"He stressed that Brazilian officials had received 50,000 allegations of pedophilia in recent years.... Torres said he believed Google's data would incriminate around 200 pedophiles. They are exchanging telephone numbers, names of possible victims, the situations in which they live...90 percent of the 56,000 pedophilia allegations received in the past few years related to Orkut."
Sounds to me that an investigation has already begun, and that they have a decent idea that proof exists to incriminate a set number of people. And 56,000 allegations constitutes probable cause in my book.
Someone else here quoted another article stating Google did not immediately comply until the court system continued to apply further pressure.
56,000 allegations of child molestation in Brazil linked to Orkut should be enough reason for Google to look at that data. That is more than a hunch. That is probable cause.
And handing over data is different from convincting someone. Your search results may lead someone to look at you, but that isn't grounds to lock you up.
However, for the record, Google is the only major search company that refused to hand over search data to the US government.
There is a very interesting discussion here on suffering, the quality of human life, why it is humane to euthanize dogs, and evil to euthanize humans, etc.
However said discussion would be quite lengthy and off-topic.
A company operating in a country must follow the laws there. For instance, in Germany, it is illegal to deny the Holocaust. Google must enforce censorship laws in Germany, and no one calls them evil for that.
But they are evil if the follow the law in Brazil?
I'm not sure what the law says in the matter, and no one knows what Google will do with this new issue, because they haven't decided yet.
Complying a judge's order to hand over data on pedophiles does not compare to Nazi-era concentration camps.
You did use an extremely ridiculous example.
There is a high profile local murder case in the news these days about a child molester who raped his two daughters repeatedly. While he was on bail for the first charges, he then molested and killed another girl.
The investigation took YEARS for the murder, because even though he was a convicted felon (he was convicted on the earlier charges) people were lining up to protect his civil rights, and his right to privacy.
There was a big battle on whether or not the new murder trial was even allowed to mention whether or not he had been convicted previously of molestation.
Thankfully, the resolution however was that there was sufficient grounds to investigate him, search his belongings (find evidence), bring up old testimony, etc.
Privacy was trumped in the name of going after a pedophile, and I'd say justice was served. If we couldn't search anyone at any time (privacy trumping all, as many people so foolishly and fanatically suggesting here) we'd never be able to enforce any laws (or damn near it).
I asked for a specific example and you provide none.
Please provide an example where you are not capable of speaking out against the government. In turn, I will cite how you in fact just did speak out against your government freely.
The Patriot Act is flawed, but most people cite it with zero clue what they're talking about. It is a bipartisan supported mega-block of cludgy legislation. It did provide in-roads for warrantless wire-tapping (again, which both parties keep voting to continue) which is the closest we've gotten to facism, but it doesn't apply to the question I've asked.
When did we lose the freedom to question our government? We haven't! You prove my point for me, and prove yourself wrong by accusing our government of horrible deeds. Clearly you demonstrate that you have the freedom to do so.
As far as the Constitution, I'd argue the Legislative branch is abusing it considerably more. They passed the laws for warrantless wiretaps. Back when Newt Gingrinch was Speaker, he said it wasn't Congress' job to worry about whether or not the laws they passed were constitutional. I'd argue the "spirit" of the 14th Amendment proves him wrong, but that is a little tangential.
You say the Constitution is ignored and no one does anything? I say you are dead wrong. People have been pushing for Bush to be impeached, and the main reason it hasn't been successful is two-fold. 1 - They focus on invalid points, saying impeach him for starting a war, when Congress votes to go to war. 2 - Then they turn around and bring up wiretaps, again which is a shared blame with Congress. Congress can't hold him responsible without also pointing out their own blame.
But these things aren't ignored. People write about them every day. People are quite vocal, and they won't tolerate this shit. There will be plenty of new bodies in Washington next year.
This is precisely the reasoning in search warrants. When you have a warrant or probable cause, then up-holding laws at that moment trumps the privacy of the suspect.
Honestly I will be alarmed and concerned when Google hands over data of every user in Brazil as a means to catch a small group of pedophiles.
Pedophiles are often looked down upon in a worse light than murderers. I won't claim to know which is truly worse, but there are some who would claim that there are far worse things you can do to a person than kill them.
Read "Night" by Elie Wiesel. It is a first-hand accounting of the Holocaust, and what gets me is that the book isn't all angry, nor someone looking for pity. The author doesn't recount how horrible the Nazis were. While in the camp, he is brainwashed, turns on God, and begins to empathize with them. He begins to resent his father for being old and weak.
The Nazis didn't kill Elie Wiesel, but for a while they killed who he was, and everything he believed in. Perhaps a better example would be how the US government did everything to destroy Native American culture, even after they stopped killing Indians themselves. They had a policy of "Kill the Indian, Save the Man".
Which is worse? Killing a person, or destroying a culture and trying to wipe it from history?
Please name one example of facism we have in the US where someone was prosecuted for speaking out against the government. Last time I checked, people do it every day in this country (including your post) and have the freedom to continue to do so.
The Constitution (not that Congress knows what that is) prevents such a state from forming.
You just keep insisting that the sky is falling. You do realize however that you remove credibility from the beliefs you intend to espouse when you make such statements, right?
Do you honestly believe the privacy should trump child molestation?
Absolutes are wrong more often than not.
Which do you think applies more to "Don't Be Evil", protecting pedophiles, or protecting privacy?
And for the record, Google has the best privacy record out there. When the government wanted search data, Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo handed it over instantly. I believe Microsoft and Yahoo handed it over even BEFORE THEY WERE ASKED for the data.
Google fought to protect it. Privacy should be preserved, but not at the expense of other more important things.
If I were Google, and I had a motto of "Don't Be Evil", I wouldn't hand over all data and let people try to find pedophiles, but if I knew I had specific data on specific individuals that showed them to be pedophiles, or terrorists, I think I would in fact hand it over.
Not to mention, that I'm not sure any of us here are familiar with the laws in Brazil. Did Google have a choice in the matter?
There was a county recently (Nigeria?) had ordered a whole bunch of Linux PCs with Mandriva pre-installed, said price was a huge factor, and then at the last moment said they were going to install Windows on every one of them. In situations like that, I really believe they were at the very least offered the Windows licenses for free, and perhaps paid to install Windows. Microsoft doesn't want an entire generation of kids growing up learning Linux. Microsoft has shown they will take a loss to establish market share.
I'd be shocked if Microsoft charges more than $5-$10 for Windows on the XO. More than likely they'll "donate" the license to charity and take a tax write off to establish market share.
The nice thing is that the core KDE 4 libraries actually use less memory than KDE 3, and the same for QT. Even the new QT 4.4 brings some new memory performance gains.
There is a Google Summer of Code project to help develop a KDE for form-factor devices.
The interface needs to be reworked for smaller displays, and I'm sure some features could be cut. I think an optimized, properly designed KDE 4.1 could run reasonably well on the XO.
You're suggesting Windows runs well on older hardware, and that Linux doesn't? With what functionality?
Compare the Windows 3.1 kernel (and by the way, Windows 3.1 ran like a dog on the 386, it was so horrible that many people stuck with DOS for a while and continued to just release DOS apps with their own GUI) to a modern Linux kernel. Both can run on a 386, but the Linux kernel offers VASTLY more features than the Window 3.1 kernel.
When you compare, performance, features, scalability, etc. Windows can't hold a candle remotely to Linux.
Now there are clunky apps (OpenOffice) but as an OS, Linux is pretty damned hard to beat. And the Linux kernel has assembly as well. I think you need to seriously lay off the crack pipe by suggesting Windows scales and performs better than Linux.
I'm not ever suggesting anyone SHOULD switch to Windows, but some people want Windows. Having hardware powerful enough to support Windows is a selling point that helps push the hardware.
Flash on Linux is a precompiled binary for x86 (32-bit only) processors.
The XO uses a Geode processor, and it does support x86 instructions, but I don't believe it is a proper, native x86 processor. The Flash binary likely doesn't run on it.
Apparently the most popular use of the XO model in test-cases I've read is the camera. Apparently kids in Africa see tourists with cameras, but likely never had any access to document or record their lives before.
The camera can record brief bits of video. I wouldn't be shocked if users are peeved they can't upload said videos to sites like YouTube. I think that is a valid reason to ask for Flash support.
The one thing I rather like about Sugar, is that the interface was designed to be accessible in countries lacking proper localization, using symbols heavily in the interface, and by representing data graphically perhaps moreso than via text in some places.
It also allows young children who can't read to interface with the computer in a meaningful way.
Sugar was also designed around mesh-networking, power-consumption, e-reader mode, etc.
Certainly there is room for improvement, but Puppy/Slack/DSL would not have been a perfect implementation either.
Slashdot Mirror
That has been discussed here in this story-thread quite a bit.
If the data is hosted on servers outside of the country, then they can't get a warrant for that data. Brazil's court system lacks the jurisdiction.
Actually, you are wrong.
From the article.
"He stressed that Brazilian officials had received 50,000 allegations of pedophilia in recent years.... Torres said he believed Google's data would incriminate around 200 pedophiles. They are exchanging telephone numbers, names of possible victims, the situations in which they live...90 percent of the 56,000 pedophilia allegations received in the past few years related to Orkut."
Sounds to me that an investigation has already begun, and that they have a decent idea that proof exists to incriminate a set number of people. And 56,000 allegations constitutes probable cause in my book.
Someone else here quoted another article stating Google did not immediately comply until the court system continued to apply further pressure.
I suggest you do further reading on the issue.
56,000 allegations of child molestation in Brazil linked to Orkut should be enough reason for Google to look at that data. That is more than a hunch. That is probable cause.
And handing over data is different from convincting someone. Your search results may lead someone to look at you, but that isn't grounds to lock you up.
However, for the record, Google is the only major search company that refused to hand over search data to the US government.
There is a very interesting discussion here on suffering, the quality of human life, why it is humane to euthanize dogs, and evil to euthanize humans, etc.
However said discussion would be quite lengthy and off-topic.
What are the laws in Brazil?
A company operating in a country must follow the laws there. For instance, in Germany, it is illegal to deny the Holocaust. Google must enforce censorship laws in Germany, and no one calls them evil for that.
But they are evil if the follow the law in Brazil?
I'm not sure what the law says in the matter, and no one knows what Google will do with this new issue, because they haven't decided yet.
Complying a judge's order to hand over data on pedophiles does not compare to Nazi-era concentration camps.
You did use an extremely ridiculous example.
There is a high profile local murder case in the news these days about a child molester who raped his two daughters repeatedly. While he was on bail for the first charges, he then molested and killed another girl.
The investigation took YEARS for the murder, because even though he was a convicted felon (he was convicted on the earlier charges) people were lining up to protect his civil rights, and his right to privacy.
There was a big battle on whether or not the new murder trial was even allowed to mention whether or not he had been convicted previously of molestation.
Thankfully, the resolution however was that there was sufficient grounds to investigate him, search his belongings (find evidence), bring up old testimony, etc.
Privacy was trumped in the name of going after a pedophile, and I'd say justice was served. If we couldn't search anyone at any time (privacy trumping all, as many people so foolishly and fanatically suggesting here) we'd never be able to enforce any laws (or damn near it).
Privacy should be upheld WITHIN REASON.
You get a cookie. I will concede that you brought up a good example.
However, despite the concession, I will point out that we universally declare that to be a big fucking mistake.
McCarthy stands as an example of what we can not allow. And our current government (for all its flaws) is not the McCarthy-era government.
I asked for a specific example and you provide none.
Please provide an example where you are not capable of speaking out against the government. In turn, I will cite how you in fact just did speak out against your government freely.
Can you please be more specific?
The Patriot Act is flawed, but most people cite it with zero clue what they're talking about. It is a bipartisan supported mega-block of cludgy legislation. It did provide in-roads for warrantless wire-tapping (again, which both parties keep voting to continue) which is the closest we've gotten to facism, but it doesn't apply to the question I've asked.
When did we lose the freedom to question our government? We haven't! You prove my point for me, and prove yourself wrong by accusing our government of horrible deeds. Clearly you demonstrate that you have the freedom to do so.
As far as the Constitution, I'd argue the Legislative branch is abusing it considerably more. They passed the laws for warrantless wiretaps. Back when Newt Gingrinch was Speaker, he said it wasn't Congress' job to worry about whether or not the laws they passed were constitutional. I'd argue the "spirit" of the 14th Amendment proves him wrong, but that is a little tangential.
You say the Constitution is ignored and no one does anything? I say you are dead wrong. People have been pushing for Bush to be impeached, and the main reason it hasn't been successful is two-fold. 1 - They focus on invalid points, saying impeach him for starting a war, when Congress votes to go to war. 2 - Then they turn around and bring up wiretaps, again which is a shared blame with Congress. Congress can't hold him responsible without also pointing out their own blame.
But these things aren't ignored. People write about them every day. People are quite vocal, and they won't tolerate this shit. There will be plenty of new bodies in Washington next year.
This is precisely the reasoning in search warrants. When you have a warrant or probable cause, then up-holding laws at that moment trumps the privacy of the suspect.
Honestly I will be alarmed and concerned when Google hands over data of every user in Brazil as a means to catch a small group of pedophiles.
Pedophiles are often looked down upon in a worse light than murderers. I won't claim to know which is truly worse, but there are some who would claim that there are far worse things you can do to a person than kill them.
Read "Night" by Elie Wiesel. It is a first-hand accounting of the Holocaust, and what gets me is that the book isn't all angry, nor someone looking for pity. The author doesn't recount how horrible the Nazis were. While in the camp, he is brainwashed, turns on God, and begins to empathize with them. He begins to resent his father for being old and weak.
The Nazis didn't kill Elie Wiesel, but for a while they killed who he was, and everything he believed in. Perhaps a better example would be how the US government did everything to destroy Native American culture, even after they stopped killing Indians themselves. They had a policy of "Kill the Indian, Save the Man".
Which is worse? Killing a person, or destroying a culture and trying to wipe it from history?
Please mod parent up. This is probably the most useful post I've seen for this story.
Please name one example of facism we have in the US where someone was prosecuted for speaking out against the government. Last time I checked, people do it every day in this country (including your post) and have the freedom to continue to do so.
The Constitution (not that Congress knows what that is) prevents such a state from forming.
You just keep insisting that the sky is falling. You do realize however that you remove credibility from the beliefs you intend to espouse when you make such statements, right?
You invoked Godwin's Law, and lose.
Thanks for playing!
Do you honestly believe the privacy should trump child molestation?
Absolutes are wrong more often than not.
Which do you think applies more to "Don't Be Evil", protecting pedophiles, or protecting privacy?
And for the record, Google has the best privacy record out there. When the government wanted search data, Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo handed it over instantly. I believe Microsoft and Yahoo handed it over even BEFORE THEY WERE ASKED for the data.
Google fought to protect it. Privacy should be preserved, but not at the expense of other more important things.
If I were Google, and I had a motto of "Don't Be Evil", I wouldn't hand over all data and let people try to find pedophiles, but if I knew I had specific data on specific individuals that showed them to be pedophiles, or terrorists, I think I would in fact hand it over.
Not to mention, that I'm not sure any of us here are familiar with the laws in Brazil. Did Google have a choice in the matter?
There was a county recently (Nigeria?) had ordered a whole bunch of Linux PCs with Mandriva pre-installed, said price was a huge factor, and then at the last moment said they were going to install Windows on every one of them. In situations like that, I really believe they were at the very least offered the Windows licenses for free, and perhaps paid to install Windows. Microsoft doesn't want an entire generation of kids growing up learning Linux. Microsoft has shown they will take a loss to establish market share.
I'd be shocked if Microsoft charges more than $5-$10 for Windows on the XO. More than likely they'll "donate" the license to charity and take a tax write off to establish market share.
I agree on both counts.
http://www.amazon.com/Eats-Shoots-Leaves-Tolerance-Punctuation/dp/1592400876
You'd dig this book.
The nice thing is that the core KDE 4 libraries actually use less memory than KDE 3, and the same for QT. Even the new QT 4.4 brings some new memory performance gains.
There is a Google Summer of Code project to help develop a KDE for form-factor devices.
http://code.google.com/soc/2008/kde/appinfo.html?csaid=6FCA5DFD333A126E
The interface needs to be reworked for smaller displays, and I'm sure some features could be cut. I think an optimized, properly designed KDE 4.1 could run reasonably well on the XO.
You're suggesting Windows runs well on older hardware, and that Linux doesn't? With what functionality?
Compare the Windows 3.1 kernel (and by the way, Windows 3.1 ran like a dog on the 386, it was so horrible that many people stuck with DOS for a while and continued to just release DOS apps with their own GUI) to a modern Linux kernel. Both can run on a 386, but the Linux kernel offers VASTLY more features than the Window 3.1 kernel.
When you compare, performance, features, scalability, etc. Windows can't hold a candle remotely to Linux.
Now there are clunky apps (OpenOffice) but as an OS, Linux is pretty damned hard to beat. And the Linux kernel has assembly as well. I think you need to seriously lay off the crack pipe by suggesting Windows scales and performs better than Linux.
I'm not ever suggesting anyone SHOULD switch to Windows, but some people want Windows. Having hardware powerful enough to support Windows is a selling point that helps push the hardware.
Flash on Linux is a precompiled binary for x86 (32-bit only) processors.
The XO uses a Geode processor, and it does support x86 instructions, but I don't believe it is a proper, native x86 processor. The Flash binary likely doesn't run on it.
I've heard complaints about how well it runs, and last I heard, Microsoft is making a special toned-down version of XP for these new cheap laptops.
Apparently the most popular use of the XO model in test-cases I've read is the camera. Apparently kids in Africa see tourists with cameras, but likely never had any access to document or record their lives before.
The camera can record brief bits of video. I wouldn't be shocked if users are peeved they can't upload said videos to sites like YouTube. I think that is a valid reason to ask for Flash support.
The one thing I rather like about Sugar, is that the interface was designed to be accessible in countries lacking proper localization, using symbols heavily in the interface, and by representing data graphically perhaps moreso than via text in some places.
It also allows young children who can't read to interface with the computer in a meaningful way.
Sugar was also designed around mesh-networking, power-consumption, e-reader mode, etc.
Certainly there is room for improvement, but Puppy/Slack/DSL would not have been a perfect implementation either.