so good for me because I don't.
And that's the real issue. Google and Facebook's entire business model is to violate my privacy. I don't know if Dropbox does anything with your data, but they've definitely chosen convenience over security. I'd rather store my stuff on SpiderOak than Dropbox. As long as my data are available to somebody other than me, then my data are vulnerable to hackers and immoral government officials.
Have a nice time.
DRM in HTML will “break the internet” too, and you pushed for it. Surveillance sucks whether the data is gathered by a hostile government or by a friendly commercial entity.
If you have time to read 12,000 words, the New Yorker ran an excellent article last year detailing US surveillance programs and Senator Wyden's efforts to rein them in.
"State of Deception"
There is money to be made by selling proper crypto solutions.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I'd still rather my data to be snooped by my own country's security services than by the Americans (if though there's an awful lot of data sharing between then). As such, I might be inclined to buy services from local suppliers than from Google. That's bad news for the US, in two ways - 1) it removes a bit of revenue from American companies, and 2) it promotes non-american companies, and the technology they need. Ultimately that means places like silicon valley stop being one of the few centres of technology innovation, and instead there are lots of SVs all around the world - again, bad news for the US.
This isn't all just me making stuff up - it's already happening. Sure, the US is no where near bankrupt because of it, but it doesn't take a genius to work out that it'll mean there's less opportunity for Americans now and in the future.
spying is spying
whether it's our Totalitarian Big Brother or our Capitalist Creepy Uncle
spying is spying
Thank you Dave Raggett
and it already has in a few places, i think Iran has pulled the plug
i think more nations will cut the international wires and develop their own internet within their own nation's borders sort of like a Nation wide LAN, various governments may have some international connections to the WWW but there will be mostly separation between nation's, i dont mind this at all and would stop most of the international cybercrime,
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
different sets of data for users from different countries multiplying across the world.
So what? I don't care if my data is "out of sync" in Kabul or Beijing or Kuala Lampour or London or Sao Paulo. It's not a problem for me. However, companies attempting to monetize that data (Hello, Google, etc.) by selling it to advertisers across the globe ... it makes that data harder to sell. Awww. That won't break the internet - if anything it's an improvement, since someone in Nigeria now has to hit servers in North America to get information for spearfishing - something that will be easier to track.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Eric is confusing two issues, probably purposefully.
The issue of illegal (at least against US citizens) mass surveillance by the NSA and the like is one problem - but as others have pointed out, its something that should be assumed to always be happening, and doesn't have any real impact on the internet. People make a fuss about it, particularly in the US, but I think most people assumed it was happening anyway and it hasn't really changed the way that people, businesses or governments operate. Just look at the recent Silk Road story as an example
The issue that has everyone jittery is the close cooperation that has been shown between the US Government and US based companies, and from a legal perspective the stance that the US government is taking on data stored by US companies, outside the US, for a non-US entity. This has a huge effect on Google's business in particular, not as an adverting company - I would be surprised if they are loosing a significant amount of their consumer business - but rather their growing enterprise / cloud business. No one outside the US will want to switch to Gmail if their email can be read, without their knowledge, by the US Government issuing a National Security Letter, or even just by any local judge issuing a subpoena.
This is what they are talking about when they say you have to start a data center in Germany just to serve customers there. Its not the NSA hacking your system, or even snooping on the wire people are worried about. Its the legal and risk issue that the US government can seize your data, without any notification, and you have no legal recourse to prevent it happening.
Its a great opportunity for companies in Europe, but if your a US headquartered company, as Google is, its going to break *your* small part of the internet