Gmail = bad

Someone above said that stuff like this endagered people who might on a lark use the term "kiddie porn" in a search engine, and get picked up on such a scouring of data.

My point was if your local lawmakers make such a search illegal, either don't do it, even in jest, or for heaven's sake address the laws, not the poor IT guy that keeps the backups.

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It seems to me that the people who wail the loudest for 'privacy' are the ones with something to hide...

Great point EH... I personally dont care whos spying on me, reading my Email or whatever..I am prettyt sure they will get bored and go away..I do..LoL

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1839

Baker...I think the problem is one of scale...and omniscience.

We live in 'the Information Age'....Global communication has never been simpler/faster....and if the adage 'Knowledge is Power' bit Orwellian, probably.... then Google may be seen as a 'power shift'.

Most social commentators look unkindly on corporate entities of global dominance, be it some Antitrust or other, yet what is transpiring with the all-pervasiveness of a Google search-engine is their rise towards a knowledge critical mass.

Advertisers need to know what you want to buy....that's a given....but it's only the start...

By accumulating your 'history' [note...not your identity...who cares exactly when you were born?]...they will soon [by association] begin to learn what you think...

[that's step 2]

Eventually, by the time they're aware of what you think they can impose specific targetting to instruct you how to think.

Shades of Doubleplusungood Newspeak....

[Let's eradicate 'poverty' by removing the word and ultimately the concept from our language].

BTW...I'm not paranoid...that bespokes an irrational fear or trepidation.

I'm entirely rational.

My one failing is that I am not gullible....and can think for myself. I don't wear a tinfoil hat ....and I believe only half of what I see and nothing of what I read.

I DO know that if someone knows more about something than someone else he can use that as a power over that person. Knowledge very much is power. An invidious infiltration by one entity into a global knowledge-base is a very real 'shift' of power that has [or eventually can have] far-reaching repercussions.

Now is just the tentative beginnings of the 'shift'....

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Like I really care. All I send are person e-mail and read newsletters. I send nothing important so it doesn't really matter to me. Google has my support, they are a good company with some good products.

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Bakerstreet, Thanks for the clarification.
There was a discussion on Slashdot a while back about some new laws requiring hosting companies to report CP (child porn) traffic and turn over the records to the authorities. Most of them said they just erased the tapes and bumped the users off the servers. The red tape they would have to get involved with if they reported it wouldn't have been worth their time.
Whether or not they should be reporting CP is another argument, but the point is that pulling an individuals emails off the backup tapes (or drives depending the storage system) is a real pain.
We curently use DLT and LTO tape for backups on our servers. On the occasions when a server has crashed, it has been easier to rebuild the data than to restore from the tapes. We are looking at a better storage solution, though since Sarbanes-Oxley demands we keep consistent off-site backups.

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Woof, good lord Jafo. This is, well, email, right? A storm is really raging in that teacup, evidently.

To me, what undercuts all that is the false belief that any of this is private anyway. If you see internet snooping as an invasion of your privacy, then you must have considered your interenet communications private to begin with. I don't see our acceptance of this as negative, I see it as realistic.

That's like being outraged that someone at the next table in a restaurant is listening to your conversation. You can whisper, you can cover your mouth with a newspaper, but the original idea that a public conversation is private is what is flawed.

We have our little email passwords, sure, but that isn't about privacy, that is about someone breaking into your account and deleteing your mail or abusing your account. The fallacy of privacy disappears when you hit send, and the email bounces all over the internet, and sits in logs and backups until the end of time.

If this truly depicts the shift you are talking about, it has more to do with the fact that we either have unreasonable expectations about privacy, or we have become so paranoid that we don't like the idea of even our public communications being overheard.

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1839

Baker...I don't care about email as an entity...just about how one individual [company] appears to be on a path to make it [the company] indispensible..and all-pervading.....looking for mass-takeup/acceptance of it's product, yet the commercial reward to them is knowledge, not income directly.

Don't respond to specifics....it's always accepted that communication is not genuinely 'private'....hell...my father was involved with the Enigma Codes during WW2....Army Intelligence...his entire active service was involved in intercepting communications.

This goes way beyond that...

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1839

If it were actually a teacup it'd be fine.

This is the whole darn teaset, and a bit besides. Data mining can probably be had in ways as yet untapped by Google....let's just see if they add them to their repertoire....

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XX

Join Date 03/2001

+23

Hmmm... interesting points, I agree with some of the 'both'. I only would say: Unless you have something to hide, you have nothing to fear.

Yeah. I could also enter the restroom and watch you, after all, you got nothing to hide right? The only people that don't want to be watched or tracked is criminals or terrorists.

Anyway, I believe that if there's an agreement, and you signed or "signed" it, Both company and you are bound by it's terms.

What I DO fear is the future that everyone is being watched by government everywhere, from outside in forests to inside the restroom. ironically, it won't really help. there's so many people you would have to hire about fourth of those population to be effective.

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starkers

Join Date 05/2004

+1153

I have to agree with Jafo here. It's not the piddling emails or online chats that are of concern, but rather the ever growing database of information that in the hands of one entity is considerable power when used enmass to manipulate any given situation to its own advantage. Okay, so we have nothing to hide in our emails and chats, but many have personal information on their machines, and when the thirst for knowledge far outweighs the information gleaned fron these sources, what's to say that your Google bar won't in the future have a data miner which can access deep into your personal information.

Yes, it could be detected and removed, maybe not.

The point is not so much what governments can glean because the corporate world eventually has greater powers upon law abiding citizens anyhow. It's your dollar, pound or peso they're after, and in one way or another, one company or another will find ways of prising it from your grasp using Google and other such devices.

Perhaps Google and Yahoo are not the villains, perse, but they have climbed into bed with many sponsors and advertisers competing for the power of knowledge to aquire the power of financial superiority.

Perhaps those of you who believe a few email intrusions are acceptable will want to reconsider... the quest for the mighty buck will endlessly forge forwards and unscrupulous corporations will endlessly find unscrupulous ways to build large bank accounts at your expense. Forget about corporate laws and trade practice acts.... the main players can well afford the paltry fines, in comparison to the financial rewards.

Being paranoid...no...history shows some of the worst ever thugs have been collar and tie, corporate ones.

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"Perhaps those of you who believe a few email intrusions are acceptable will want to reconsider... the quest for the mighty buck will endlessly forge forwards and unscrupulous corporations will endlessly find unscrupulous ways to build large bank accounts at your expense."

Urm, but that's the point of being a corporation. People act like profit is dishonest or something. DO you really think ISPs and Google and such are charities in the public service? It's their job for their shareholders to make as much money as they can, however they can.

No offense, but this is all anti-corporate silliness for its own sake. No one seems to be able to say what the great sin is here, no one can frame the great danger looming over us in any but the most vague terms.

Google is providing a service for its own profit. If you don't want to use it, don't. Don't feel cheated when a business makes money off you, that's what they exist to do.

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starkers

Join Date 05/2004

+1153

Aha, but I do not feel cheated when a business makes money off me. I only ever purchase what I want or need and am never swayed by advertising spiel or gimmicks to part me from my cash.

In the real world, corporate crime and market manipulation is a fact of life, and when so many fools and their money are easily parted, the service provided by Google and others like it to large corporations can all too often see ill gotten gains going to already wealthy types who need it far less than those manipulated or duped out of their cash. It's called greed, and whilst Google, etc, may provide free public search engines and the like, the greater service goes to the corporate big wigs who gain greater access to power and fools and their money. Okay, if that's the intention, then it's immoral and an abuse of the resource.

Of course we need companies to exist to make money, otherwise there'd be no products, no employment. That's not the problem. Every day you can see a news item regarding corporate thuggery, market manipulation and greed...that's the problem, and when greater masses can be adversely affected via such a gobal medium, it becomes a social and moral issue. Now this is not to say that every company behaves unscrupulous, or that every consumer is a fool, but the average Joe and his family can ill afford to come out on the dirty end of the financial stick when their take home pay is kept relatively low and the greater wealth is enjoyed by so few. Limited incomes only go so far!

Yes, Google provides a sevice to marketeers and the corporate world, and that's fine if used responsibly, but it is so very open to abuse...the kind that's driven by greed and the thirst for power. That's the issue here, not Google, necessarily.

I do not use Google or Gmail, not because of any dislike, but because I've never found a need to.

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You have a screwed up idea of "ill-gotten", immoral, or abusive. By your definition I don't see how any major corporation could stay in business. You call it greed, but to them it is income. No doubt your employer calls it greed when you ask for a raise.

There's nothing moral about this. You freely give a company information, and they use all their resources to make a profit. I'm sorry that reality seems to suck for so many people, but that's the facts. "Greed" and "Abuse" and all the rest just comes down to people who don't run businesses telling those who do how to run them.

If people want to tell Google how to run their business, then buy enough stock for your opinion to matter, or become a bomb-hurling communist and turn the world into one where there aren't any private businesses.

Or better yet, let people do what they like and if you don't like it do business with someone else.

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starkers

Join Date 05/2004

+1153

Bakerstreet: we obviously differ in our views on the world, but there's more than enough evidence to support both cases and we could debate the topic endlessly, so perhaps we should agree to disagree.

As for becoming a bomb-hurling communist, terrorist or otherwise....nah. No cause or argument justifies the maiming, killing and destruction of property. I may not like particular corporate entities for various business practices, but the horrors of 911, Madrid and recently London are more than sufficient to disuade any decent minded person from resorting to such fanaticism. Violence never solved anything and is pointless as a means to an end. However, buying enough stock to affect the dealings of large corporations is well out of the reach of average joe blow's such as I, so I whinge instead

As for asking the boss for a raise, well here in Oz, the average worker has their wage set to an award rate which is minimally indexed anually. Last I heard, very few are able to ask for a raise, let alone receive one outside indexation. In part, we can blame the government and unions....incomes are set and prices are not.

Oh well, that's another issue. T'was enlightening to read your views...you made some valid points, and thanks for sharing them.

starkers

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Never meant to imply you would or should harm anyone. Just making an allusion to folks in the late 1800's who thought that they could change the world from the "greedy" place it is by force. Sadly for the Lenin's of the world, it just ain't hap'nin, nor is anyone going to do it voluntarily.

No worries, I can agree to disagree. Just fun to hash it out.

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Hey how bout you leave gmail alone i mean come-on they are just trying to give you more space so you dont have to thrw shit away. I dont think that they want peoples mail

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P.S. If you are writing from Joe User, there's a blog article called "Redneck Juice" that has paralleled this conversation uncannily, only it is about the oil industry.

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1839

Hey how bout you leave gmail alone i mean come-on they are just trying to give you more space so you dont have to thrw shit away.

Wow...how magnanimous of them...and charitable, too....

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starkers

Join Date 05/2004

+1153

No worries, Bakerstreet, I didn't think you were advocating violence....you come across as being far too intelligent for that. Actually, I don't normally visit joe user, but your reference has persuaded me to have a look at the article mentioned, thanks for that.

BTW, paintballer...my argument didn't actually target Google or Gmail directly, but was a generalisation about the business world as a whole....however, as the old saying goes...beware of Greeks bearing gifts...perhaps there's more to it than you bargained for.

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People, just don't read your spam and you will probably be fine.

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starkers

Join Date 05/2004

+1153

Oh how times have changed....there was a time when spam was a canned meat...a derivative of ham, I suspect.

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My daddy told me "just 'cause you're paranoid, doesn't mean they are not out to get you"

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Things to perhaps keep in mind:

1 - "Use of information" laws are changing rapidly in the U.S.

2 - The ones behind the changing of the laws probably have long term agendas.

3 - The one(s) who can control the information will hold an advantage.

4 - Be careful who you give control to.

There is a term known as "an opening in one's ki" - which translates as "condition of vulnerability", and seems like it might apply here to some degree.

I am thinking that if there is not a time limit on the saved information (perhaps 6 or 12 months), then we may be looking at unfair exploitation.

Just a couple thoughts.

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"Google has been naughty. They have kept every email that a gmail user has sent or recieved (the mail still got sent).
They have also been keeping the gmail users details. All of the emails and info have been kept on one helluva server. This is just to warn you."

Dear God, no! An Internet economy company is actually doing what it said it would do? The heresy!

Armageddon's coming!

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Wow, you're really getting worked up over this.

So many people use Gmail that the chances of someone getting interest in your particular emails is very unlikely.

And who cares, the most people would be able to find in my email is ever changing passwords, and I mean ever changing.

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Gmail = bad

major security risk!!!