I'm afraid this only proves you're out of touch. Neither Google nor Slashdot are telling me they'll track me when visiting Slashdot; yet Slashdot notifies Google of my activity. Neither Google, nor my credit card company, nor the supermarket where I'm buying something tell me my purchase, even though not on-line will still end up in Google's databases. When Google cars drove in neighborhoods and "accidentally on purpose" intercepted WiFi activity for years, they never told me (or anyone) anything - until an audit requested by Germany's data protection agency caught them. So describing Google's activity as spying is perfectly correct.
...given we're arguing on a thread about something Mr. Damore said, it's not like he's been silenced now is it?
He has been fired for saying something. Other people who may be sharing his concerns will take note, and think twice before raising them. This is effectively shutting up the discussion. As an aside, the way Google fired Damore for raising concerns in an internal forum specifically presented as a place to raise concerns reminds me irresistibly of this little gem:
"I want someone to tell me", Lieutenant Scheisskopf beseeched to them all prayerfully. "If any of it is my fault, I want to be told." "He wants someone to tell him," Clevinger said. "He wants everyone to keep still, idiot," Yossarian answered. "Didn't you hear him?" Clevinger argued. "I heard him," Yossarian replied."I heard him say very loudly and very distinctly that he wants every one of us to keep our mouths shut if we know what's good for us." "I won't punish you", Lieutenant Scheisskopf swore. "He says he won't punish me", said Clevinger. "He'll castrate you," said Yosarrian. "I swear I won't punish you," said Lieutenant Scheisskopf."I'll be grateful to the man who tells me the truth." "He'll hate you", said Yossarian."To his dying day he'll hate you."
Don't forget the original income source recommended directly by Stallman: sell open source t-shirts and mugs. Immeasurable wealth is within every open source developer's reach!
I wouldn't even go as far as that. Just banning all non-opted-in tracking would be good enough for me. Any tracking event Google gets can only be used if Google can prove the event comes from one of their opted-in customers. If it does, they can log it, save it forever and data-mine it to their hearts' content. But if they can't prove this link, they must delete the event from their system immediately; not save it, not correlate it, not sell it to other parties.
Google can make "consent to tracking" a condition for accessing GMail, search, maps or other services; and maybe many people would be ok with the trade-off. But Google shouldn't have the right to track anybody they feel like, blithely disregarding their wishes. The choice whether to participate to Google's data collection or not needs to belong to the person being tracked.
Anonymity does not mean you as an individual cannot be identified. It just means you haven't been - yet.
Excellent post, but I think you err on the side of too much optimism. Anonymity doesn't mean you haven't been identified yet; it means you have not been told you were identified yet.
Shitty privacy laws from shitty paid-for public "servants".
And not likely to change anytime soon, what with both Facebook and Google getting so deep into politics and enthusiastically participating in the congressmen pay-to-own market. This, together with the informational services they provide to some various government agencies puts them in a strong position to stop inconvenient legislation. At this time I can't think of any opposing entity with enough clout or deep pockets to stop those behemoths from trampling all over our privacy.
FWIW none of the Google security and privacy engineers I know have any concern about having a Google Home in their house, and many do. Those who don't, don't because they don't see the value, not because they perceive privacy or security problems.
I'll venture to say that somebody who works at Google already doesn't care about privacy - in particular for other people. It's probably a condition of employment. But that's not the issue. If you choose to be tracked, by buying a Google Home or suchlike, that's fine. The issue is that Google will track you whether you choose to be tracked or not, and there is no way to opt out (and no, the current "solution" they suggest, to create an account with them in order to to tell them "don't track" is not sufficient or even workable).
IMO, the privacy concerns are overblown and based on a misunderstanding of how the tech works,
IMO it's Google and other similar companies' business model that's based on a misunderstanding: the misunderstanding by the general population of Google's actions and scale of data gathering. As people were generally unaware, Google has expanded their spying and made stalking and data slurping the current accepted model for anything. They have basically poisoned the internet; it's not easy (if even possible) to get on the web with a reasonable expectancy of privacy anymore, mainly due to Google and their actions.
Google should be harshly regulated: they should only be allowed to collect data of people that explicitly opt in to being tracked. Any data Google collects that can't be directly correlated to one of their opt in customers should be immediately discarded. Of course, Google can block people who haven't opted-in to tracking from GMail or Google Maps or whatnot. I'm sure that trade-off would be totally acceptable for many privacy concerned people.
Unfortunately the chances of such a regulation are slim; as Google is well aware their model is based on abusing people's privacy, and that there is a risk of legal action - they spend huge amounts on lobbying, apparently being on track to become the largest political contributor in Washington.
Or you just wanted standard TV but you have seen this one is "smart" so it must be better?
No - I actually want a dumb TV, 4k, non-curved, no 3D, diagonal 80" or more, with 2 or more HDMI inputs. I'd like OLED, but it's not a deal-breaker. I'm willing to pay a reasonable price. I did the rounds of online and offline stores. It's very difficult to find such a thing - the one closest to my specs is a Samsung (QM85D QMD), but it's more than twice the price of a "smart" TV of similar capabilities.
Pretty much the only reason I let my "smart" TV connect to the Internet is for firmware updates.
Unless there are obvious defect in the basic TV functionality, firmware updates aren't necessary, and can't be trusted. Most updates those days seem to be anti-consumer - they just add more ways for monetizing you. For example (Samsung, I'm looking at you), you get this wonderful new feature where they show ads in the TV menus, or they start recording you and reporting to the mothership for extra spying cough LG cough or put some pay channel you never want to use front and center in the menus, and make it non-removable.
Even with Sony, which still has the decency not to push adds in the menus, you still need to agree to Google's Terms and Conditions before you can even start using your new TV. Blow this for a game of soldiers; I'm buying a TV, not consenting to be another cattle in Google's farm.
I've been looking for a new TV lately, and there is no big screen, good quality dumb TV available. The alternatives are either monitors for commercial use (but they cost an arm, a leg plus another organ to be specified later at the seller's convenience), or get a smart TV and never, never connect it to the Internet.
if it was my data they wouldn't even let it onto their network!
You don't really understand how it works, do you?
if you want it to be "your data" then you run it on your servers.
That's naive, simplistic and, unfortunately, wrong. Running your own servers isn't enough - Google is collecting much more data than what users intentionally put into their systems, and therein lies the problem. Google is collecting data even if people have no direct interaction with Google or their properties. Are you checking Slashdot? Well, Slashdot reports you to Google, via calls to google-analytics and gstatic. Were you notified of this? Heck, no. Can you opt out? Only by not using Slashdot, or thousands of other sites. Are you using some WIFI somewhere? Chances are they use Google DNS, and Google will record your queries and correlate your patterns of use until they know it's you.
Even if you decide to give up on the whole internet thing and only live off-line, Google's eye is still on you. Are you using your credit card at some brick and mortar store? Google knows, because they buy your credit card transaction history. You haven't consented to any of this pervasive data slurping, you aren't notified, and you can't opt out. Even if you don't have any Google accounts, even if you never go to any of Google's properties, and don't even have an Android phone, you WILL be tracked.
Look, space is nice and stuff, but the country has finite resources and they must be used on the most urgent issues. Rich folks desperately need a tax cut right now, so let Japan or India go to the moon while American leaders focus on the important things.
sooner or later, DevOps HAD to no longer be the New Hotness. . . Of course, the question is. . . what comes next ?
I think the time has come for MangeOps - A software engineering practice that aims at unifying management (Mange) and software operation (Ops)
The goals of MangeOps span the entire business pipeline. They include:
Improved customer complaints frequency
Faster time to failure
Higher failure rate of new releases
Shortened lead time between critical breakages
Faster mean time to market speak recovery (in the event of a new release crashing or otherwise disabling the current system)
MangeOps aims to minimize the predictability, efficiency, security, and maintainability of operational processes. MangeOps principles demand strong interdepartmental time wasting - team-building and other employee engagement activities are often used, to create an environment that reduces communication and forces frequent and mandatory cultural change within an organization. Teamâ"building activities can include board games, trust activities, employee engagement seminars and other activities that displace engineering time.
LMOL uh no Potsy. Goldman Sachs helped them big time.
That's downright silly. Goldman Sachs are no angels, but blaming them for the Greek crisis is similar to a bad craftsman blaming his tools. All Goldman Sachs did was enable multiple incompetent and dishonest Greek governments to screw all pooches they could get their paws on. It was not Goldman Sachs that was deciding Greek policy. It was consecutive Greek governments from all parties. They chose to cook the books, they enabled and enjoyed massive corruption, they stole and wasted money like it was going out of style. And it was the Greek people that cheerfully and repeatedly voted those characters in, because they liked the populist give-aways, and thought the rest of Europe has a duty to pay for their lifestyle. So, sorry, I'm not at all buying into the Greek victimhood narrative.
Greece had a golden opportunity to get loans at a very low interest rate, because lenders saw "Germany" on the EU credit card Greece was using. Had the Greeks had even a smidgen of vision, they'd have used this to invest, modernize their economy and infrastructure, increase their productivity. Instead, they wasted all the money on corruption, on give-aways, on the most inefficient and bloated public sector in the EU (jobs for the boys!), on the earliest retirement age in the EU, and so on. And when the brown and smelly hit the fan, what was the Greek reaction? Do you think any of them - politicians, or population, say "we fucked up, we need to fix it somehow"? No, they hurled insults at the EU and Germany, they demonstrated in the streets, they ran referendums trying to blackmail Europe into keeping paying for their undeservedly high quality of life. And I still don't see concerted effort to fix the problems - even now, five years or more after the beginning of the issues, Greece is still almost at the bottom of the EU countries in the Corruption Perception Index published by Transparency International; only Bulgaria scores worse.
The EU had no interest in helping Greece.
First, that's bull. The EU went overboard in helping Greece - they got hundreds of billions in bailouts and bank recapitalization, creditors were forced to accept "haircuts", and so on. Second, why would the EU prioritize Greece for help? If it's about helping the quality of life of the population, there are many other countries in the EU that make do with much less money than Greece. For example, the average Bulgarian's annual income is only about one third of the average Greek's. If anybody has a claim on European help, it's the poorest countries, not Greece.
The law should follow the people, not the other way arround
But that is what happens. When people really are on a certain side, the law does follow - albeit more slowly. See what happened with gay marriage, where, once people changed their viewpoint, the law changed as well. However, there is no clear majority that favors your point of view. I'd argue that Trump's election proves the contrary (and yes, I know he didn't get a majority of voters, and yes, I know it was the Russians). But almost half of the voters chose him, so you can't say "the people" are on the side of open immigration, and the law should follow. And even if it were true, the correct process is to change the law, not just blithely ignore it.
No, this is not a slippery slope where I can go and do whatever I like.
How can you prove this? You have a problem with immigration law, so you break it. Others have problems with environmental protection laws - are you ok with them breaking it? Yet others have problems with abortion laws, with freedom of religion, with drug laws, with anti-monopoly laws, or even with driving regulations; heck, I'm sure there are people who would rather not be subject to property protection laws or anti-rape laws. What makes your breaking of the law ok, but not theirs? Please explain.
Yours is really a pedant point - I thought it was clear the whole discussion is about derivative code. Well, there's always somebody jumping in to kvetch that not all assumptions were clearly and separately stated at length.
Whether B has the right to choose his license is precisely the subject of the discussion, and the difference between BSD and GPL. You're wrong saying "B never had the right to choose licensing". He can choose licensing (of derivative code, see, I'm stating the assumption clearly) provided the author of the original, (that is A), grants him the right to do so. In this case, A has already done this by publishing his code under the BSD.
This discussion is really not about A and B (who in this example are the actual code writers). This thread is about the GPL supporter, C. What is happening in this thread is that various Cs attack the original publisher, A, because he isn't forcing B to give them his (B's) code. The various Cs bellyache because they only get A's code, but they also wanted B's.
Now, as C, you could argue that the more code is openly available, the better the whole ecosystem is. But this is not the argument the grandparent was making - he was spinning this as "taking away rights", when in fact he never had those rights. That was the fallacy I objected to.
The BSD license grants an exception to copyright, (like all distribution licenses for copyrighted works,) which lets you copy it, but also lets you take away that permission from whoever you distribute the software too.
I keep hearing this flawed argument every time this particular discussion comes around (every Saturday, it seems like). It surprises me people still fall for it. It's a fallacy, based on confusion between the code developed by the original publisher and the code developed by other people.
If party A releases some code under the BSD licence, party B can't take away party C's permission to use A's code. B has the freedom to distribute his code under any licence he feels like, but can't infringe C's freedom to use A's code any way C likes. By contrast, the GPL removes B's right to release his own code under whatever licence works best for him. Ironically, this restriction of B's rights is called "freedom" by GPL supporters, and the BSD licence that allows all rights *to A's code* is called "less free" than the GPL that allows fewer rights.
Very, very difficult in the US. The process takes years, and acceptance is unlikely even then. That's why there are illegal immigrants.
I don't think that is relevant or should be brought in this discussion. It just confuses the issue.
If the law doesn't allow something, or makes it difficult, it's because that's how the people of the land have decided things should be. Of course, some laws may be unreasonable or should be changed (and, FWIW, I do believe immigration law is really in need of an overhaul), but that's another discussion - there are mechanisms in place to change laws people don't like. They may be slow, but that's also intentional - and a good thing, IMO.
In the meantime, the law is what it is, and whether it's inconvenient, or whether somebody really really doesn't want/doesn't feel like following the law doesn't make breaking the law acceptable. Yes, illegal immigrants really really want to stay in the USA. Yes, getting a visa legally is difficult, and probably many of them wouldn't qualify anyway. Neither of those things should matter; and I think somebody who has already demonstrated disregard for American law shouldn't get an easy path to citizenship.
Many people advocate breaking laws, with the best of intentions. For example, all the cities declaring themselves sanctuaries; that's driven by an admirable sentiment, but is in my opinion deeply flawed. Even though we all have seen exceptions, and complain about this daily, respect of laws in America is still much more prevalent than in places like Mexico. People who just go and break laws they consider unacceptable, or obsolete, or even unjust, instead of working to change those laws via existing constitutional mechanisms undermine this respect; that, I believe, creates a very dangerous precedent.
The digital computer is the same basic design as it was in the 1960s.
That's not really relevant though. Compare instead the software and networking capabilities of the sixties with the current ones, because it's much more plausible that AI will be brought into existence by large networks of those simple computers you deride. Single components of those networks don't need to be themselves intelligent, and shouldn't need radically new designs - because AI won't reside into some Asimovian monolithic positronic brain, but in the whole system.
That seems quite obvious if you look at the brain cell, who has more or less the same basic design as the three billion years old amoeba. Individual cells can't think, but large associations of them can and do.
[Microsoft] want the same kind of information the Google has - and they want to use it for the same purposes.
That doesn't make a lot of sense to me - Google owns Doubleclick, and they make their money almost exclusively from ads. The information they get is extremely important to them - that's what they sell to their clients. Google is essentially an advertising company, and all their offerings are tailored to collect more information on you - who are Google's product, not Google's customer.
Microsoft has very different sources of income. For Microsoft you are the customer. They make their money from selling actual products and services. Collecting your data wouldn't be as valuable to them as it is for Google, so why would they make the effort and deal with the related hassles? Especially since, last I looked, the online services division in MS was losing, not making money.
In view of this, your statement doesn't seem believable. Do you have any sources to back it?
Google can't be trusted so you moved to Microsoft.... Are you high?
There is a significant difference though. Microsoft wants to sell you stuff. You may not like the stuff they sell, but once they get your money the deal is done and finished. You can choose not to buy what they sell, and at this point you have no relationship with them - nothing to do with them or their products.
Google however doesn't want to sell you stuff. They want to sell YOU. You, your life, your very existence is what Google wants. Google's never-sleeping eye is on you all the time. They stalk you, on the web and outside it, whether you use any of their products or not. On the web, they'll follow you around, read your mail - if you're foolish enough to have a gmail account, log all your DNS queries if you're foolish enough to use their DNS servers. In real life, they'll log all the places you ever go, if you have an Android phone with location services. They'll get all your credit card transactions, without any way for you to stop it, or even be notified when they do. And now, they're even putting spies (sorry, "personal assistants") in your home to eavesdrop on anything anybody says. And there is no easy way to avoid them. Even if you don't use GMail, Google search or maps, lots and lots of non-Google web sites are happy to snitch on you - for example, Slashdot calls both gstatic and google-analytics.
If you don't trust Microsoft, you can live a Microsoft-free life. But, even if you don't trust Google, you have no way to avoid their collecting of YOUR data. You won't even know how your data ends up in their files. They don't particularly need your trust for that. This, in my opinion is an order of magnitude more evil than anything Microsoft has ever done.
I can't for the life of me figure out why I would want to buy this thing.
Moreover, you need a Google account to use the Shield. Am I not getting stalked enough by Google that I need to have them snoop on my TV viewing as well? Blow this for a game of soldiers.
I did reframe the question, not in terms of intentionality, but in terms of harm. So let me be clearer: Can you give me any examples of users being harmed? I can give you extensive examples of users being helped.
See, you're doing it again - spinning and trying to deflect the issue. This is bad form, even if your paycheck comes from Google.
Invading somebody's privacy is bad in itself, period. Whether some demonstrable harm results is irrelevant. Would you be comfortable if your nosy neighbor drilled holes in your walls to spy on you, installed radio bugs on your car to find out where you're going at all times, followed you to the grocery store to ask the sales guy what you bought and dug through your garbage to read your discarded mail? Even if he didn't do anything with the knowledge? Google does all this and worse - yet you're trying to say those abuses are OK for Google, because "no users were harmed".
This is disingenuous in a number of ways. To begin with, your blanket assertion that no users were harmed is contradicted by the links I posted, which show Google settling class actions brought by users who felt they were harmed. Next, even if no users have been harmed yet, how can you guarantee they won't harmed in the future? Google may fail to protect the data, or may change their policies. Maybe Google will get more active politically, as they seem to be doing recently. We found out only the other day that Google is already building databases and lists of thought criminals. It's not clear to me how those blacklists can be used only for good. The only way to guarantee no users are harmed is not to store any of this data. But of course, that's the core of Google's business model.
What I really hate is the industrial scale of Google's tracking and the insidiousness of some of Google's actions (for example, providing "free" tools for web sites to use, but sneaking extra user tracking in them). I'm avoiding using Google's properties directly, don't have a Google account, never go to Google search, maps or others; I'm still not safe from Google spying. Any random web site may report you to Google as a side effect of using whatever tool Google so selflessly makes available to web sites. This slashdot page, for example, calls into Google analytics and gstatic.com. I block those domains from my home computers, but it means if I ever access Slashdot from another site, I get logged by Google. Even outside of the web your shopping is not private, since Google will suck in your credit card transactions data anyway and store it forever.
Seriously, can you cite some examples of Google leaking private information, or someone being damaged by information stolen from Google?
Easy - here's one that got settled only yesterday. And here's EPIC's take on it (PDF), where they criticize Google for pushing for a settlement that doesn't block them from continuing their practices, as long as they dump a few extra lines in the privacy policy - which Google knows full well nobody reads.
I understand from another post that you work for Google, so I can see why you're motivated to spin things to make the company look better. However, your post is quite dishonest. The GP criticizes Google as an invader of everybody's privacy. Your reply tries to re-frame the question, by making it whether Google unintentionally gives the data they gather to others. This is not correct. Privacy is not about Google not leaking data to others (and I note you say nothing about selling the data intentionally). Privacy is Google not collecting and not storing all this data, especially from people who haven't even signed up with them. But Google is collecting it all, from Google Analytics, from Google Fonts, from your e-mail, from your phone location, from your credit card purchases and so on. Their whole business model is based on spying on you. And they're the ones who started this trend of tracking and monetizing internet users that is making the Internet worse and worse everyday. That's why Google is the worst company in what regards privacy.
Slashdot Mirror
I have never heard of Google spying on anyone.
I'm afraid this only proves you're out of touch. Neither Google nor Slashdot are telling me they'll track me when visiting Slashdot; yet Slashdot notifies Google of my activity. Neither Google, nor my credit card company, nor the supermarket where I'm buying something tell me my purchase, even though not on-line will still end up in Google's databases. When Google cars drove in neighborhoods and "accidentally on purpose" intercepted WiFi activity for years, they never told me (or anyone) anything - until an audit requested by Germany's data protection agency caught them. So describing Google's activity as spying is perfectly correct.
...given we're arguing on a thread about something Mr. Damore said, it's not like he's been silenced now is it?
He has been fired for saying something. Other people who may be sharing his concerns will take note, and think twice before raising them. This is effectively shutting up the discussion.
As an aside, the way Google fired Damore for raising concerns in an internal forum specifically presented as a place to raise concerns reminds me irresistibly of this little gem:
"I want someone to tell me", Lieutenant Scheisskopf beseeched to them all prayerfully. "If any of it is my fault, I want to be told."
"He wants someone to tell him," Clevinger said.
"He wants everyone to keep still, idiot," Yossarian answered.
"Didn't you hear him?" Clevinger argued.
"I heard him," Yossarian replied."I heard him say very loudly and very distinctly that he wants every one of us to keep our mouths shut if we know what's good for us."
"I won't punish you", Lieutenant Scheisskopf swore.
"He says he won't punish me", said Clevinger.
"He'll castrate you," said Yosarrian.
"I swear I won't punish you," said Lieutenant Scheisskopf."I'll be grateful to the man who tells me the truth."
"He'll hate you", said Yossarian."To his dying day he'll hate you."
Don't forget the original income source recommended directly by Stallman: sell open source t-shirts and mugs. Immeasurable wealth is within every open source developer's reach!
Ban all online advertising and tracking.
I wouldn't even go as far as that. Just banning all non-opted-in tracking would be good enough for me. Any tracking event Google gets can only be used if Google can prove the event comes from one of their opted-in customers. If it does, they can log it, save it forever and data-mine it to their hearts' content. But if they can't prove this link, they must delete the event from their system immediately; not save it, not correlate it, not sell it to other parties.
Google can make "consent to tracking" a condition for accessing GMail, search, maps or other services; and maybe many people would be ok with the trade-off. But Google shouldn't have the right to track anybody they feel like, blithely disregarding their wishes. The choice whether to participate to Google's data collection or not needs to belong to the person being tracked.
And I bet you set it on Vibrate first...
Anonymity does not mean you as an individual cannot be identified. It just means you haven't been - yet.
Excellent post, but I think you err on the side of too much optimism. Anonymity doesn't mean you haven't been identified yet; it means you have not been told you were identified yet.
Shitty privacy laws from shitty paid-for public "servants".
And not likely to change anytime soon, what with both Facebook and Google getting so deep into politics and enthusiastically participating in the congressmen pay-to-own market. This, together with the informational services they provide to some various government agencies puts them in a strong position to stop inconvenient legislation. At this time I can't think of any opposing entity with enough clout or deep pockets to stop those behemoths from trampling all over our privacy.
FWIW none of the Google security and privacy engineers I know have any concern about having a Google Home in their house, and many do. Those who don't, don't because they don't see the value, not because they perceive privacy or security problems.
I'll venture to say that somebody who works at Google already doesn't care about privacy - in particular for other people. It's probably a condition of employment. But that's not the issue. If you choose to be tracked, by buying a Google Home or suchlike, that's fine. The issue is that Google will track you whether you choose to be tracked or not, and there is no way to opt out (and no, the current "solution" they suggest, to create an account with them in order to to tell them "don't track" is not sufficient or even workable).
IMO, the privacy concerns are overblown and based on a misunderstanding of how the tech works,
IMO it's Google and other similar companies' business model that's based on a misunderstanding: the misunderstanding by the general population of Google's actions and scale of data gathering. As people were generally unaware, Google has expanded their spying and made stalking and data slurping the current accepted model for anything. They have basically poisoned the internet; it's not easy (if even possible) to get on the web with a reasonable expectancy of privacy anymore, mainly due to Google and their actions.
Google should be harshly regulated: they should only be allowed to collect data of people that explicitly opt in to being tracked. Any data Google collects that can't be directly correlated to one of their opt in customers should be immediately discarded. Of course, Google can block people who haven't opted-in to tracking from GMail or Google Maps or whatnot. I'm sure that trade-off would be totally acceptable for many privacy concerned people.
Unfortunately the chances of such a regulation are slim; as Google is well aware their model is based on abusing people's privacy, and that there is a risk of legal action - they spend huge amounts on lobbying, apparently being on track to become the largest political contributor in Washington.
Or you just wanted standard TV but you have seen this one is "smart" so it must be better?
No - I actually want a dumb TV, 4k, non-curved, no 3D, diagonal 80" or more, with 2 or more HDMI inputs. I'd like OLED, but it's not a deal-breaker. I'm willing to pay a reasonable price. I did the rounds of online and offline stores. It's very difficult to find such a thing - the one closest to my specs is a Samsung (QM85D QMD), but it's more than twice the price of a "smart" TV of similar capabilities.
Pretty much the only reason I let my "smart" TV connect to the Internet is for firmware updates.
Unless there are obvious defect in the basic TV functionality, firmware updates aren't necessary, and can't be trusted. Most updates those days seem to be anti-consumer - they just add more ways for monetizing you. For example (Samsung, I'm looking at you), you get this wonderful new feature where they show ads in the TV menus, or they start recording you and reporting to the mothership for extra spying cough LG cough or put some pay channel you never want to use front and center in the menus, and make it non-removable.
Even with Sony, which still has the decency not to push adds in the menus, you still need to agree to Google's Terms and Conditions before you can even start using your new TV. Blow this for a game of soldiers; I'm buying a TV, not consenting to be another cattle in Google's farm.
I've been looking for a new TV lately, and there is no big screen, good quality dumb TV available. The alternatives are either monitors for commercial use (but they cost an arm, a leg plus another organ to be specified later at the seller's convenience), or get a smart TV and never, never connect it to the Internet.
if it was my data they wouldn't even let it onto their network!
You don't really understand how it works, do you?
if you want it to be "your data" then you run it on your servers.
That's naive, simplistic and, unfortunately, wrong. Running your own servers isn't enough - Google is collecting much more data than what users intentionally put into their systems, and therein lies the problem. Google is collecting data even if people have no direct interaction with Google or their properties. Are you checking Slashdot? Well, Slashdot reports you to Google, via calls to google-analytics and gstatic. Were you notified of this? Heck, no. Can you opt out? Only by not using Slashdot, or thousands of other sites. Are you using some WIFI somewhere? Chances are they use Google DNS, and Google will record your queries and correlate your patterns of use until they know it's you.
Even if you decide to give up on the whole internet thing and only live off-line, Google's eye is still on you. Are you using your credit card at some brick and mortar store? Google knows, because they buy your credit card transaction history. You haven't consented to any of this pervasive data slurping, you aren't notified, and you can't opt out. Even if you don't have any Google accounts, even if you never go to any of Google's properties, and don't even have an Android phone, you WILL be tracked.
Look, space is nice and stuff, but the country has finite resources and they must be used on the most urgent issues. Rich folks desperately need a tax cut right now, so let Japan or India go to the moon while American leaders focus on the important things.
sooner or later, DevOps HAD to no longer be the New Hotness. . . Of course, the question is. . . what comes next ?
I think the time has come for MangeOps - A software engineering practice that aims at unifying management (Mange) and software operation (Ops)
The goals of MangeOps span the entire business pipeline. They include:
MangeOps aims to minimize the predictability, efficiency, security, and maintainability of operational processes. MangeOps principles demand strong interdepartmental time wasting - team-building and other employee engagement activities are often used, to create an environment that reduces communication and forces frequent and mandatory cultural change within an organization. Teamâ"building activities can include board games, trust activities, employee engagement seminars and other activities that displace engineering time.
LMOL uh no Potsy. Goldman Sachs helped them big time.
That's downright silly. Goldman Sachs are no angels, but blaming them for the Greek crisis is similar to a bad craftsman blaming his tools. All Goldman Sachs did was enable multiple incompetent and dishonest Greek governments to screw all pooches they could get their paws on. It was not Goldman Sachs that was deciding Greek policy. It was consecutive Greek governments from all parties. They chose to cook the books, they enabled and enjoyed massive corruption, they stole and wasted money like it was going out of style. And it was the Greek people that cheerfully and repeatedly voted those characters in, because they liked the populist give-aways, and thought the rest of Europe has a duty to pay for their lifestyle. So, sorry, I'm not at all buying into the Greek victimhood narrative.
Greece had a golden opportunity to get loans at a very low interest rate, because lenders saw "Germany" on the EU credit card Greece was using. Had the Greeks had even a smidgen of vision, they'd have used this to invest, modernize their economy and infrastructure, increase their productivity. Instead, they wasted all the money on corruption, on give-aways, on the most inefficient and bloated public sector in the EU (jobs for the boys!), on the earliest retirement age in the EU, and so on. And when the brown and smelly hit the fan, what was the Greek reaction? Do you think any of them - politicians, or population, say "we fucked up, we need to fix it somehow"? No, they hurled insults at the EU and Germany, they demonstrated in the streets, they ran referendums trying to blackmail Europe into keeping paying for their undeservedly high quality of life. And I still don't see concerted effort to fix the problems - even now, five years or more after the beginning of the issues, Greece is still almost at the bottom of the EU countries in the Corruption Perception Index published by Transparency International; only Bulgaria scores worse.
The EU had no interest in helping Greece.
First, that's bull. The EU went overboard in helping Greece - they got hundreds of billions in bailouts and bank recapitalization, creditors were forced to accept "haircuts", and so on. Second, why would the EU prioritize Greece for help? If it's about helping the quality of life of the population, there are many other countries in the EU that make do with much less money than Greece. For example, the average Bulgarian's annual income is only about one third of the average Greek's. If anybody has a claim on European help, it's the poorest countries, not Greece.
Hurray for the gostak!
The law should follow the people, not the other way arround
But that is what happens. When people really are on a certain side, the law does follow - albeit more slowly. See what happened with gay marriage, where, once people changed their viewpoint, the law changed as well. However, there is no clear majority that favors your point of view. I'd argue that Trump's election proves the contrary (and yes, I know he didn't get a majority of voters, and yes, I know it was the Russians). But almost half of the voters chose him, so you can't say "the people" are on the side of open immigration, and the law should follow. And even if it were true, the correct process is to change the law, not just blithely ignore it.
No, this is not a slippery slope where I can go and do whatever I like.
How can you prove this? You have a problem with immigration law, so you break it. Others have problems with environmental protection laws - are you ok with them breaking it? Yet others have problems with abortion laws, with freedom of religion, with drug laws, with anti-monopoly laws, or even with driving regulations; heck, I'm sure there are people who would rather not be subject to property protection laws or anti-rape laws. What makes your breaking of the law ok, but not theirs? Please explain.
Yours is really a pedant point - I thought it was clear the whole discussion is about derivative code. Well, there's always somebody jumping in to kvetch that not all assumptions were clearly and separately stated at length.
Whether B has the right to choose his license is precisely the subject of the discussion, and the difference between BSD and GPL. You're wrong saying "B never had the right to choose licensing". He can choose licensing (of derivative code, see, I'm stating the assumption clearly) provided the author of the original, (that is A), grants him the right to do so. In this case, A has already done this by publishing his code under the BSD.
This discussion is really not about A and B (who in this example are the actual code writers). This thread is about the GPL supporter, C. What is happening in this thread is that various Cs attack the original publisher, A, because he isn't forcing B to give them his (B's) code. The various Cs bellyache because they only get A's code, but they also wanted B's.
Now, as C, you could argue that the more code is openly available, the better the whole ecosystem is. But this is not the argument the grandparent was making - he was spinning this as "taking away rights", when in fact he never had those rights. That was the fallacy I objected to.
The BSD license grants an exception to copyright, (like all distribution licenses for copyrighted works,) which lets you copy it, but also lets you take away that permission from whoever you distribute the software too.
I keep hearing this flawed argument every time this particular discussion comes around (every Saturday, it seems like). It surprises me people still fall for it. It's a fallacy, based on confusion between the code developed by the original publisher and the code developed by other people.
If party A releases some code under the BSD licence, party B can't take away party C's permission to use A's code. B has the freedom to distribute his code under any licence he feels like, but can't infringe C's freedom to use A's code any way C likes. By contrast, the GPL removes B's right to release his own code under whatever licence works best for him. Ironically, this restriction of B's rights is called "freedom" by GPL supporters, and the BSD licence that allows all rights *to A's code* is called "less free" than the GPL that allows fewer rights.
Very, very difficult in the US. The process takes years, and acceptance is unlikely even then. That's why there are illegal immigrants.
I don't think that is relevant or should be brought in this discussion. It just confuses the issue.
If the law doesn't allow something, or makes it difficult, it's because that's how the people of the land have decided things should be. Of course, some laws may be unreasonable or should be changed (and, FWIW, I do believe immigration law is really in need of an overhaul), but that's another discussion - there are mechanisms in place to change laws people don't like. They may be slow, but that's also intentional - and a good thing, IMO.
In the meantime, the law is what it is, and whether it's inconvenient, or whether somebody really really doesn't want/doesn't feel like following the law doesn't make breaking the law acceptable. Yes, illegal immigrants really really want to stay in the USA. Yes, getting a visa legally is difficult, and probably many of them wouldn't qualify anyway. Neither of those things should matter; and I think somebody who has already demonstrated disregard for American law shouldn't get an easy path to citizenship.
Many people advocate breaking laws, with the best of intentions. For example, all the cities declaring themselves sanctuaries; that's driven by an admirable sentiment, but is in my opinion deeply flawed. Even though we all have seen exceptions, and complain about this daily, respect of laws in America is still much more prevalent than in places like Mexico. People who just go and break laws they consider unacceptable, or obsolete, or even unjust, instead of working to change those laws via existing constitutional mechanisms undermine this respect; that, I believe, creates a very dangerous precedent.
The digital computer is the same basic design as it was in the 1960s.
That's not really relevant though. Compare instead the software and networking capabilities of the sixties with the current ones, because it's much more plausible that AI will be brought into existence by large networks of those simple computers you deride. Single components of those networks don't need to be themselves intelligent, and shouldn't need radically new designs - because AI won't reside into some Asimovian monolithic positronic brain, but in the whole system.
That seems quite obvious if you look at the brain cell, who has more or less the same basic design as the three billion years old amoeba. Individual cells can't think, but large associations of them can and do.
[Microsoft] want the same kind of information the Google has - and they want to use it for the same purposes.
That doesn't make a lot of sense to me - Google owns Doubleclick, and they make their money almost exclusively from ads. The information they get is extremely important to them - that's what they sell to their clients. Google is essentially an advertising company, and all their offerings are tailored to collect more information on you - who are Google's product, not Google's customer.
Microsoft has very different sources of income. For Microsoft you are the customer. They make their money from selling actual products and services. Collecting your data wouldn't be as valuable to them as it is for Google, so why would they make the effort and deal with the related hassles? Especially since, last I looked, the online services division in MS was losing, not making money.
In view of this, your statement doesn't seem believable. Do you have any sources to back it?
Google can't be trusted so you moved to Microsoft. ... Are you high?
There is a significant difference though. Microsoft wants to sell you stuff. You may not like the stuff they sell, but once they get your money the deal is done and finished. You can choose not to buy what they sell, and at this point you have no relationship with them - nothing to do with them or their products.
Google however doesn't want to sell you stuff. They want to sell YOU. You, your life, your very existence is what Google wants. Google's never-sleeping eye is on you all the time. They stalk you, on the web and outside it, whether you use any of their products or not. On the web, they'll follow you around, read your mail - if you're foolish enough to have a gmail account, log all your DNS queries if you're foolish enough to use their DNS servers. In real life, they'll log all the places you ever go, if you have an Android phone with location services. They'll get all your credit card transactions, without any way for you to stop it, or even be notified when they do. And now, they're even putting spies (sorry, "personal assistants") in your home to eavesdrop on anything anybody says. And there is no easy way to avoid them. Even if you don't use GMail, Google search or maps, lots and lots of non-Google web sites are happy to snitch on you - for example, Slashdot calls both gstatic and google-analytics.
If you don't trust Microsoft, you can live a Microsoft-free life. But, even if you don't trust Google, you have no way to avoid their collecting of YOUR data. You won't even know how your data ends up in their files. They don't particularly need your trust for that. This, in my opinion is an order of magnitude more evil than anything Microsoft has ever done.
I can't for the life of me figure out why I would want to buy this thing.
Moreover, you need a Google account to use the Shield. Am I not getting stalked enough by Google that I need to have them snoop on my TV viewing as well? Blow this for a game of soldiers.
I did reframe the question, not in terms of intentionality, but in terms of harm. So let me be clearer: Can you give me any examples of users being harmed? I can give you extensive examples of users being helped.
See, you're doing it again - spinning and trying to deflect the issue. This is bad form, even if your paycheck comes from Google.
Invading somebody's privacy is bad in itself, period. Whether some demonstrable harm results is irrelevant. Would you be comfortable if your nosy neighbor drilled holes in your walls to spy on you, installed radio bugs on your car to find out where you're going at all times, followed you to the grocery store to ask the sales guy what you bought and dug through your garbage to read your discarded mail? Even if he didn't do anything with the knowledge? Google does all this and worse - yet you're trying to say those abuses are OK for Google, because "no users were harmed".
This is disingenuous in a number of ways. To begin with, your blanket assertion that no users were harmed is contradicted by the links I posted, which show Google settling class actions brought by users who felt they were harmed. Next, even if no users have been harmed yet, how can you guarantee they won't harmed in the future? Google may fail to protect the data, or may change their policies. Maybe Google will get more active politically, as they seem to be doing recently. We found out only the other day that Google is already building databases and lists of thought criminals. It's not clear to me how those blacklists can be used only for good. The only way to guarantee no users are harmed is not to store any of this data. But of course, that's the core of Google's business model.
What I really hate is the industrial scale of Google's tracking and the insidiousness of some of Google's actions (for example, providing "free" tools for web sites to use, but sneaking extra user tracking in them). I'm avoiding using Google's properties directly, don't have a Google account, never go to Google search, maps or others; I'm still not safe from Google spying. Any random web site may report you to Google as a side effect of using whatever tool Google so selflessly makes available to web sites. This slashdot page, for example, calls into Google analytics and gstatic.com. I block those domains from my home computers, but it means if I ever access Slashdot from another site, I get logged by Google. Even outside of the web your shopping is not private, since Google will suck in your credit card transactions data anyway and store it forever.
Seriously, can you cite some examples of Google leaking private information, or someone being damaged by information stolen from Google?
Easy - here's one that got settled only yesterday. And here's EPIC's take on it (PDF), where they criticize Google for pushing for a settlement that doesn't block them from continuing their practices, as long as they dump a few extra lines in the privacy policy - which Google knows full well nobody reads.
I understand from another post that you work for Google, so I can see why you're motivated to spin things to make the company look better. However, your post is quite dishonest. The GP criticizes Google as an invader of everybody's privacy. Your reply tries to re-frame the question, by making it whether Google unintentionally gives the data they gather to others. This is not correct. Privacy is not about Google not leaking data to others (and I note you say nothing about selling the data intentionally). Privacy is Google not collecting and not storing all this data, especially from people who haven't even signed up with them. But Google is collecting it all, from Google Analytics, from Google Fonts, from your e-mail, from your phone location, from your credit card purchases and so on. Their whole business model is based on spying on you. And they're the ones who started this trend of tracking and monetizing internet users that is making the Internet worse and worse everyday. That's why Google is the worst company in what regards privacy.