Author Topic: Goolag, FB, Youtube, Amazon, Twitter, Gov censorship/propaganda via Tech Octopus  (Read 178531 times)

G M

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« Last Edit: September 10, 2018, 08:37:21 AM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

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The brazenness of it staggers the mind , , ,

G M

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The brazenness of it staggers the mind , , ,

Well, to be fair, Twitter also banned Louis Farrakhan and HAMAS.

Just kidding, of course they didn’t. Both have active accounts.

G M

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ccp

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"  Control the language and control thought
« Reply #153 on: Today at 02:54:56 PM »
Reply with quote
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/twitter-blocks-posts-that-use-phrase-illegal-alien-as-hateful-content/"

Well yeah . They don't want to piss off 1/2 their work force.


ccp

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Chinese Social Credit System
« Reply #155 on: September 13, 2018, 04:46:12 AM »
China's social and businees credit system
Discussed on John Batchlor show last night (though I cannot find a link)  China will soon implement over 600 million cameras that will record the behavior of its people inside its' borders
If you go to communist party meeting your credit score goes up.  If you go to church it goes down - among many other things.

One can not help see similar trends here with political correctness.  With lefties vying to be more PC then the next. IF your PC is low you need to be harrassed up the wazoo till you confrom.

Same thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System
« Last Edit: September 13, 2018, 04:47:44 AM by ccp »

ccp

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2nd post today Google - wing for Democrat Party
« Reply #156 on: September 13, 2018, 06:08:54 AM »
We already know this but this makes the solid case for it:

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-google-leaderships-dismayed-reaction-to-trump-election/

NOW COMBINE THIS WITH THE SOCIAL CREDIT SYSTEM IN CHINA AND WE SEE WHERE ALL THIS IS HEADING IN THE UNITED STATES

WE NEED TO MAKE GOOGLE FB AND AMAXON INTO UTILITIES.  OR ELSE

in my humble o

DougMacG

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Re: 2nd post today Google - wing for Democrat Party
« Reply #157 on: September 13, 2018, 08:13:35 AM »
We already know this but this makes the solid case for it:

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-google-leaderships-dismayed-reaction-to-trump-election/

NOW COMBINE THIS WITH THE SOCIAL CREDIT SYSTEM IN CHINA AND WE SEE WHERE ALL THIS IS HEADING IN THE UNITED STATES

WE NEED TO MAKE GOOGLE FB AND AMAXON INTO UTILITIES.  OR ELSE

in my humble o

We need to make them obsolete not legislate their permanence.

Getting the web addresses for the Republican Challengers to Tina Smith and Tammy Baldwin out of Google my previous post elsewhere was like pulling teeth. Anyone who thinks their web searches are not biased has never tried to look up conservative side information. There has to be a better way!

G M

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Re: 2nd post today Google - wing for Democrat Party
« Reply #158 on: September 13, 2018, 08:40:08 AM »
We already know this but this makes the solid case for it:

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-google-leaderships-dismayed-reaction-to-trump-election/

NOW COMBINE THIS WITH THE SOCIAL CREDIT SYSTEM IN CHINA AND WE SEE WHERE ALL THIS IS HEADING IN THE UNITED STATES

WE NEED TO MAKE GOOGLE FB AND AMAXON INTO UTILITIES.  OR ELSE

in my humble o

We need to make them obsolete not legislate their permanence.

Getting the web addresses for the Republican Challengers to Tina Smith and Tammy Baldwin out of Google my previous post elsewhere was like pulling teeth. Anyone who thinks their web searches are not biased has never tried to look up conservative side information. There has to be a better way!

I can tell you that they really disappear/memory hole unpleasant information for the left.


Crafty_Dog

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Why can't I post this on FB?
« Reply #159 on: September 13, 2018, 11:05:03 AM »
Somehow, neither the man who sent me this (very tech savvy) nor I can post this on FB:  https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_NovWeb/280/DOC_0C05793123/C05793123.pdf

G M

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Re: Why can't I post this on FB?
« Reply #160 on: September 13, 2018, 11:17:26 AM »
Somehow, neither the man who sent me this (very tech savvy) nor I can post this on FB:  https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_NovWeb/280/DOC_0C05793123/C05793123.pdf

You have been able to post other pdf files on Facehugger?

Crafty_Dog

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Ah, maybe that's it.

DougMacG

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G M

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Re: Google helping China censor
« Reply #163 on: September 14, 2018, 10:00:53 AM »

Crafty_Dog

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How I was rejected by FB -- and won
« Reply #164 on: September 17, 2018, 01:30:48 PM »
How I Was Rejected by Facebook - and Won
by Phyllis Chesler
Arutz Sheva: Israel National News
September 13, 2018
https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/how-i-was-rejected-by-facebook-and-won

ccp

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Funny I was just thinking that we need another internet that is truly free and unbiased and the Left can keep their propaganda silos aka Google FB and the rest and I read this from
Eric Schit of Google :

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/20/eric-schmidt-ex-google-ceo-predicts-internet-split-china.html

I wonder how many babes he paid off to avoid the metoo thing.

G M

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Yeah, sure they don't...GOOLAG
« Reply #166 on: September 21, 2018, 11:05:03 AM »
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-travelban/google-staff-discussed-tweaking-search-results-to-counter-travel-ban-wsj-idUSKCN1M103O

Google staff discussed tweaking search results to counter travel ban: WSJ
2 MIN READ

(Reuters) - Google employees brainstormed ways to alter search functions to counter the Trump administration’s controversial 2017 travel ban, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing internal emails.

FILE PHOTO: A Google logo in an office building in Zurich September 5, 2018. REUTERS/Arnd WIegmann/File Photo
Google employees discussed how they could tweak the company's search-related functions to show users how to contribute to pro-immigration organizations and contact lawmakers and government agencies, the WSJ said. The ideas were not implemented. on.wsj.com/2DePzWh

President Donald Trump’s travel ban temporarily barred visitors and immigrants from seven majority Muslim countries. It spurred public outcry and was revised several times. Trump said the travel ban was needed to protect the United States against attacks by Islamist militants, and the Supreme Court upheld the measure in June.

The Google employees proposed ways to “leverage” search functions and take steps to counter what they considered to be “islamophobic, algorithmically biased results from search terms ‘Islam’, ‘Muslim’, ‘Iran’, etc.” and “prejudiced, algorithmically biased search results from search terms ‘Mexico’, ‘Hispanic’, ‘Latino’, etc,” the Journal added, quoting from the emails.

A Google spokesperson said the emails represented brainstorming and none of the ideas were implemented. She said the company does not manipulate search results or modify products to promote political views.

“Our processes and policies would not have allowed for any manipulation of search results to promote political ideologies,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2018, 01:30:30 PM by Crafty_Dog »

G M

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The Goolag fires up the memory hole!
« Reply #167 on: September 22, 2018, 02:36:25 PM »
https://theintercept.com/2018/09/21/google-suppresses-memo-revealing-plans-to-closely-track-search-users-in-china/



GOOGLE SUPPRESSES MEMO REVEALING PLANS TO CLOSELY TRACK SEARCH USERS IN CHINA
Ryan Gallagher, Lee Fang
September 21 2018, 10:18 a.m.
GOOGLE BOSSES HAVE forced employees to delete a confidential memo circulating inside the company that revealed explosive details about a plan to launch a censored search engine in China, The Intercept has learned.

The memo, authored by a Google engineer who was asked to work on the project, disclosed that the search system, codenamed Dragonfly, would require users to log in to perform searches, track their location — and share the resulting history with a Chinese partner who would have “unilateral access” to the data.

The memo was shared earlier this month among a group of Google employees who have been organizing internal protests over the censored search system, which has been designed to remove content that China’s authoritarian Communist Party regime views as sensitive, such as information about democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest.

According to three sources familiar with the incident, Google leadership discovered the memo and were furious that secret details about the China censorship were being passed between employees who were not supposed to have any knowledge about it. Subsequently, Google human resources personnel emailed employees who were believed to have accessed or saved copies of the memo and ordered them to immediately delete it from their computers. Emails demanding deletion of the memo contained “pixel trackers” that notified human resource managers when their messages had been read, recipients determined.

The Dragonfly memo reveals that a prototype of the censored search engine was being developed as an app for both Android and iOS devices, and would force users to sign in so they could use the service. The memo confirms, as The Intercept first reported last week, that users’ searches would be associated with their personal phone number. The memo adds that Chinese users’ movements would also be stored, along with the IP address of their device and links they clicked on. It accuses developers working on the project of creating “spying tools” for the Chinese government to monitor its citizens.

People’s search histories, location information, and other private data would be sent out of China to a database in Taiwan, the memo states. But the data would also be provided to employees of a Chinese company who would be granted “unilateral access” to the system.

To launch the censored search engine, Google set up a “joint venture” partnership with an unnamed Chinese company. The search engine will “blacklist sensitive queries” so that “no results will be shown” at all when people enter certain words or phrases, according to documents seen by The Intercept. Blacklisted search terms on a prototype of the search engine include “human rights,” “student protest,” and “Nobel Prize” in Mandarin, said sources familiar with the project.

According to the memo, aside from being able to access users’ search data, the Chinese partner company could add to the censorship blacklists: It would be able to “selectively edit search result pages … unilaterally, and with few controls seemingly in place.”

That a Chinese company would maintain a copy of users’ search data means that, by extension, the data would be accessible to Chinese authorities, who have broad powers to obtain information that is held or processed on the country’s mainland. A central concern human rights groups have expressed about Dragonfly is that it could place users at risk of Chinese government surveillance — and any person in China searching for blacklisted words or phrases could find themselves interrogated or detained. Chinese authorities are well-known for routinely targeting critics, activists, and journalists.

“It’s alarming to hear that such information will be stored and, potentially, easily shared with the Chinese authorities,” said Patrick Poon, a Hong Kong-based researcher with the human rights group Amnesty International. “It will completely put users’ privacy and safety at risk. Google needs to immediately explain if the app will involve such arrangements. It’s time to give the public full transparency of the project.”

ON AUGUST 16, two weeks after The Intercept revealed the Dragonfly plan, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told the company’s employees that the China plan was in its “early stages” and “exploratory.” However, employees working on the censored search engine were instructed in late July, days before the project was publicly exposed, that they should prepare to get it into a “launch-ready state” to roll out within weeks, pending approval from officials in Beijing.

“It will completely put users’ privacy and safety at risk.”
The memo raises new questions about Pichai’s claim that the project was not well-developed. Information stored on the company’s internal networks about Dragonfly “paints a very different picture,” it says. “The statement from our high-level leadership that Dragonfly is just an experiment seems wrong.”

The memo identifies at least 215 employees who appear to have been tasked with working full-time on Dragonfly, a number it says is “larger than many Google projects.” It says that source code associated with the project dates back to May 2017, and “many infrastructure parts predate” that. Moreover, screenshots of the app “show a project in a pretty advanced state,” the memo declares.

Most of the details about the project “have been secret from the start,” the memo says, adding that “after the existence of Dragonfly leaked, engineers working on the project were also quick to hide all of their code.”

The author of the memo said in the document that they were opposed to the China censorship. However, they added, “more than the project itself, I hate the culture of secrecy that has been built around it.”

The memo was first posted September 5 on an internal messaging list set up for Google employees to raise ethical concerns. But the memo was soon scrubbed from the list and individuals who had opened or saved the document were contacted by Google’s human resources department to discuss the matter. The employees were instructed not to share the memo.

Google reportedly maintains an aggressive security and investigation team known as “stopleaks,” which is dedicated to preventing unauthorized disclosures. The team is also said to monitor internal discussions.

“More than the project itself, I hate the culture of secrecy that has been built around it.”
Internal security efforts at Google have ramped up this year as employees have raised ethical concerns around a range of new company projects. Following the revelation by Gizmodo and The Intercept that Google had quietly begun work on a contract with the military last year, known as Project Maven, to develop automated image recognition systems for drone warfare, the communications team moved swiftly to monitor employee activity.

The “stopleaks” team, which coordinates with the internal Google communications department, even began monitoring an internal image board used to post messages based on internet memes, according to one former Google employee, for signs of employee sentiment around the Project Maven contract.


Google’s internal security team consists of a number of former military and law enforcement officials. For example, LinkedIn lists as Google’s head of global investigations Joseph Vincent, whose resume includes work as a high-ranking agent at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s Homeland Security Investigations unit. The head of security at Google is Chris Rackow, who has described himself as a former member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s hostage rescue team and as a former U.S. Navy SEAL.

For some Google employees, the culture of secrecy at the company clashes directly with its public image around fostering transparency, creating an intolerable work environment.

“Leadership misled engineers working on [Dragonfly] about the nature of their work, depriving them of moral agency,” said a Google employee who read the memo.

Google did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

Crafty_Dog

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G M

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New Movie Claims Google Handed the Popular Vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016
« Reply #169 on: September 24, 2018, 11:37:26 AM »
https://pjmedia.com/trending/new-movie-claims-google-handed-the-popular-vote-to-hillary-clinton-in-2016/

New Movie Claims Google Handed the Popular Vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016
 BY TYLER O'NEIL SEPTEMBER 23, 2018



When Donald Trump surprised the world by winning the 2016 election, liberals clung to the idea that his victory was illegitimate because Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. According to a psychologist who supported Clinton in 2016, however, Google's bias in Clinton's favor may remove even that symbolic victory from her.

Almost all of Clinton's popular vote margin could be attributed to Google bias, making her win "negligible." Dr. Robert Epstein, a psychologist who earned his Ph.D. at Harvard, actually reported this finding last year, but he explains how it works in the upcoming film "The Creepy Line."

Epstein made a stir in 2015 by reporting in Politico that Google could "rig" the 2016 election. This story discussed the results of his study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). That study found that "biased search ranking can easily shift the voting preferences of undecided voters from 20% or more — up to 80% in some demographic groups."

In a white paper published by the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology in June 2017, Epstein followed up on this PNAS study, suggesting that Clinton's popular vote margin was almost entirely attributable to pro-Clinton bias at Google.

"Extrapolating from the mathematics introduced in this report ... the lead author of the PNAS study [Epstein himself] predicted that a pro-Clinton bias in Google's search results would, over time, shift at least 2.6 million votes to Clinton. She won the popular vote in the November election by 2,864,974 votes," Epstein wrote with his co-author Ronald E. Robertson.

"Without the pro-Clinton bias in Google's search results, her win margin in the popular vote would have been negligible," Epstein wrote.

On Friday, the psychologist confirmed to PJ Media that this stunning result has not been previously reported. PJ Media learned of the study in a screening for "The Creepy Line" on Wednesday night.

"It's actually at the end of the paper I released months ago, quite a while ago," Epstein told PJ Media on Friday.

"From my perspective, it's pretty straightforward. It's just math," the psychologist said. He noted that "the math in the 2015 PNAS paper is pretty solid. There's even a table in there that allows you to figure out whether or not you can use search rankings to flip an election based on the projected win margin."

During the interview, Epstein lamented Trump's win and his presidency, but he insisted that Google's power is a much more important and terrifying issue.

Google Exec Boasted About Helping Hillary Clinton by Boosting Latino Turnout in 2016
"This is not a problem for conservatives. This is a problem for humanity," the psychologist told PJ Media. "Who gave a handful of executives in Silicon Valley the right to decide what billions of people around the world can see and cannot see? Who gave them that power?"

In "The Creepy Line," New York Times bestselling author Peter Schweizer argued that "we did. We all did," by signing the user agreements. Epstein disagreed with that idea.

"I don't believe that meeting ever took place. I don't think there was ever a vote on that issue for that matter," he told PJ Media.

Epstein has long studied the impact of search engines like Google, and their ability to sway opinion. He has proven that search engine manipulation effect (SEME) can impact how people see the world — and how they see political figures specifically.

SEME works in a few ways. When you type a word into a Google search, Google will present various suggestions for a search. Epstein's research has found that if all the suggestions are positive, people are more likely to see positive websites for that person or issue. But if there is one negative suggestion included under that search bar, the negative result is likely to get ten to fifteen times more clicks.

Similarly, Google presents ten search results per page, and the very first search result is considered the most reliable. For questions like, "What is the capital of France?" the correct answer, "Paris," comes to the top. But on issues of opinion — and especially when researching political candidates — the search results and their ranking can have tremendous thorny implications.

As Epstein says in "The Creepy Line," "Google and Facebook have the power to undermine democracy with no one knowing it has been undermined. If they exercise these powers, democracy is an illusion."

"We found systematic bias in favor of one candidate, Hillary Clinton," he says in the film. They found the bias "in all ten search positions on the first page. If you took away this bias, it is possible the popular vote would have been even."

According to Epstein's research, Google's search results favored Hillary Clinton, and SEME can sway 20 percent of voters — and 80 percent, in certain demographic groups. He himself — again, a Clinton supporter in 2016 — suggested that the bias swayed 2.6 million votes, on the low end.

State AGs, DOJ Target Facebook, Google for Creating 'a Virtual Fence Around the Free Market'
With liberals still convinced Clinton should have won the election, these results are extremely important to report. Some corners of the Internet are already claiming that if Clinton and Trump had a do-over today, the Democrat would prevail. Some of the vitriol might subside if liberals understood the implications of Epstein's work, and realized that Trump's appeal may have been even stronger — given that Google may have put its tremendous thumb on the scale.

Earlier this month, Tucker Carlson unveiled an email from a Google executive bragging about helping to increase the Latino vote, assuming that Latinos would heavily favor Clinton. Shortly after that, the Daily Caller released a video of Google executives lamenting Trump's victory. On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal's John D. McKinnon and Douglas MacMillan reported that Google employees schemed about how to tweak the search function to harm Trump's travel ban.

Liberals may like the idea that Google helped Hillary Clinton, but even they should be afraid of the kind of suggestive power that Google has, Epstein said.

"We all need to rise above our political biases and understand there's a much larger problem here."

Indeed, Schweizer told PJ Media Thursday that Benito Mussolini, Vladimir Lenin, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong "would dream about" the kind of "control or influence" that Facebook and Google have over billions of people.

"The Creepy Line" reveals just how much power Google and Facebook have. Epstein is working to set up a monitoring system to alert people to exactly what these companies are doing in real time. You can request a screening of the film at this link.

G M

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Get rid of Chrome, be Brave
« Reply #170 on: September 25, 2018, 10:25:00 AM »
https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/09/23/why-im-leaving-chrome/

Why I’m done with Chrome
This blog is mainly reserved for cryptography, and I try to avoid filling it with random 512px-Google_Chrome_icon_(September_2014).svg“someone is wrong on the Internet” posts. After all, that’s what Twitter is for! But from time to time something bothers me enough that I have to make an exception. Today I wanted to write specifically about Google Chrome, how much I’ve loved it in the past, and why — due to Chrome’s new user-unfriendly forced login policy — I won’t be using it going forward.

A brief history of Chrome
When Google launched Chrome ten years ago, it seemed like one of those rare cases where everyone wins. In 2008, the browser market was dominated by Microsoft, a company with an ugly history of using browser dominance to crush their competitors. Worse, Microsoft was making noises about getting into the search business. This posed an existential threat to Google’s internet properties.

In this setting, Chrome was a beautiful solution. Even if the browser never produced a scrap of revenue for Google, it served its purpose just by keeping the Internet open to Google’s other products. As a benefit, the Internet community would receive a terrific open source browser with the best development team money could buy. This might be kind of sad for Mozilla (who have paid a high price due to Chrome) but overall it would be a good thing for Internet standards.

For many years this is exactly how things played out. Sure, Google offered an optional “sign in” feature for Chrome, which presumably vacuumed up your browsing data and shipped it off to Google, but that was an option. An option you could easily ignore. If you didn’t take advantage of this option, Google’s privacy policy was clear: your data would stay on your computer where it belonged.

What changed?
A few weeks ago Google shipped an update to Chrome that fundamentally changes the sign-in experience. From now on, every time you log into a Google property (for example, Gmail), Chrome will automatically sign the browser into your Google account for you. It’ll do this without asking, or even explicitly notifying you. (However, and this is important: Google developers claim this will not actually start synchronizing your data to Google — yet. See further below.)

Your sole warning — in the event that you’re looking for it — is that your Google profile picture will appear in the upper-right hand corner of the browser window. I noticed mine the other day:

foo

The change hasn’t gone entirely unnoticed: it received some vigorous discussion on sites like Hacker News. But the mainstream tech press seems to have ignored it completely. This is unfortunate — and I hope it changes — because this update has huge implications for Google and the future of Chrome.

In the rest of this post, I’m going to talk about why this matters. From my perspective, this comes down to basically four points:

Nobody on the Chrome development team can provide a clear rationale for why this change was necessary, and the explanations they’ve given don’t make any sense.
This change has enormous implications for user privacy and trust, and Google seems unable to grapple with this.
The change makes a hash out of Google’s own privacy policies for Chrome.
Google needs to stop treating customer trust like it’s a renewable resource, because they’re screwing up badly.
I warn you that this will get a bit ranty. Please read on anyway.

Google’s stated rationale makes no sense
The new feature that triggers this auto-login behavior is called “Identity consistency between browser and cookie jar” (HN). After conversations with two separate Chrome developers on Twitter (who will remain nameless — mostly because I don’t want them to hate me), I was given the following rationale for the change:

IMG_3331

To paraphrase this explanation: if you’re in a situation where you’ve already signed into Chrome and your friend shares your computer, then you can wind up accidentally having your friend’s Google cookies get uploaded into your account. This seems bad, and sure, we want to avoid that.

But note something critical about this scenario. In order for this problem to apply to you, you already have to be signed into Chrome. There is absolutely nothing in this problem description that seems to affect users who chose not to sign into the browser in the first place.

So if signed-in users are your problem, why would you make a change that forces unsigned–in users to become signed-in? I could waste a lot more ink wondering about the mismatch between the stated “problem” and the “fix”, but I won’t bother: because nobody on the public-facing side of the Chrome team has been able to offer an explanation that squares this circle.

And this matters, because “sync” or not…

The change has serious implications for privacy and trust
The Chrome team has offered a single defense of the change. They point out that just because your browser is “signed in” does not mean it’s uploading your data to Google’s servers. Specifically:

While Chrome will now log into your Google account without your consent (following a Gmail login), Chrome will not activate the “sync” feature that sends your data to Google. That requires an additional consent step. So in theory your data should remain local.

This is my paraphrase. But I think it’s fair to characterize the general stance of the Chrome developers I spoke with as: without this “sync” feature, there’s nothing wrong with the change they’ve made, and everything is just fine.

This is nuts, for several reasons.

User consent matters. For ten years I’ve been asked a single question by the Chrome browser: “Do you want to log in with your Google account?” And for ten years I’ve said no thanks. Chrome still asks me that question — it’s just that now it doesn’t honor my decision.

The Chrome developers want me to believe that this is fine, since (phew!) I’m still protected by one additional consent guardrail. The problem here is obvious:

If you didn’t respect my lack of consent on the biggest user-facing privacy option in Chrome (and  didn’t even notify me that you had stopped respecting it!) why should I trust any other consent option you give me? What stops you from changing your mind on that option in a few months, when we’ve all stopped paying attention?

The fact of the matter is that I’d never even heard of Chrome’s “sync” option — for the simple reason that up until September 2018, I had never logged into Chrome. Now I’m forced to learn these new terms, and hope that the Chrome team keeps promises to keep all of my data local as the barriers between “signed in” and “not signed in” are gradually eroded away.

The Chrome sync UI is a dark pattern. Now that I’m forced to log into Chrome, I’m faced with a brand new menu I’ve never seen before. It looks like this:

Thing

 

Does that big blue button indicate that I’m already synchronizing my data to Google? That’s scary! Wait, maybe it’s an invitation to synchronize! If so, what happens to my data if I click it by accident? (I won’t give it the answer away, you should go find out. Just make sure you don’t accidentally upload all your data in the process. It can happen quickly.)

In short, Google has transformed the question of consenting to data upload from something affirmative that I actually had to put effort into — entering my Google credentials and signing into Chrome — into something I can now do with a single accidental click. This is a dark pattern. Whether intentional or not, it has the effect of making it easy for people to activate sync without knowing it, or to think they’re already syncing and thus there’s no additional cost to increasing Google’s access to their data.

Don’t take my word for it. It even gives (former) Google people the creeps.

Big brother doesn’t need to actually watch you. We tell things to our web browsers that we wouldn’t tell our best friends. We do this with some vague understanding that yes, the Internet spies on us. But we also believe that this spying is weak and probabilistic. It’s not like someone’s standing over our shoulder checking our driver’s license with each click.

What happens if you take that belief away? There are numerous studies indicating that even the perception of surveillance can significantly greatly magnify the degree of self-censorship users force on themselves. Will user feel comfortable browsing for information on sensitive mental health conditions — if their real name and picture are always loaded into the corner of their browser? The Chrome development team says “yes”. I think they’re wrong.

For all we know, the new approach has privacy implications even if sync is off. The Chrome developers claim that with “sync” off, a Chrome has no privacy implications. This might be true. But when pressed on the actual details, nobody seems quite sure.

For example, if I have my browser logged out, then I log in and turn on “sync”, does all my past (logged-out) data get pushed to Google? What happens if I’m forced to be logged in, and then subsequently turn on “sync”? Nobody can quite tell me if the data uploaded in these conditions is the same. These differences could really matter.

The changes make hash of the Chrome privacy policy
The Chrome privacy policy is a remarkably simple document. Unlike most privacy policies, it was clearly written as a promise to Chrome’s users — rather than as the usual lawyer CYA. Functionally, it describes two browsing modes: “Basic browser mode” and “signed-in mode”. These modes have very different properties. Read for yourself:

Untitled 2Untitled 3

In “basic browser mode”, your data is stored locally. In “signed-in” mode, your data gets shipped to Google’s servers. This is easy to understand. If you want privacy, don’t sign in. But what happens if your browser decides to switch you from one mode to the other, all on its own?

Technically, the privacy policy is still accurate. If you’re in basic browsing mode, your data is still stored locally. The problem is that you no longer get to decide which mode you’re in. This makes a mockery out of whatever intentions the original drafters had. Maybe Google will update the document to reflect the new “sync” distinction that the Chrome developers have shared with me. We’ll see.

Update: After I tweeted about my concerns, I received a DM on Sunday from two different Chrome developers, each telling me the good news: Google is updating their privacy policy to reflect the new operation of Chrome. I think that’s, um, good news. But I also can’t help but note that updating a privacy policy on a weekend is an awful lot of trouble to go to for a change that… apparently doesn’t even solve a problem for signed-out users.

Trust is not a renewable resource
For a company that sustains itself by collecting massive amounts of user data, Google has  managed to avoid the negative privacy connotations we associate with, say, Facebook. This isn’t because Google collects less data, it’s just that Google has consistently been more circumspect and responsible with it.

Where Facebook will routinely change privacy settings and apologize later, Google has upheld clear privacy policies that it doesn’t routinely change. Sure, when it collects, it collects gobs of data, but in the cases where Google explicitly makes user security and privacy promises — it tends to keep them. This seems to be changing.

Google’s reputation is hard-earned, and it can be easily lost. Changes like this burn a lot of trust with users. If the change is solving an absolutely critical problem for users , then maybe a loss of trust is worth it. I wish Google could convince me that was the case.

Conclusion
This post has gone on more than long enough, but before I finish I want to address two common counterarguments I’ve heard from people I generally respect in this area.

One argument is that Google already spies on you via cookies and its pervasive advertising network and partnerships, so what’s the big deal if they force your browser into a logged-in state? One individual I respect described the Chrome change as “making you wear two name tags instead of one”. I think this objection is silly both on moral grounds — just because you’re violating my privacy doesn’t make it ok to add a massive new violation — but also because it’s objectively silly. Google has spent millions of dollars adding additional tracking features to both Chrome and Android. They aren’t doing this for fun; they’re doing this because it clearly produces data they want.

The other counterargument (if you want to call it that) goes like this: I’m a n00b for using Google products at all, and of course they were always going to do this. The extreme version holds that I ought to be using lynx+Tor and DJB’s custom search engine, and if I’m not I pretty much deserve what’s coming to me.

I reject this argument. I think It’s entirely possible for a company like Google to make good, usable open source software that doesn’t massively violate user privacy. For ten years I believe Google Chrome did just this.

Why they’ve decided to change, I don’t know. It makes me sad.



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Life after Google continued, George Gilder Part Three
« Reply #172 on: September 30, 2018, 07:03:19 AM »
https://www.wnd.com/2018/08/tech-icon-envisions-prosperous-new-world-after-google/

"...privacy in terms of ownership of your own data and ownership of your identity and the ability to conduct transactions without exposing all your personal information to be used and abused...
That’s what the new cryptocosm affords.
The technology is not easy to explain without using unfamiliar terms.

Gilder describes it as essentially “a new security architecture that allows you to keep your own personal details to yourself and transact anonymously across the network."
....
Even though he's probably about 20 years ahead of his time again, let's hope he is right.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2018, 07:08:02 AM by Crafty_Dog »

ccp

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The concept makes sense.

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Pence goes after Goolag
« Reply #174 on: October 05, 2018, 02:09:11 PM »
Pence Calls on Google to Drop Mobile Search Project in China
Vice President Pence said U.S. companies should reconsider turning over intellectual property as they expand in China
Vice President Mike Pence called on Google to immediately end developing a mobile search app in China, which he said would strengthen Communist Party censorship. Shown, the vice president at the Hudson Institute on Thursday.
Vice President Mike Pence called on Google to immediately end developing a mobile search app in China, which he said would strengthen Communist Party censorship. Shown, the vice president at the Hudson Institute on Thursday. Photo: Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg News
53 Comments
By Michael C. Bender and
Dustin Volz
Updated Oct. 4, 2018 5:10 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration took aim at Google Thursday, calling on the tech giant to halt development of a project it said would accelerate censorship efforts in China.

In a speech that outlined the White House’s long list of frustrations and grievances with Beijing, Vice President Mike Pence called on companies to reconsider business practices in the world’s second-largest economy that involve turning over intellectual property or “abetting Beijing’s oppression.”

“For example, Google should immediately end development of the Dragonfly app that will strengthen Communist Party censorship and compromise the privacy of Chinese customers,” Mr. Pence said in his speech at the Hudson Institute, a conservative, Washington-based think tank focused on security and economic issues.
Related

    Google Woos Partners for Potential China Expansion (Aug. 12)
    U.S. Confronts China Over Suspected Cyberattack as Fugitive Guo Wengui Appears in Washington (Oct. 6, 2017)

Mr. Pence’s speech was the latest sign from the White House that the warm relations between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping haven’t trickled through the administration ranks. Trade tensions between the two countries have been escalating for months, and disputes continue over military cooperation, espionage and territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Mr. Pence said Thursday that China is working to remove Mr. Trump from office and described a broad effort to influence political opinion and manipulate academic institutions and U.S. companies.

Last week, President Trump accused China of trying to interfere in the U.S. midterm elections in November to hurt him and the Republican Party in retaliation for his stance on trade.

Senate Democrats asked the Trump administration Thursday for evidence to support assertions of election meddling. In a letter to Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, three senators asked whether the accusation from Mr. Trump “aligns with the intelligence community’s assessments of Beijing’s intentions, plans and activities.”

Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Kamala Harris of California, who all serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked for a response by Oct. 8 “so that the public and members of Congress have the information in advance of the election.”

A spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the letter had been received and that Mr. Coats would respond to it. Chinese officials have said they don’t interfere internally in other countries.

In a project dubbed “Dragonfly,” Google is testing a mobile version of its search engine that would adhere to China’s strict censors. While it has drawn pointed questions from a bipartisan group of senators, Mr. Pence’s speech was the first public condemnation from the White House.

A spokeswoman for Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., declined to comment on Mr. Pence’s speech and instead referred to a previous statement that described the company’s work as exploratory and “not close to launching a search product in China.”

Mr. Pence repeated Mr. Trump’s warning that U.S. tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports could increase, and vowed the White House would “stand strong” to support national security.

Beijing, Mr. Pence said, “is also taking steps to exploit its economic leverage, and the allure of China’s large domestic market, to advance its influence over American corporations.”
Related Video
Tensions Rise Between Washington and Beijing
Tensions Rise Between Washington and Beijing
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis canceled a trip to China, and President Trump accused China of election interference. The WSJ's Gerald F. Seib explains how U.S.-China tensions are rising. Photo: Getty

He said Delta Air Lines was forced to apologize for not identifying Taiwan as a “province of China,” and Marriott was pressured to fire a U.S. employee who used a company account to “like” a Tibetan separatist group’s Twitter post.

Mr. Pence criticized Chinese censors who object to criticism “even in minor ways,” pointing to the 2012 remake of the iconic 1984 movie “Red Dawn” that was digitally edited to portray North Korea as the villain, instead of China. He also accused China of seeking to “foster a culture of censorship” in academia. He cited a speech from Yang Shuping, a University of Maryland student from China who became a target of criticism there after praising the “fresh air of free speech” in America.

He said Ms. Yang was the “victim of a firestorm of criticism” on China’s tightly controlled social media and her family back home was harassed.

He said the Hudson Institute was the target of a suspected cyberattack from Shanghai after it hosted an event with Guo Wengui, a fugitive Chinese businessman and political dissident who has alleged corruption within China’s leadership. “You know better than most that the Chinese Communist Party is trying to undermine academic freedom and the freedom of speech in America today,” Mr. Pence told the group.

Write to Michael C. Bender at Mike.Bender@wsj.com

DougMacG

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Re: Pence goes after Goolag
« Reply #175 on: October 05, 2018, 07:44:37 PM »
This is a great move in a number of ways. Google is called out and put on notice. US companies are advised to stop signing away technology rights to China. The squeeze on China's economy is increased. The effort of Xi to outlast Trump the person as president is foolhardy because even if Democrats took the house, impeach the president and somehow got 67 votes for removal from office in the Senate, it would make Mike Pence president and he has just promised to continue the same policies until China stops its cyber and technology war.

It looks to me like Mike Pompeo is the author of this, President Trump fully approved, Mike Pence is elevated on a world stage and our allies should follow suit and dial up the pressure on China.

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Re: Pence goes after Goolag
« Reply #176 on: October 05, 2018, 10:39:02 PM »
This is a great move in a number of ways. Google is called out and put on notice. US companies are advised to stop signing away technology rights to China. The squeeze on China's economy is increased. The effort of Xi to outlast Trump the person as president is foolhardy because even if Democrats took the house, impeach the president and somehow got 67 votes for removal from office in the Senate, it would make Mike Pence president and he has just promised to continue the same policies until China stops its cyber and technology war.

It looks to me like Mike Pompeo is the author of this, President Trump fully approved, Mike Pence is elevated on a world stage and our allies should follow suit and dial up the pressure on China.

It is almost disorienting to see such competent people in power, working on our behalf.



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The new FaceHugger home camera!
« Reply #178 on: October 09, 2018, 02:16:04 PM »
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a23643766/facebook-portal-privacy/

Facebook Takes a Break from Privacy Scandals to Release a Smart Camera That Films You in Your Home
The news comes weeks after another high-profile data breach rocked the company.


By Sam Blum
Oct 8, 2018

On Monday morning Facebook announced Portal, a new hardware component similar to an iPad that allows people to video chat with friends via the social network. As a video released by the company explains, a roving camera built in to the device can track your movements to ensure you're in frame during a conversation. You know, exactly the kind of thing any reasonable person would be enthused to purchase from Facebook right now.

The product's debut comes in the wake of myriad high-profile scandals that have dogged Facebook this year. Only weeks ago, the company confirmed a security breach by hackers affected 50 million accounts. A day prior, reporting from Gizmodo detailed the company's invasive advertising practices. In April, the Cambridge Analytica data-mining crisis saw Mark Zuckerberg grilled by the United States Senate over a tense and highly publicized two days in Washington DC.

Unlike everything else offered by Facebook, Portal and its larger counterpart Portal+ can be yours for a price, at $199 and $349, respectively. Portal's rollout speaks to the company's ambition to trade in hardware in addition to web content. It draws parallels to Facebook's ill-fated partnership with HTC, which twice delivered to market smartphones with baked-in Facebook apps. (Zuckerberg promised Facebook phones would be a very big thing in 2011, but you're not holding one now, are you?)

Portal comes with an AI-enabled smart camera and sound, with Amazon's Alexa serving as its home assistant. The company ensures that Portal's cameras run locally and not on Facebook's servers. "Portal conversations stay between you and the people you’re calling," the company says. Users can also disable Portal's microphone or physically shutter its camera in the Zuckerberg style. In other words, Facebook maintains that your data will remain yours—which you have every reason to take as a cold comfort.

In a world already full of video chat apps and home assistance, Facebook's addition is late to the party and and arriving with awkward timing given the company's past year of PR nightmares. And that's to say nothing of Facebook's business model syphon your data for the sake of advertising revenue when it's not leaking that data to outside sources. On top of all that, Portal is sure to add fire to the common (but mostly unfounded) conspiracy theory that Facebook's app eavesdrops on conversations to target people with ads.

But if you're still using Facebook in spite of all that's been unfolding, maybe it actually makes sense to just dive all the way in.


ccp

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Get out the (DEMOCRAT) vote
« Reply #179 on: October 10, 2018, 05:25:08 PM »
big IT trying to get the Dem vote out.

I log into the Yahoo page this evening and at the top is a register to vote link

They assume this will get the Democrat vote but pretend this is politically neutral
we know its no
https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=register+to+vote&fr=regvotefp&type=regvotefp

 

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As NOT seen on TV: Goolag exec lets us know what he really thinks
« Reply #180 on: October 11, 2018, 02:41:56 PM »
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-08/fuk-you-all-hell-google-exec-threatens-gop-over-kavanaugh-confirmation

Correctly if I am wrong, but the MSM totally memory-holed this story, correct?
« Last Edit: October 11, 2018, 04:36:39 PM by Crafty_Dog »

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I am surprised we don't hear more about law enforcement aimed at getting hackers and increasing the penalties

no they ain't all in bulgaria or manchuria somewhere

and we need to have extremely strong punishment against the foreigners but going after their governments

you don't turn these criminals over you will be penalized bigtime

Yeah we can yell all we want about FB GOOGLE etc but what about the criminals actually doing these crimes

I would think a politician who adds strong enforcement of cyber crime to his platform would be a winner




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"I would think a politician who adds strong enforcement of cyber crime to his platform would be a winner"

Yes.  Cyber security and cyber privacy.  There is a role for government.  Stop trespassing and theft.

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Gilder's new "cosm"
« Reply #187 on: October 15, 2018, 09:06:01 AM »
For any of us who may have missed GG on Levin.  I am listening again  :-o.

He was excellent I must say.  GG has won me back.  He did make me millions in the late 90s to 2000s- only to lose it all in the crash  My fault not his .  :cry:

The "cryptocosm " is one of different subjects Mark and GG discuss.

The cryptocosm

The description of the new architecture would seem to prevent mass theft and spying in a mass scale .  Such as stealing a lot of data from millions or ID information etc.
but for individuals or single entities I don't see how it would protect them .  He suggests each entity has its own lifelong unique blueprint , ID .  I am not sure why another sleuth could not just find that blueprint and use it.  I can think of a few ways this could be avoided but a lot of food for thought

It would certainly take a lot of the power away from the big tech and give it back to ourselves.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZuluc2NpHM
« Last Edit: October 15, 2018, 09:14:54 AM by ccp »

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Mastercard goes after David Horowitz
« Reply #188 on: October 16, 2018, 08:45:38 PM »
   
 

 

 
 
Dear Fellow Patriot,

By now I'm sure you've heard of Facebook and Twitter's efforts to silence conservatives, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Just weeks ago, MasterCard colluded with the Southern Poverty Law Center and other left-wing fringe organizations to shut down my Freedom Center's online fundraising without so much as a warning.

The Southern Poverty Law Center blacklisted my organization as a "hate group" because we dare question the Left's agenda, and now big finance is using this bogus label to come after us.

Shortly after MasterCard launched this crippling attack, Discover Card came after us. And now, I have no choice but to take these credit card processors to court.

Because this isn't about me. This is about you and your free speech. The Left doesn't care if you're a politician, a pundit or a plumber — if you don't embrace their radical agenda, they want to destroy you.

I'll be honest — the legal fees are steep. But a generous donor has pledged to match all donations between now and October 20th. So anything you give today will have double the impact.

Will you follow this link to give $15, $25, $50 or more and take on the Left's corporate cronies trying to silence everyone that dares question them?

You see, I didn't break any of MasterCard's or Discover Card's rules. This was one step in an ongoing campaign to cripple the conservative movement one by one, organization by organization — then person by person.

And they couldn't have picked a better target.

I'm David Horowitz and the Left came after me because I've dedicated the last three decades of my life to fighting their plan to transform America with my Freedom Center's campaigns, literature and research.

But it won't stop with me, and that's why I'm taking MasterCard and Discover Card to court. So you don't have to. Because they won't stop until all conservatives are destroyed or silent.

So I'm counting on you to make an urgent, tax-deductible donation that will be matched dollar for dollar by a generous donor.

Remember — if you give $15, your true impact will be $30. If you give $25, your true impact will be $50. If you give $50, your true impact will be $100.

After we were first shut down, I spent two days in meeting after meeting with our attorneys until MasterCard finally backed down.

Fortunately, the Freedom Center is once again able to accept credit card donations. But this legal battle is just beginning, and it won't be pretty.

I know this won't be their last assault on Free Speech, and now we know that they'll stop at nothing to cripple conservatives like you and me. This lawsuit will set the precedent for decades to come. You and I must stand up to the Left's corporate cronies and let them know we won't be strong armed, silenced, or censored.

But with the legal fees expected to exceed $103,484 — I'm counting on your generous donation of $15, $25, $50 or more that will be matched dollar for dollar by a generous donor.

They don't just want to "censor" conservatives like you and me. They want to wipe us out.

In fact, Discover Card and MasterCard still have bans on Jihad Watch: our dedicated program for exposing the Islamic agenda.

And if we're going to protect Free Speech for all Americans, we can't play on defense. It's time for us to bring the fight to them. We need all hands on deck.

So I'm asking you to make a tax-deductible donation of $15, $25, $50 or more that will be matched dollar for dollar up to $50,000 between now and October 20th.

The Left wants to shut me up because my Freedom Center has exposed millions of Americans to the truths the mainstream media works to suppress. We've proven the dangers of radical Islam, the consequences of open borders, the cost of political correctness.

But they made one mistake — and that was thinking we'd lie there and take it.

The Freedom Center will never stop fighting for you. But as a nonprofit organization, we don't take a penny of government handouts. We rely entirely on patriots like you to sustain this battle.

Please follow this link right away to DOUBLE YOUR IMPACT so we can fight like we've never fought before.

And remember — a generous donor will match your gift, so your contribution will go that much farther.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Sincerely,
David Horowitz

P.S. The Left doesn't just want to silence conservatives like you and me — they want to destroy us. That's why it's so important that we're on a united front against them. Please follow this link to prepare for this gruesome legal battle and protect free speech for ALL Americans.

P.P.S. Don't forget that your urgent donation of $15, $25, $50 or more will be matched dollar for dollar by a generous donation up to $50,000!
DONATE NOW
 

 
 
 
 
 

 
© David Horowitz Freedom Center
 
www.horowitzfreedomcenter.org/

 
Mailing Address
P.O. Box 55089
Sherman Oaks, CA 91499
 
The David Horowitz Freedom Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.




 

 







DougMacG

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Bezos bucks the bullies
« Reply #191 on: October 18, 2018, 10:35:10 AM »


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Re: FB censors Gosnell movie
« Reply #194 on: October 22, 2018, 05:17:44 AM »
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/facebook-blocks-gosnell-ads-labels-film-about-serial-killer-abortionist-pol?fbclid=IwAR2EymP0kPn5th1fe7OzrU-aPqnUfyCEuVdFoSiLSNXUfLZVyBiLtcC8GYM

Half the country should leave Facebook over this and so many other transgressions.  Same for Google, Twitter, NYT, WashPost etc.  We need either conservative or unbiased alternatives!
« Last Edit: October 22, 2018, 05:20:18 AM by DougMacG »


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 :-o :-o :-o

That they would not give the full list is a very, very bad sign  :x :x :x

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