[HN Gopher] Government Orders Google to Identify Anyone Who Sear...
___________________________________________________________________
Government Orders Google to Identify Anyone Who Searched Name,
Address & Phone N
Author : spzx
Score : 140 points
Date : 2021-10-04 15:10 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.forbes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.forbes.com)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Argh. Clickbait article header. The header sounds like a "blanket
| trawl," which, I suspect, would require an NSA-grade computer to
| manage (which they have, so it's not beyond belief).
|
| They were sending warrants to people that searched for
| _particular_ names, addresses, etc.
|
| Not news. We all know this has been going on for many years. It's
| fairly standard, in many "capital crime" cases.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _Not news. We all know this has been going on for many
| years._
|
| Who is the 'we' here?
|
| Many people may have _assumed_ this is happening... But
| according to the article itself, there 's less then a handful
| of these specific warrants being recorded/unsealed/reported in
| the news.
|
| Do you have access to sources which Forbes does not where more
| of these warrants are documented?
|
| From the article:
|
| > _Before this latest case, only two keyword warrants had been
| made public. One revealed in 2020 [...]_
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| You have a good point.
|
| File this under "proof of what everyone already knew, but
| couldn't verify."
| ziml77 wrote:
| I got the same impression from the title.
|
| The request is limited to searches for a couple specific people
| over a short timeframe. They had legitimate reason for it.
| There's no issue here.
| [deleted]
| trutannus wrote:
| The headline in the post has been modified too from the
| original. The original is _Exclusive: Government Secretly
| Orders Google To Identify Anyone Who Has Searched A Name,
| Address And Telephone Number_. The A there does a lot of
| heavy lifting, and implies that the warrants are for specific
| items.
|
| The title on HN here is _Exclusive: Government Secretly
| Orders Google To Identify Anyone Who Has Searched Name,
| Address And Telephone N_ , which implies that this is for all
| searches that are for any of these sorts of items.
| RobRivera wrote:
| So anyone who searched A SPECIFIC Name...this title is grossly
| misleadung
| icarus_gh wrote:
| As a person neither leaning East nor West who is an avid HN
| reader it's always interesting to read the comments under such
| topics where the collusion between US private companies come up.
| Comparing it to the reactions when tenous connections between
| Chinese companies and the CCP are characterised as a threat to
| freedom and human rights.
|
| It reminds me to be wary of my own biases. Because from where I
| stand they are all two sides of the same coin.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Courts in the US are generally quite independent of the
| political process. Abuse of the court system is prosecuted
| fairly heavily. This is "rule of law".
|
| On the other hand, courts in China do whatever the CCP tells
| them. These are not equivalent.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Also, on a technical level, let's not equate a government
| apparatus that both controls and records anything and
| everything you do online, with a government asking a private
| company to identify people who searched the name of a girl
| who was murdered.
| etc-hosts wrote:
| How do you feel about Steven Donziger ?
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/lawyer-who-sued-chevron-
| sen...
| a_large_rat00 wrote:
| Where is this judicial fantasyland you live in with
| apolitical judges and independent laws? They're written,
| passed, judged, and enforced by heavily partisan actors, now
| more than ever. You're kidding yourself, and no one else, if
| you think the US judicial system is politically independent.
| hnfong wrote:
| Given that judiciary being subservient to the Party is an
| intentional feature in China, no competent western system
| would do "worse" in judicial independence than China.
|
| The GP is literally always correct in relativistic terms.
| If that makes people in the West feel more comfortable with
| the government, I _guess_ I could say good for them? :)
| a_large_rat00 wrote:
| The Supreme Court itself is a partisan institution, now
| more than ever, and every reading of the Constitution has
| been subject to partisan biases since forever. That's not
| to say we have no checks and balances, just that they are
| not independent. More like interdependent and part of a
| vicious cycle; biased legislators appoint biased judges
| who exonerate biased executives who reward biased
| legislators. I think the cycles of the last few years
| have made that abundantly clear, but any cursory reading
| of US history should reveal this is not a new pattern.
| It's just how the system has always worked, our folklore
| notwithstanding.
| stickfigure wrote:
| If you don't think life appointment makes someone
| politically independent, I have to wonder what possible
| office would qualify. Divine monarch? Furher?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I think this depends on what you define as "abuse". Many
| suspects are railroaded into plea-bargains to avoid
| bankruptcy or the risk of more severe charges regardless of
| actual guilt[1]. There are also abuses like civil asset
| forfeiture or false DMCA takedowns that rarely see any
| punishment.
|
| I think it's possible to get justice in the US court system
| _if you have money_. This isn 't really "rule of law" as one
| might commonly think of it though.
|
| [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/inno
| cen...
| a_large_rat00 wrote:
| One can be against heavy-handed authoritarianism both at home
| and abroad, while still seeing the (quite distinct) shades of
| gray between the US security apparatus and the CCP, or between
| the CCP and North Korea, or between the US and the EU.
| Different governments and processes give different weights to
| due process and human rights vs bureaucratic efficiency and
| national security.
|
| It should not be controversial to say that the CCP is more
| heavy-handed when it comes to government reach into private
| lives. That doesn't exonerate the US by any stretch; our
| government does a ton of shady shit, much of it arguably
| unconstitutional or extrajudicial, from warrantless wiretaps to
| drone executions of US citizens. But these make the news, which
| indicates 1) at least there is a relatively free press and 2)
| they are unusual enough as to be noteworthy, as opposed to
| commonplace and not discussed.
|
| China doesn't share the same values as the West. The individual
| is deemphasized for the collective good, as defined by the
| current CCP elite of any decade. That doesn't mean their
| political system is inferior or superior -- our fragile
| "democracy" is threatening to devolve into civil war and take
| down the whole country, if not world with it -- but it IS a
| very different government on a different part of an
| authoritarianism <--> libertarianism continuum. It's not useful
| to equate them in this context just because the West does shady
| surveillance on its own citizens too.
| hnfong wrote:
| > It should not be controversial to say that the CCP is more
| heavy-handed when it comes to government reach into private
| lives
|
| I'm not so sure that is true. If anything the US agencies
| seem to be quite a bit more technologically advanced, and I'd
| bet they sit on more undisclosed zero days than the CCP.
|
| You're definitely correct in the difference in ideological
| values, and this difference might make up for the
| technological gap between the surveillance capabilities of
| the two governments, but I honestly would say it's still a
| 50-50 to me which one comes out on "top".
| a_large_rat00 wrote:
| Can you explain/rephrase? Are you just talking about
| surveillance in particular? If so, I apologize for not
| being clearer... I meant heavy-handed as in forced
| disappearances, labor camps, censorship, behavioral
| modification, etc. (or in the US, forced
| reproduction/sterilization, manipulation of educational
| curricula, etc.)
|
| China's recent attempts to curb the influences of their Big
| Tech and online gaming sectors come to mind, vs the fuck-
| all we've done with ours over the past couple decades. Soon
| Facebook is going to become a supranational organization
| that can drive new laws just by enraging enough people
| through algorithmic manipulation... our watchdogs are
| whimpering puppies against that kind of power. Our
| government is way weaker in terms of its ability to
| regulate business or personal behavior.
|
| And for the common person, sure, our government might know
| everything we're doing (they all do, these days), but by
| and large it does not really care. The data it collects is
| often so disorganized even its own agencies don't know how
| to share it with each other, much less use it to
| systematically oppress -- for now. Our discourse and
| dissent is THRIVING, free speech is alive and well, and we
| have so much freedom we've self-organized into alternate
| reality bubbles, absent state guidance and with a
| deliberate disregard of expert opinion. China doesn't allow
| its society to fracture like that. Ours has no choice but
| to allow it to happen, and our elites encourage that sort
| of fragmentation because it makes for easier power-
| mongering at the top when the commoners are divided against
| each other.
|
| The Chinese are oppressed by a heavy-handed, paternal
| government. Americans are oppressed by a government so weak
| that capital, charisma, and convenience govern our society,
| not our supposed laws or values. Other developed countries,
| democratic or not, tend to fall in between those extremes,
| from the UK & Australia closer to us (weaker gov) to the
| Canada & EU (stronger govs) to the Nordic and Asian
| democracies (stronger yet), yet China's is way way way
| stronger than all of those.
| jart wrote:
| The cultural gap is because America's political leadership is
| mostly lawyers and China's is mostly scientists and
| engineers. So people hailing from the latter background tend
| to think along more utilitarian and technical lines.
| l33tbro wrote:
| > That doesn't exonerate the US by any stretch; our
| government does a ton of shady shit, much of it arguably
| unconstitutional or extrajudicial, from warrantless wiretaps
| to drone executions of US citizens. But these make the news,
| which indicates 1) at least there is a relatively free press
| and 2) they are unusual enough as to be noteworthy, as
| opposed to commonplace and not discussed.
|
| Does what is reported by the media equate to the sum total of
| US malfeasance? I sometimes wonder if there is an Overton's
| Window for the public's appetite for corruption and exposure
| of systemic exploitation.
|
| > China doesn't share the same values as the West. The
| individual is deemphasized for the collective good, as
| defined by the current CCP elite of any decade.
|
| Could the 2 power structures have different approaches to how
| the individual is de-emphasised for collective good? Perhaps
| the US has a more diffused and opaque strategy of achieving
| the same end? I say this because Americans signal opportunity
| and the virtues of social agency to one another at all levels
| of society - but each time I travel there it seems like a
| social nightmare where few are actually contented once you
| get past the small talk.
| bumbada wrote:
| I don't believe you understand the concept of "tenuous".
|
| I have worked in China, China is a totalitarian communist
| State. There are no tenuous connections between the CCP and
| Chinese companies, companies ARE the CCP.
|
| For example if you go around China you will see children with a
| red badge around the neck. This badge represents that the kid
| is a good student and the kid is forced to wear it.
|
| In China the best students automatically enter the CCP, there
| is a spy apparatus that controls them once people travel abroad
| from friends and relatives. If they do something abroad against
| the CCP they take retaliation against their families.
|
| If you want to create a company in China, you must enter the
| CCP. How tenuous is that?
|
| People that have not lived there just can't understand what
| totalitarian means, there is no rule of Law and not free press.
| The "dictator for life" Xi Jinping can kill anyone in China
| with no consequences, and he regularly kills competitors or
| threats to his power.
|
| Having said that, people in charge in the US or the financial
| elite would love the world becoming their own totalitarian
| regime, just like China but on the entire world. They lobby for
| that every day.
|
| Those guys really love power, because they have power, they
| want more, they want it all like the song says.
|
| It is really nothing new. Just like the Romans wanted to
| conquer Cartage to own the entire world. Philip II of Spain
| wanted the same thing conquering Britain, later it was
| Napoleon, and then Hitler and Stalin.
|
| Now it is the US who would love to conquer China and Russia if
| they could. Also China would love to expand by force if they
| could.
|
| The only reason they don't is because nuclear weapons.
|
| The price of liberty for normal people is eternal vigilance.
| randombits0 wrote:
| From my perspective, this ability was generally assumed to be
| true but confirmation is interesting.
|
| Heck, it's even a running stand-up joke. "Ask your wife if you
| can look up something on her phone. Google "How to kill your
| husband" and hand it back to her. Congrats, you're safe for
| another month!
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Yeah, honestly, this kind of thing slightly terrifies me. I
| know I have definitely Googled for totally random things that,
| when taken out of context, would look pretty bad. I remember
| once watching a show where someone was knocked out with
| chloroform, and I googled something like "Does chloroform
| really work?" or "Can you really knock someone out with
| chloroform?"
|
| I turned to my partner and joked "You better not be huffing any
| chloroform in the near future."
|
| That's the light side of it, but the scary side of it, and why
| these sort of "fishing expeditions" are so dangerous, is that
| statistically it's probably the case that if you're keywords
| are pretty specific (googling a person's name or address in a
| very time limited window), that 90-95% of the time if someone
| popped up they _were_ doing something suspicious - but that
| means 5-10% of the time you 'd get a false positive. Given
| revelations of people who have been released fro _death row_
| for rather flimsy evidence, I don 't have confidence that the
| authorities would do much besides try to find someone guilty
| once they got a hit.
| GordonS wrote:
| I feel the same sometimes.
|
| Every now and then I want to Google something a bit dubious,
| but decide against it, _just in case_. I mean, I 've no
| intention of murdering anyone or anything like that, I'm just
| just a curious soul.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Further, if someone were to train a machine learning model to
| predict which people googling "chloroform" actually went on
| to become kidnappers, you might find yourself at the front of
| the list -- not for a good reason, but because the term "MAC"
| is shared between tech and anesthesia, so some innocent
| fishing around for the OUI prefix on a smart fridge might be
| misinterpreted by a black box algorithm as the logistics of a
| kidnapper trying to determine the Minimum Alveolar
| Concentration of anesthetic required to accomplish their
| goals.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| > Google "How to kill your husband" and hand it back to her.
| Congrats, you're safe for another month!
|
| Sure, google's search results suck nowadays, but she could
| always just go to the library.
| paleotrope wrote:
| First 20 results are SEO sites with words Husband and
| Husbandry in them.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| makes perfect sense, there's lots of killing in animal
| husbandry.
| rbobby wrote:
| > safe for the another month
|
| Not so fast there buddy. Best check what autocompletes for "how
| to dispose of a b..." and "best place to b...".
| jfk13 wrote:
| I get "how to dispose of a broken tv", and "best place to buy
| a used car". And your point was...?
| rbobby wrote:
| No body/bury = good
| einpoklum wrote:
| This story is a smoke screen. The government in general - that
| is, some branches of the government starting with the NSA -
| already obtains all this information, and more, automatically
| from Google, whether willingly or otherwise. No warrant, no
| specific orders, no nothing. That is part of Edward Snowden's
| revelations:
|
| https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Guardian_and_Snowden_r...
|
| Many large media outlets have basically buried this fact rather
| quickly after the initial coverage of the revelations, and now we
| can have stories about how "the keyword warrant" being "one of
| the more contentious". Sure, it's contentious, since _more_
| government bodies get easier access to some of the information,
| but its infraction of people's privacy is nothing compared to the
| vast public spying.
|
| One should also mention the mechanism of "National Security
| Letters", in which the executive branch of the US federal (only?)
| government can compel non-govenrment entities, in secret, to
| provide them with whatever information they deem necessary for
| national security purposes:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter
| farmerstan wrote:
| On one hand I totally believe that our privacy needs to be
| protected companies that facilitate government surveillance
| should be boycotted.
|
| On the other hand, the fact that no one can find Brian Laundrie
| indicates to be that generally government is incompetent and
| can't mask all these things together to do anything really
| useful.
| stickfigure wrote:
| If he's in the belly of some crocodile, he's probably not using
| electronic devices.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| How does the internet collect data (and share it) about someone
| offline (presumably in the wilderness)?
| gillytech wrote:
| Time to stop using Google Search or any of their services.
| Realistically the only one that's not replaceable ATM is YouTube
| but hopefully soon will be with other platforms gaining speed.
|
| Personally I use Brave Search for 99% of my searches. They are
| definitely privacy based, unlike some other alternatives.
| binkHN wrote:
| If you haven't already, you've been able to "auto-delete" the
| data Google keeps on you for a while now. I think Google should
| be turning this on by default for everyone, but, if you are not
| doing this, a little more detail may be found at
| https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/automatically....
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| This is only the data that Google keeps _for_ you, not the data
| that Google keeps _on_ you.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Don't want to be swept up in a dragnet? Don't want to be a
| suspect based on normal everyday activities? Then you better not
| use Google, try DuckDuckGo or another private search engine.
|
| Edit: downvote all you want. dealing with google is like talking
| to the police, whatever you say/do will be used against you. in
| googles case for advertising/influencing you or by the government
| using the google gold mine. you can spare yourself by using a
| different search engine.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| I've been de-googling my life as much as possible the last
| year. I think it's impossible to completely be rid of it but at
| least I feel I'm doing something.
|
| Moving important email to protonmail. I only use firefox and
| duckduckgo browsers. Pretty much exclusively using duckduckgo
| for search. I've installed a PiHole on my home network. I've
| switched to an iPhone... although I considering some custom
| android ROM now. Using Apple Maps.
|
| I wish there was a YouTube alternative that was up to par.
| hef19898 wrote:
| YouTube and YouTube music are the only remnants of Google for
| me at the moment. With the occasional use if Facebooks
| messenger for a particular group of friends and WhatsApp. The
| later _really_ annoys me, so. Turned getting rid of
| everything MS was much easier, privately that is, now that I
| don 't need Excel anymore. My employer provided IT equipment
| is still MS, so.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| > Moving important email to protonmail.
|
| https://www.thedailybeast.com/secure-email-provider-
| protonma...
|
| Protonmail literally gave up the personal info of some French
| activists who were later arrested...
| jefftk wrote:
| ProtonMail was required to do this, under Swiss law. They
| don't track you by default, but they can be compelled to
| add logging by their government.
|
| This isn't an issue with ProtonMail in particular; any
| email provider has to follow local laws, and Swiss law is
| generally a pretty good framework if you have to choose.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| For the record, I have no issue with Protonmail (or other
| tech companies) following the law. But their claim was
| always that email was encrypted and they "don't track
| you" which was always nonsense. Just like Apple's privacy
| promises. In the end all tech companies either track you,
| have the ability to track you, and have to give you up to
| the relevant authorities.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _For the record, I have no issue with Protonmail_
|
| If this was the case, you would have given the full
| context in your earlier comment. There is a significant
| difference between tracking by default and tracking only
| when issued a court order.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| > There is a significant difference between tracking by
| default and tracking only when issued a court order.
|
| Is there? Either your data is on their server or it
| isn't. As if they can't give data created before a court
| order to a government after a court order...
| ziddoap wrote:
| I can't believe I have to argue that there is a
| difference between always tracking everything by default
| and only turning on tracking once a warrant arrives.
|
| In one case, you track everything.
|
| In the other case, you don't track everything. But you
| have the ability to turn on logging when required (like,
| for example, with a warrant).
|
| > _As if they can 't give data created before a court
| order_
|
| This is surprisingly simple. You just don't track the
| data until you have to because of a warrant. Then you say
| "Sorry, I don't have data before your warrant arrived
| because we do not track it".
| 2snakes wrote:
| It seems to me there are privacy knock-on effects. How
| long does the logging need to be on? If you turn on
| logging, does it turn on logging for all? (Seems likely
| yes) Therefore one warrant can put all other privacy-
| desiring users at risk...
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _How long does the logging need to be on?_
|
| This would depend on the warrant.
|
| > _If you turn on logging, does it turn on logging for
| all? (Seems likely yes)_
|
| No, the warrant must have a specific (non-drag-net)
| scope. Broadly scoped warrants are fought to reduce the
| scope to something specific (reduced time-frame, reduced
| users, etc.). This is common, even with Google/FB. I'm
| not sure why you assume yes.
|
| > _Therefore one warrant can put all other privacy-
| desiring users at risk..._
|
| No, not really.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| https://protonmail.com/security-details
|
| They literally claim they're "unable" to give data to 3rd
| parties.
|
| Another claim is that they have secure features for
| activists and journalists.
|
| The trust is broken...
| kube-system wrote:
| I think there's a significant and important difference
| between collecting data after being presented with a
| warrant, and collecting data indiscriminately by default.
| JasonCannon wrote:
| Because France had a treaty with Switzerland, the home
| country of protonmail, and Switzerland gave Protonmail a
| legally binding warant to turn over information. Nothing
| that Protonmail could do unless they themselves wanted to
| be arrested.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Being legally compelled to hand over data is not the same
| as actively collecting every single facet of personal info
| about people for monetary profit bud.
|
| Google does exactly what you're upset about ON TOP of a
| plethora of more insidious things.
|
| If you're trying to make a claim that one is equal to the
| other you're failing miserably.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Eric Schmidt, as Google CEO, had a habit of saying unpopular
| but true things. When he responded to a question about how
| people interact with Google with "If you have something that
| you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it
| in the first place," he wasn't so much offering self-criticism
| as a warning regarding the overall societal trend, of which
| Google was merely a part.
|
| The context is often left out in that interview snippet,
| because he goes on to say "... but if you really need that kind
| of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google
| do retain this information for some time, and it's important,
| for example that we are all subject in the United States to the
| Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made
| available to the authorities."
|
| Actions online leave a data trail. The US government has broad
| subpoena power to acquire that data trail. DDG is a smaller
| aggregation house, so it's less likely to be hit _first,_ but I
| wouldn 't assume that they don't retain routing info, IP
| addresses, etc. that could (with some difficulty) be collected
| and aggregated to narrow the search space for a person.
| gillytech wrote:
| Privacy is generally agreed to be a human right. And privacy
| means that you can do or say something and have a right to
| have it not be known or made public. If someone with access
| to you data exposes it, it's a violation of privacy.
|
| So no, the old argument of "if you don't want it known, don't
| do it" is fallacious and dangerous.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > Privacy is generally agreed to be a human right.
|
| Correct, but not a universal, constant, perpetual one like
| life and liberty. It is situational and context-specific;
| for example, it is not assumed you have a right to privacy
| regarding what you shout in the public square.
|
| The still open question is the scope (perpetuity and
| breadth) of that right regarding things like the
| information you query on a publicly-accessible third-party
| search service... Does it look more like the privacy around
| what you do in your own bedroom or around what you do in
| the public square. And we have precedent that pokes at this
| topic... One's banking affairs, for example, are relatively
| private, but the state has a vested interest (taxation and
| investigation of a crime) in acquiring that information in
| special circumstances, and banks can and will divulge their
| copy of that information upon due legal request from the
| state.
|
| I think it's hard to build a case that you have the same
| right to privacy as a bedroom right regarding information
| that you have queried in a third-party's database over a
| public network. It certainly seems like the jury is still
| out on the topic (and has been for two or three decades
| now, at least).
| gillytech wrote:
| I do agree with you that privacy as a concept is
| variable, as with many other notions. I wasn't thinking
| with the right to privacy as a bulwark against a state's
| legal jurisprudence.
|
| For example say a disgruntled ex-lover posts private
| medical information on someone else and this gets indexed
| by Google. Obviously this is a breach of privacy. I would
| extend that to any private information, and the person
| should have the ability to remove that private
| information.
|
| I think it has also been made more and more clear that
| platforms should not perpetually and forever host
| information about individuals against their wishes.
| People change, and this should be reflected in the public
| square. In the old days, your shouts only existed in the
| memory of those that were there. Now they are as fresh as
| the day they were posted.
|
| The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 12
| states: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary
| interference with his privacy, family, home or
| correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and
| reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of
| the law against such interference or attacks."
|
| The key is "protection of the law" and this is why I
| think that privacy should be regulated by government
| which extends its authority into "private" companies.
| Clearly that function is needed. However, I am constantly
| hearing the opposite case being made, that government
| should use its power to dig up information on law-abiding
| citizens as they could be doing something illegal.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Doesn't the added context change it from a moral argument
| to a pragmatic one about opsec as it were? Morally not
| locking your door doesn't mean you should be robbed.
| Practically it means you are more likely to be robbed.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Unpopular but true? No. Popular and false.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| Schmidt had some incident where some info about him was
| posted. He was really upset. Pretty sure he threatened or did
| do legal action. Coming from his position of power.
|
| Doesn't make what he said untrue. Just funnier.
| mdoms wrote:
| Do you have any evidence that the same government orders were
| not given to DuckDuckGo? Or that they wouldn't be if DDG had
| any kind of meaningful market share?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| If your goal is not to be seen, relying on things without
| meaningful market share is actually fine.
|
| Security through obscurity is bad long-term, comprehensive
| strategy because it's unstable and not indefatigable... Not
| because it doesn't work in the short run and in one-off
| cases.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _If your goal is not to be seen, relying on things
| without meaningful market share is actually fine._
|
| Except for the cases where you want the exact opposite,
| because the noise makes it more difficult to find a single
| person. If there's only 5 people using, say, TOR Browser -
| you become easy to track.
|
| Not saying this is the case here, just that different
| situations require different operational security
| considerations.
| rstat1 wrote:
| You say that as if DuckDuckGo is completely immune to the same
| sorts of warrants.
|
| They're all the same, serving you ads based on your search
| terms.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > You say that as if DuckDuckGo is completely immune to the
| same sorts of warrants.
|
| If you don't collect data, you can't share it in a warrant.
| rstat1 wrote:
| But they do though. How else are they going to serve you
| ads based on your search terms? (which they plainly say on
| their website that they do)
|
| There isn't a single search engine anywhere that isn't
| collecting some data. Not even DDG.
| leereeves wrote:
| DDG's privacy policy says:
|
| > When you search at DuckDuckGo, we don't know who you
| are and there is no way to tie your searches together.
|
| > When you access DuckDuckGo (or any Web site), your Web
| browser automatically sends information about your
| computer, e.g. your User agent and IP address.
|
| > Because this information could be used to link you to
| your searches, we do not log (store) it at all.
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/privacy#s3
| burnished wrote:
| Serving ads based on your search terms is like serving an
| ad because some ones search had the word 'bolts' in it.
| You don't need to keep a lot of information pertaining to
| that around, not about the people using your service at
| least.
|
| Google isn't doing that. They have pretty complete
| portraits of your life (and dare I say) psychology that
| only comes from having such an incredible wealth of
| information about you and your position in the network
| graph.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > How else are they going to serve you ads based on your
| search terms
|
| They obviously have the search term your searching! They
| don't need to track you, they send the ads back with the
| search results!
| kobalsky wrote:
| protonmail used to say this on their website and removed it
| after some people were arrested because they did provide
| logs to the french authorities.
|
| the catch is that they didn't log by default but they had
| to log specific users due to a warrant.
|
| the same will happen any service hosted by legal
| businesses.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Can't log specific users if you don't track who is who.
| lamontcg wrote:
| > the catch is that they didn't log by default but they
| had to log specific users due to a warrant.
|
| that is a usable quantum bump up in privacy. requiring
| the authorities to specifically be investigating you,
| rather than you just being caught in a dragnet looking
| for someone to investigate.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Yes. I think people forget that personalization is not used
| for ads in Google Search - it's always ads for what you're
| searching for. Your data is only used for things like YT Ads
| and banner ads via Adsense-enabled sites.
| ectopod wrote:
| That's half true. Personalisation informs the search which
| informs the ads. If I search for a restaurant I get ads for
| local restaurants.
| lmilcin wrote:
| > Edit: downvote all you want.
|
| Complaining about being downvoted is shunned upon on HN and is
| unlikely to cause people to stop downvoting. It brings nothing
| interesting to discussion and actually reduces density of
| interesting things.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| You only posted a piece of my edit. I did also clarify my
| point. Was not meant as a complaint as much as a
| clarification and invitation for discussion. Wish more down
| votes would comment.
|
| My style tends to be terse/short and perhaps I don't always
| make my point well.
| fragmede wrote:
| The edit would have been better if you'd left off the first
| four words in it. It's not your terseness that's the issue.
| stickfigure wrote:
| It still detracts from the conversation and invites
| distracting meta-threads like this one (and yes, I'm
| contributing). It's really better to let your original
| point stand on its own.
|
| Don't be disheartened by a few downvotes in the short
| period while a comment is still editable. You may get many
| more upvotes as time goes on. Or not, but don't take it
| personally either way.
|
| There are also people like me that upvote interesting
| comments even if we disagree with them (especially if they
| are unfairly negative). Meta-commentary on votes tends
| makes them much less interesting.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Fair enough.
| duckmysick wrote:
| Would not using Google or Facebook be considered suspicious at
| some point?
| goalieca wrote:
| DuckDuckGo famously does not save your search history but the way
| things are going I fear that one day such a thing will be
| mandated.
| panarky wrote:
| DDG famously blocked people in countries that aren't China from
| searching for topics that China censors.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27394925
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| That was caused by Microsoft (DDG uses Bing search results):
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jun/04/microsoft.
| ..
|
| Don't get me wrong, it doesn't make them look good, but the
| problem was the with the source of their results, not them
| censoring "tank man".
| pugworthy wrote:
| And ProtonMail never keeps (er, kept) IP logs.
|
| You can trust them if you want, but really can you trust any
| company now days?
| rank0 wrote:
| They were legally compelled to BEGIN keeping logs for a
| specific individual. It's not that they had logs ready to go.
| They also notified the user that they had received the Swiss
| warrant.
|
| What should they have done differently? It's comply with the
| order or dissolve the company.
| stevens37 wrote:
| TOR browser + duckduckgo
| wongarsu wrote:
| In principle I don't have a problem with the police getting a
| warrant to find out who searched for a specific name or place in
| a constrained time frame. It's a bit like the police asking the
| library who checked out a specific book.
|
| The problem is that this could obviously be used with keywords
| that target a wide group of people, e.g. finding everyone who
| plans to attend a protest. If we continue to allow keyword
| warrants we should add a law limiting their reach, e.g. by
| limiting the number of people who can be revealed in the answer
| to any one such warrant.
| perihelions wrote:
| > _" If we continue to allow keyword warrants we should add a
| law limiting their reach, e.g. by limiting the number of people
| who can be revealed in the answer to any one such warrant."_
|
| What's frustrating is that that limit is already present in the
| constitution itself: "upon probable cause... and...
| *particularly* describing the place to be searched, and the
| persons or things to be seized". "Particularly" isn't syntactic
| sugar; it is a word with meaning. "Specifically, uniquely or
| individually"; "In detail; with regard to particulars".
| Mass/dragnet/geofence warrants aren't constitutional.
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/particularly#Adverb
|
| Plenty of federal judges seem to agree,
|
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/08/new-federal-court-ruli...
|
| _"...geofence warrant violates the Fourth Amendment's probable
| cause and particularity requirements "*_
| mywittyname wrote:
| Most people do not have unique names. The number of unique
| names in the USA is estimated to be around 750,000 (using
| census data). Out of a population of 330,000,000 people. Which
| means, on average, 440 people will have the same name.
|
| And these names will be clustered in population centers because
| people cluster in population centers. And since surnames are
| generally familial, people with the same names are very likely
| to live near other people with the same name.
|
| You can use public records searches to find people nearby with
| the same name as you. You might be surprised at how common it
| is to have people near you with the same name. There are a few
| people locally who share a name with me, and who own businesses
| that probably get a decent amount of internet traffic based on
| name searches.
| [deleted]
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > It's a bit like the police asking the library who checked out
| a specific book.
|
| And you have no problem with this? Government and police
| looking into and judging you based on what you read is one step
| away from policing wrongthink. You can't learn anything deemed
| dangerous anymore without being arrested. Can't look up how a
| bomb or sarin gas works without SWAT coming down on you because
| you're obviously a terrorist.
|
| This government collusion with Google is the same thing.
| Government and police show up and say "find me a list of people
| who searched for dangerous knowledge". This is normal now,
| without even the trepidation depicted in films like Se7en.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Why would a library have records of who borrowed what?
|
| The old manual system in the UK worked on a system where your
| library card was a sort of envelope into which the book's card
| was placed and then it was placed in a tray in chronological
| order. When you returned the book you got your card back and
| there was no trace.
|
| The library would only be able to say who had the book at the
| moment when they were asked not for times in the past.
|
| See https://www.1900s.org.uk/1940s50s-library-systems.htm
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| I always thought that it was generally accepted that if people
| tried to get hold of your library-loan records; that that was a
| red line. You can't call a place a free country if the police
| can ask for your library information.
|
| For instance: In the Netherlands, libraries tend(ed) to destroy
| your loaned-book information ~ when the books were returned.
| (They seem to have since picked up some data-mining habits?)
| tzs wrote:
| Historically, I don't think there was much concern in the US
| over library records. Before library records were
| computerized it was often easy for anyone to find out who had
| checked out a given book and when.
|
| A typical system might work like this. Inside each book there
| was a pocket attached to the back of the front cover, and in
| that pocket was a card.
|
| When you checked out the book, your name and library card
| number and when the book was due were added to the card,
| below the entries for previous checkouts, and the card was
| filed somewhere. A card showing the due date was placed in
| the pocket and you could then leave with the book.
|
| When you returned the book the checkout record card was put
| back in and the book re-shelved.
|
| Want to know who has checked out a book before? Just walk
| into the library and look at the checkout card. No need for a
| warrant, and no need to even ask a librarian for the records.
|
| Eventually the card would fill up and they'd have to start a
| new one. I don't know if they kept the old ones or not. Since
| storing them would take space, I'd guess they were probably
| thrown away (perhaps after recording some stats on how
| frequently the book was checked out, because those might be
| useful in the future when deciding on changes to their
| collection). If they were thrown away, I don't know if they
| would have taken care to destroy them or just toss them in
| the garbage.
| jeffbee wrote:
| That's certainly not a bright line in any American
| jurisdiction. Courts can and do order the production of
| library loan records. In general an American court can order
| the disclosure of any record maintained anywhere by anyone
| for any purpose. There are no records that are private and
| privileged against a court order, with a few narrow
| exceptions. The police can't order someone to produce
| anything; they need a court order to do it.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| Hmm, this appears to be a relatively new power.
|
| https://www.propublica.org/article/remember-when-the-
| patriot...
| jeffbee wrote:
| No, American courts can order the production of any kind
| of records, and always have done so. Law enforcement goes
| to the court, shows "probable cause" regarding a current
| case, swears to the facts of the case, and the court
| orders some third party to produce the information. The
| third party is obligated to comply or contest. This is
| the legal process to which people are due in the phrase
| "due process of law".
|
| The Section 215 powers you refer to move jurisdiction of
| certain matters from one court to another. That's perhaps
| not great but the main effect of it is giving law
| enforcement a more secret venue in which to seek
| warrants.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Also note that this legal theory only comes into play if
| they're compelled to do so. The police and investigators
| can always just kindly ask for records to be produced
| without a warrant and it's up to the institution to honor
| that request or not, much like how Google does its own
| review of law enforcement data requests in absence of a
| warrant.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| It seems you are right. And other countries have long
| done similar or worse.
|
| I always thought that in the west you had a freedom of
| thought and could pursue whatever direction of research
| you wished without consequence. After all, without
| freedom of thought, you can't really have proper freedom
| of conscience, let alone freedom of speech.
|
| I'm slightly disturbed that apparently it's not quite
| that simple. Today I'm one of the (un)lucky 10000 I
| guess. https://xkcd.com/1053/
| pempem wrote:
| Jeffbee is right, but I would also point out the number
| of hurdles identified. Before the patriot act there were
| 100% violations of personal liberty and restrictions on
| consumption of information but there were more hurdles.
|
| The point of the post here isn't that Google is providing
| records (which they have always if the situation has been
| identified as appropriate by a judge + public safety +
| ....) but that they are providing a really high level, in
| no way targeted or restricted request for records
| air7 wrote:
| > so-called geofence warrants, where investigators ask Google to
| provide information on anyone within the location of a crime
| scene at a given time.
|
| It's amazing we've become so tethered to our phones that it's
| just implicitly obvious that your phone's location is the same as
| your location. Authoritarian governments rejoice! People will
| voluntarily pay and cling to their tracking devices, no need to
| track them personally.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| What I don't know, even though I was in the same building with
| the people who handled these orders in Google Legal, is:
|
| If you clear your Google history (as you should), can they still
| respond to an order like this with your name? What if you did the
| search from Brave or Safari, where you were not logged into
| Google?
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| > If you clear your Google history (as you should), can they
| still respond to an order like this with your name?
|
| Assuming they still have the data (didn't delete it, just
| "cleared" it), then yes.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I doubt that deleting your search history would trigger a re-
| write of search logs. After all your history is your data, but
| search logs are their data. I believe it is their published
| policy to remove the last octet (or 80 bits, for IPv6) from
| client addresses in logs after 9 months and to rewrite logs
| without cookies after 18 months. This probably tells us more
| about the fact that 18-month-old search logs are not very
| useful for search quality than it does about privacy.
|
| I'm pretty sure the relevant distinction is between "Data that
| expires after a specific period of time" and "Information
| retained until you remove it" in their privacy policies.
|
| I don't see why using Brave or whatever would influence the
| contents of their server logs.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| see my comment about "undue burden."
|
| They could, but might say "nah, too much trouble."
| spzx wrote:
| >If you clear your Google history
|
| Also what if you are logged into Google, but your Google search
| history was always switched off?
|
| >What if you did the search from Brave or Safari, where you
| were not logged into Google?
|
| Relevant quote from the article:
|
| >In Wisconsin, the government was hopeful Google could also
| provide "CookieIDs" belonging to any users who made the
| searches. These CookieIDs "are identifiers that are used to
| group together all searches conducted from a given machine, for
| a certain time period. Such information allows investigators to
| ascertain, even when the user is not logged into a Google
| account, whether the same individual may have conducted
| multiple pertinent searches," the government wrote.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| CookieIDs are specific to one browser, are they not?
|
| As for the argument that they can still find it: The laws
| usually allow for the company to decline on the grounds that
| complying would be an "undue burden." In other words, if
| their usual method is to run some program they wrote to
| handle the common case, and this time they'd have to write a
| new program, they _might_ claim that 's an undue burden.
|
| Might. If they feel like it.
| mandeepj wrote:
| > If you clear your Google history (as you should), can they
| still respond to an order like this with your name?
|
| They can still trace you via your IP Address. Ironically,
| Incognito is not really an incognito
| sneeeeeed wrote:
| This is why everybody should do all their browsing with Tor,
| excepting maybe banking and shopping.
| ufmace wrote:
| Interesting to confirm that this has actually been done. I wonder
| if there's really any process around it.
|
| It doesn't seem so bad to do it for something super-specific,
| like the home address of the victim of a crime, in the timeframe
| that the crime was committed, where you expect to get under 10
| individuals. What's more worrying is how broad could this get?
| Are there any actual legal limits, or does Google just give the
| Government whatever they ask for?
|
| It seems more and more like some of the tech majors are so big
| and so dominant over the industry and our lives that it makes
| less sense to treat them as private companies. In theory, under
| current legal dogma, Google is a private corporation, and I have
| no rights at all to data it gathers, so it can hand it over to
| the Government anytime it feels like it with no knowledge or due
| process. Even if they claim they only share information for the
| Right Cases, how do you know, how can you trust them? Do you have
| any recourse if you think your case was not justified?
| mywittyname wrote:
| > where you expect to get under 10 individuals.
|
| Maybe. If this person was, for example, online dating, a member
| of a popular club, had a YT/TikTok channel, or shared a name
| with someone who does or is otherwise notable, this could be a
| big list.
|
| How would you feel being suspected in a murder case because you
| searched for a d-list celeb who shares a name with the victim?
| ren_engineer wrote:
| as always with government power you should ask if you would be
| alright with your political enemies on the other side of the
| aisle having full access to abuse the new government power,
| because they probably will at some point.
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