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Google Shut Out Privacy, Security Teams From Secret China Project (theintercept.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept about Google's secretive plans to build a censor version of its search engine for China: The objective, code-named Dragonfly, was to build a search engine for China that would censor broad categories of information about human rights, democracy, and peaceful protest. Yonatan Zunger, then a 14-year veteran of Google and one of the leading engineers at the company, was among a small group who had been asked to work on Dragonfly. He was present at some of the early meetings and said he pointed out to executives managing the project that Chinese people could be at risk of interrogation or detention if they were found to have used Google to seek out information banned by the government.
Scott Beaumont, Google's head of operations in China and one of the key architects of Dragonfly, did not view Zunger's concerns as significant enough to merit a change of course, according to four people who worked on the project. Beaumont and other executives then shut out members of the company's security and privacy team from key meetings about the search engine, the four people said, and tried to sideline a privacy review of the plan that sought to address potential human rights abuses. Google's leadership considered Dragonfly so sensitive that they would often communicate only verbally about it and would not take written notes during high-level meetings to reduce the paper trail, two sources said. Only a few hundred of Google's 88,000 workforce were briefed about the censorship plan. Some engineers and other staff who were informed about the project were told that they risked losing their jobs if they dared to discuss it with colleagues who were themselves not working on Dragonfly.
Scott Beaumont, Google's head of operations in China and one of the key architects of Dragonfly, did not view Zunger's concerns as significant enough to merit a change of course, according to four people who worked on the project. Beaumont and other executives then shut out members of the company's security and privacy team from key meetings about the search engine, the four people said, and tried to sideline a privacy review of the plan that sought to address potential human rights abuses. Google's leadership considered Dragonfly so sensitive that they would often communicate only verbally about it and would not take written notes during high-level meetings to reduce the paper trail, two sources said. Only a few hundred of Google's 88,000 workforce were briefed about the censorship plan. Some engineers and other staff who were informed about the project were told that they risked losing their jobs if they dared to discuss it with colleagues who were themselves not working on Dragonfly.
Professional ethics are taught in many schools, but seldom practiced. Enough money will entice people willing to take it.
Many professional agencies and unions protect workers who leave jobs over ethics like that. Imagine if every Google engineer refused to work on the thing.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
Heil our deceased Senator Byrd!
"Google's leadership considered Dragonfly so sensitive that they would often communicate only verbally about it and would not take written notes during high-level meetings to reduce the paper trail"
Google knows all too well how evil it is. They know what happens when you write something electronically: Google archives it, forever. It can be used against you later. This is a weapon, no less.
It's sad, Google used to be the best company on the internet. I remember their "clean home page" and getting search results that weren't spam. I remember emailing them and getting a response from a human! They even tried to avoid this with the "Don't be evil" corporate mantra. Well, it lasted over a decade, I suppose I should be happy. But I'm not.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Apple removed some apps from their store, and stores some encrypted data (but not the keys) in China. Not selling people a VPN app is totally different from telling the government if they search the web for "Winnie the Pooh" and getting them sent to jail.
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...if you can be worst!