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Google Joins NSA
1. xymonau7 February 2010, 7:03 GMT +01:00
Google now has an agreement with the NSA in the USA. Fascism isn't coming. It's here, but it will get worse.
3. crisderaud8 February 2010, 5:00 GMT +01:00
You can help tame Big Brother by managing your Google Account. If you have never had a look at what they know about you, you can access all the info and edit it by following this route:
Go to:
Google > Settings (upper right of page)
> Google Account Settings
> Personal Settings Section
> Dashboard
> view data stored with this account
You can have a field day with the wealth of information they have with you. See the list of everyone who has ever contacted you by Gmail. All your personal info is there to be changed or deleted if you like.
It may not erase everything they have on you, but then, you don't want to disable their services either.
4. lennie8 February 2010, 9:28 GMT +01:00
Trust me, they have a lot more than that. It doesn't end when you use their services directly.
First and for all, when you click on a link in a Google search, it's not a real link (all search-engines and even some other sites do this), but actually a link pointing to the search-provider them selfs which registers your click and redirects you to the proper page.
On any site you visit (this way or any other) their could be a number of things which with Google is involved.
You have Google Analytics on like 40% of all sites, on non-commercial sites you have Google Ads, on the big sites you have Double Click (they bought that company years ago).
A lot of blogs you visit are from Google (blogger) or have an embedded Youtube- video (also owned by Google) on the page.
Google is also used for downloading Javascript framework-code that is the same for many sites (googleapis.com).
Their is a service where the creator of a site can use Google Docs to show a (bar or line) graph on a page.
By default if you use Google Chrome everything you type in the address-bar is relayed back to Google. This is for suggesting other things.
The Google toolbar for IE and Firefox relayed information about every page you visit back to Google, to give you information about that site.
If you are using Mozilla Firefox (this is probably the least bad of all) it will download updates of the 'phising'-database every few hours. Some say it includes an unique-ID, but I've not checked that. If it exists it could help them keep track of you as well.
They now have a public DNS-service you can use, they do have a very strict privacy policy on that service. But then again, it's probably not as accurate as all the other things they are already doing.
I'm probably forgetting some things.
First of all don't be fooled by the bone they gave you.
Second of all, I'm not saying they are keeping track of you by-person or anything like that, but we do know they keep a lot of statistics.
5. xymonau8 February 2010, 11:30 GMT +01:00
The problem is that they CAN keep track of you. The world is becoming so Fascist that in the (false) name of "security", and with no recourse to legal protection, I can accuse you of being a terrorist, and you can be held without trial indefinitely in a secret prison, tortured, disappear off the face of the earth, and no-one ever has to answer for your life. Remind anyone of the Inquisition? Disagreement will eventually not be allowed. I don't think there is much we can do to halt progress, but we should understand what's happening.
6. crisderaud8 February 2010, 14:17 GMT +01:00
In Aftermath of Google-China Dispute, Secretary of State Vaults Internet Into Center of Foreign Policy
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=9740416
7. crisderaud8 February 2010, 14:29 GMT +01:00
Here is a useful tool for Windows users to stop tracking cookies.
Cookienator Cleans Up Questionable Cookies
http://lifehacker.com/5332032/cookienator-cleans-up-questionable-cookies
Windows only: Portable application Cookienator cleans up cookies from any of the major browsers, but instead of removing all your cookies, only removes the ones that are used to track you.
Download:
http://www.codefromthe70s.org/files/Cookienator-2.6.41.msi
8. GerbenVanErkelens22 February 2010, 18:29 GMT +01:00
I think we need to try and embrace these kinda things that, for example google has on you. If you want some privacy on the internet...forget it. Maybe ten years ago, but the world we live in now doesn't have online privacy. And I don't think it will get any better.
Maybe in ways to track your own data and make it unpublic, but you can't put a leash around everyone you know. They will get you online with their party pics for example :)
9. xymonau23 February 2010, 2:37 GMT +01:00
I do think it's all unavoidable, but I don't want to embrace something that can be used so obviously against us in the wrong hands. And the wrong hands appear to belong to formerly beneficent governments these days. I think we should at least make them work for their evil plans! LOL
10. Gramps23 February 2010, 8:51 GMT +01:00
Let's be honest, you could get totaly paranoid about the whole thing. Everytime you use a credit or debit card you are tracked. You are watched by cameras on the street, in banks and shops etc. Pay a bill,use your passport, just about anything you do, ends up on a computer database somewhere. It's 21st century life: live with it or go crazy :0)
11. GerbenVanErkelens23 February 2010, 9:37 GMT +01:00
Good one gramps, tahat's exsactly what people are forgetting these days.
12. xymonau23 February 2010, 9:55 GMT +01:00
But that's what got us here. We didn't protest. I know it's too late but big brother is still not welcome in my life.
13. GerbenVanErkelens23 February 2010, 11:34 GMT +01:00
It's allready there :)
A teacher of mine once said: "If you really want to have privacy these days don't use internet, phone and television. Don't use your creditcard and not even your customercard. Go somewhere to the middle of nowhere and build a nice cabin there and become self sufficient"
I know it's pretty black and white, but I like it that way :)
14. GerbenVanErkelens23 February 2010, 11:34 GMT +01:00
It's allready there :)
A teacher of mine once said: "If you really want to have privacy these days don't use internet, phone and television. Don't use your creditcard and not even your customercard. Go somewhere to the middle of nowhere and build a nice cabin there and become self sufficient"
I know it's pretty black and white, but I like it that way :)
16. lennie6 March 2010, 18:10 GMT +01:00
I just heared someone say on a podcast: privacy is sooo 1984
;-)
17. krayker6 March 2010, 18:30 GMT +01:00
yeah, if you want privacy, simply stop sharing information anywhere in any from, especially online. the social network is a goldmine for unscrupulous people - people are so careless about divulging important information!
I dont blame any single company or entity, every company wants a share of business, its a sign of times, and people are only too happy to sign up and volunteer. I've seen many people regret their decision by sharing too much info online (social networks are blamed generally, but divulging info can happen anywhere).
18. lennie6 March 2010, 20:57 GMT +01:00
What gets my 'knickers in a twist' is that the goverment also practises this things, with the money we give them. They are the ones that should protect us from the companies, but if they are doing it themselfs, I don't think they'll do much against those companies either.
For example take the CCTV in the streets of London which is monitored live, if that's not a privacy problem then I don't know what is.
19. xymonau6 March 2010, 22:10 GMT +01:00
And the propaganda is that it's for our safety. I ask - are the streets now safer than before? It's like the fluoride lie - are there now fewer dentists and less decay?
20. krayker8 March 2010, 8:34 GMT +01:00
it applies to all companies or any entity I suppose. they (the entity) are in an advantageous position and will do anything that will ease their immediate concern of selling their products or ease their problem, but not necessarily that of people/ community.
if in the long run the products are found to be detrimental, then they will be punished depending upon users/ consumers raising a red flag. the onus thus lies on an active public who are concerned about the greater cause of the community.
