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And here we see the contempt for privacy that some employees of Google hold. What would you regard as private, pray tell, if it's not being able to access a we

by majika 12y ago

And here we see the contempt for privacy that some employees of Google hold. What would you regard as private, pray tell, if it's not being able to access a web page without telling Google (and other advertizing companies) that you're doing so? You regard a pursuit for that freedom as "paranoid"? Linking is the great power of the Web, and is why it is what it is today. That's all. Scripting is sometimes useful, but more often than not, it's used to enable an industry of services-as-software-substitutes ([1]) to thrive. Cross-site resource requests are not important or valuable (I think they're detrimental), and they are totally replaceable anyway, as you mentioned. As HTTP2 becomes more commonplace, cross-site requests will be replaced in favor of same-site requests. I look forward to that. [1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...

dewitt 12y ago
Oh come on, that first sentence is uncalled for. Cromwellian (while awesome, and someone who never fails to impress me with his writing) is not speaking for Google, or even other Googlers. He is speaking for himself. As is his right, I'd hope you'd agree, even if you (like many) would disagree with some of the things he writes. (Edit: you changed the first sentence. Which reads better, thank you. Though I would actually still make the case it's far less contemptuous regarding privacy than you suggest. Worth reading deeply, since I think what he is saying is nuanced.)
- majika 12y ago
  My first sentence does not imply that he's speaking for Google, or other Google employees. cromwellian is an employee of Google, and I would regard his opinion here as being contemptuous of privacy. Edit: okay, I see the implication now of me referring to all Google employees in that sentence. I had intended for the plural to refer to "more than one", which I think is a safe bet - but it could also be construed as referring to "all" employees. I've qualified the sentence with "some".
  - mbreese 12y ago
    >>> And here we see the contempt for privacy that employees of Google hold Um... yes it did. You're trying to portray all of the employees of Google as being against privacy, and that's just simply not the case. Besides that, the argument cromwellian was making is hardly unique to Googlers.
cromwellian 12y ago
I've held this basic view of the Web far longer than I've been a Google employee (http://timepedia.blogspot.com/2008/05/decentralizing-web.html http://timepedia.blogspot.com/2008/05/decentralizing-web.htm...) I wrote one of the first anonymizing proxy servers for the Web (http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1996/02/msg00885.html http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1996/02/msg00885.html) which was later referenced by others (Ian Goldberg references it here: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/privacy-compcon97-www/privacy-html.html http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/privacy-compcon97-www...) In the early days of Cypherpunks, I collaborated with Hal Finney, one of the founders of the technology behind BitCoin (http://cryptome.org/2014/09/hal-finney-cpunks-1992.htm http://cryptome.org/2014/09/hal-finney-cpunks-1992.htm) In fact, I sold a startup in 2000 that was based on HashCash, the forerunner to Reliable Proof Of Work/Blockchain. I wrote one of the first Shamir sharing utilities for Unix, Cryptosplit. I authored one of the first Remailer 2.0 proposals on Cypherpunks, on ways of networks of PGP remailers to defeat traffic analysis. I wrote an anonymous forwarding, and later, a double blind anonymous mailing list software where neither the recipients of the list are known, nor the address of the mailing list itself. (http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1993/09/msg00509.html http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1993/09/msg00509.html) I have been involved in cryptography and privacy since the mid 90s and I care deeply about it. But I am not an extremist. Just like I believe in capitalism, but I am not a libertarian/Objectivist/anarcho-capitalist, and I tend towards progressivism and regulation as reasonable requirements. There is a fundamental tension between transparency and privacy. We are heading into a scary world where the cost of cameras, microphones, and networking is going to zero, and the size is tending to zero. That means tracking will be cheap and ubiquitous. We will need to find a way of dealing with the implications of this, without going to live in a log cabin in the woods. Some of that is technological, some of it will be political/legal, and some of it will be cultural. I love the Web, it's the greatest human invention since the printing press, but I fear for the balkanization of it, and the Internet. We need to tread carefully and not go overboard in being reactionary, lest we hurt the thing we love. This is not being "contempuous" of privacy. It's considering the tradeoffs, looking at the threat model, and looking at the cost/benefits of various levels of privacy protection, all the way from "none" to "perfect privacy", and what the repercussions of that might be.
- 12y ago

by majika 12y ago

dewitt 12y ago

Oh come on, that first sentence is uncalled for. Cromwellian (while awesome, and someone who never fails to impress me with his writing) is not speaking for Google, or even other Googlers. He is speaking for himself. As is his right, I'd hope you'd agree, even if you (like many) would disagree with some of the things he writes. (Edit: you changed the first sentence. Which reads better, thank you. Though I would actually still make the case it's far less contemptuous regarding privacy than you suggest. Worth reading deeply, since I think what he is saying is nuanced.)

majika 12y ago
My first sentence does not imply that he's speaking for Google, or other Google employees. cromwellian is an employee of Google, and I would regard his opinion here as being contemptuous of privacy. Edit: okay, I see the implication now of me referring to all Google employees in that sentence. I had intended for the plural to refer to "more than one", which I think is a safe bet - but it could also be construed as referring to "all" employees. I've qualified the sentence with "some".
- mbreese 12y ago
  >>> And here we see the contempt for privacy that employees of Google hold Um... yes it did. You're trying to portray all of the employees of Google as being against privacy, and that's just simply not the case. Besides that, the argument cromwellian was making is hardly unique to Googlers.

cromwellian 12y ago

I've held this basic view of the Web far longer than I've been a Google employee (http://timepedia.blogspot.com/2008/05/decentralizing-web.html http://timepedia.blogspot.com/2008/05/decentralizing-web.htm...) I wrote one of the first anonymizing proxy servers for the Web (http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1996/02/msg00885.html http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1996/02/msg00885.html) which was later referenced by others (Ian Goldberg references it here: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/privacy-compcon97-www/privacy-html.html http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/privacy-compcon97-www...) In the early days of Cypherpunks, I collaborated with Hal Finney, one of the founders of the technology behind BitCoin (http://cryptome.org/2014/09/hal-finney-cpunks-1992.htm http://cryptome.org/2014/09/hal-finney-cpunks-1992.htm) In fact, I sold a startup in 2000 that was based on HashCash, the forerunner to Reliable Proof Of Work/Blockchain. I wrote one of the first Shamir sharing utilities for Unix, Cryptosplit. I authored one of the first Remailer 2.0 proposals on Cypherpunks, on ways of networks of PGP remailers to defeat traffic analysis. I wrote an anonymous forwarding, and later, a double blind anonymous mailing list software where neither the recipients of the list are known, nor the address of the mailing list itself. (http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1993/09/msg00509.html http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1993/09/msg00509.html) I have been involved in cryptography and privacy since the mid 90s and I care deeply about it. But I am not an extremist. Just like I believe in capitalism, but I am not a libertarian/Objectivist/anarcho-capitalist, and I tend towards progressivism and regulation as reasonable requirements. There is a fundamental tension between transparency and privacy. We are heading into a scary world where the cost of cameras, microphones, and networking is going to zero, and the size is tending to zero. That means tracking will be cheap and ubiquitous. We will need to find a way of dealing with the implications of this, without going to live in a log cabin in the woods. Some of that is technological, some of it will be political/legal, and some of it will be cultural. I love the Web, it's the greatest human invention since the printing press, but I fear for the balkanization of it, and the Internet. We need to tread carefully and not go overboard in being reactionary, lest we hurt the thing we love. This is not being "contempuous" of privacy. It's considering the tradeoffs, looking at the threat model, and looking at the cost/benefits of various levels of privacy protection, all the way from "none" to "perfect privacy", and what the repercussions of that might be.

12y ago