no problem just go here and get anonymity on google :P hahahah google take that! even if you do believe the stuff about them trying to keep tabs on you just remember ! thier is always a way around anything! you just need to find it
Just because the ability to access your info exists doesn't necessitate that it will be abused. Look at how many people have access to your Social Security number. Do you trust those pencil-pushers down at the insurance company? Not that I'm not cynical, but the gist of Sal's link there was a chilling 'they could do it!' Yeah, and there's a book that tells anyone who wants to know exactly what your address and phone number is, unless you specifically tell them not to -- it's called the Phone Book!
Reminds me of how some paranoids got all worked up because some new TVs produced in the past ten years have a special device inside whose original purpose was to assist disbled people, but could be used to monitor you. As if the US government has a shadow workforce whose very lives were spent committed to Big Brother-style activities. (And all that misappropriation and bureaucracy are just a front for a humming, well-oiled machine of a ruling class!)
When the guys in the gas masks come to my door, then I'll worry. (I LIKE City 17!)
I see this could be a problem if you for example liked telling people how many pot plants you are growing in your basement or something of that nature but really, who is that stupid to talk about encriminating things in email anyway?
What jzero said. I've got a GMail account, and I don't mind.
It's not like they've got a team of evil-minded people sitting in an office somewhere, reading everyone's mail word for word just so they can blackmail or arrest you.
As I understand it, all they do is use software to look for certain words in e-mails, and use that to place ads on the right of the e-mail when you read it. To be honest I don't even notice these ads anymore.
The problem this site is about is that they can search for anything for whatever reason they want. And that the government could likely make them. Now of course you have nothing to fear if you have done nothing wrong but what if you engage in some activity you'd rather not have people know about or something that gets outlawed or pinned on the list of "traits that identify a terrorist"? If you talk with a friend about CDs you have that you want to trade mp3s of, could the RIAA access that mail and get you locked up? Would you like it if the law that prohibits other people from reading your snail mail got abolished?
Privacy is a human right. You wouldn't surrender your right to free speech, many Americans wouldn't even surrender their right to bear a gun, why would you surrender your right to privacy?
Problem is not what they do, but rather that they can, and noone cares.
You're losing freedom and privacy here and there, little by little, at a rate slow enough over the years to not raise any concerns.
Soon, you might only be allowed to have guns at home that have some smaller caliber, some will panic, others wont care. Few years later, you'll only be allowed to use some new developed non lethal ammo, then only airsoft guns, then airsoft guns that don't look realistic to avoid mistakes, and then no guns at all.
You can pull that off over the years, new coming generations grow into the new limits and accept them as normal, while people that used to have more freedom and privacy will sound paranoid.
At the end, you'll be assigned your industrial job at birth, and will be trained from childhood to do it properly and efficient, and it will be perfectly normal and fine for you.
It's not as dramatic with Gmail, since, if you dont like, you dont have to use it, but all this stuff sets or follows a trend that desensibilises people. Like violent games, bad parents, movies, polycount, rap, heroic war-news reportages do for violence.
Don't really care, if I'm going to say something potentially incriminating, it's going to be in person -- stating something that might get you arrested or sued over a *public* e-mail service (not private like an ISP's where they do have the right to decline access to your details and in some cases will attempt to protect your right to privacy) is just plain foolish, and not something that I'll be caught doing. If you want to be an idiot, be my guest, but I will point and laugh at you if you end up getting arrested for saying something online.
If someone feels like investigating me, fine, their money -- I've got nothing to hide 'cause I tell everyone anyway. Especially about the size and texture of my shits, they're awesome, green, and usually somewhat chunky -- a bit like a Polycount shit, hey, maybe my shits could be a Polycount mascot team?
[ QUOTE ]
what if you engage in some activity you'd rather not have people know about or something that gets outlawed or pinned on the list of "traits that identify a terrorist"? If you talk with a friend about CDs you have that you want to trade mp3s of, could the RIAA access that mail and get you locked up? Would you like it if the law that prohibits other people from reading your snail mail got abolished?
[/ QUOTE ]
KDR: I'm gonna have to go with the 'innocent have nothing to fear' platitude on all of those. It is true that recent US government actions border on the Bulgarian in terms of peace and justice. But what you're talking about requires the passage of yet-unproposed laws.
You use the phrase "something that gets outlawed" -- I think most things that should be illegal already are, and barring the creation of a new class of felonies, that's not a distinct possibility. The RIAA will never be allowed to read my mail, and neither will existing privacy rights laws be abolished. Those things have been established, and if they are overturned, then US society will be moving in just that direction, backwards.
This reminds me of the Libertarians who believe that private ownership of full-auto weaponry should be legal. When asked why, they say because the public needs to be able to arm itself in case the government becomes tyrannical and needs to be overthrown. To which I respond, if the government becomes so tyrannical that it needs overthrowing, they sure as Shinola won't let me keep that machine gun. So the point there is moot.
I believe that American public opinion still holds enough sway over privacy laws that I don't have to worry about misuse of my Google records. If I start to get persectuted for my web search keywords, it's already too late, and I will be leaving this country anyway.
StrangeFate : I thought I knew what you were going for, but at end ya sorta lost me.. desensiblilizes?
Actually that's the part we aren't sure about. Who says the RIAA can't read your mail if they ask Google and say they have a reason to believe you are engaged in an illegal activity? That was the main point of that site, noone nows how much Google is sharing and the RIAA is using so many legal ways I wouldn't be surprised to find out they subpoenaed Google.
WHAT??? I always thought it was run by hose lizardmen from Vulcan, the planet that is in the exact same orbit as Earth and always on the other side of the sun! My bad, that was FOX.
KDR, if there is an investigation under way with regard to my violating RIAA copyrights, I don't believe it's the RIAA going to be reading my gmail, but the FBI. You need a court order to get to that stuff, at least that's the baseline expectation. If I am so evil as to attract the G-Men to my G-Mail, then I deserve it.
And another thing. Read Number Six on that list. Not an ironclad guarantee, but at least it's a 'Kane list'.
The googlewatch website mentions that too. They call it a way to distract people.
Who says that Google will try to resist when he RIAA comes up to them, lists a few addresses and says "we believe these might be involved in illegal activities"? That was the whole point of the website, that Google offers no gurantees on who they'll give your data to. That you don't know whether the RIAA really needs to go the legal way to make Google hand over that information or just has to ask nicely.
I use it as a way to make files I want to use elsewhere or back up available to me from any machine. The files are copyright to me (my art), so nobody's coming after me if the RIA-...shit hits the fan.
I think it's legal ass-covering since technically MS can't copy your attachments (i.e. send them) without your "consent" because of copyright law. Problem is that somebody could try to claim he didn't allow MS to copy that and sue them for it (hey, it's the US legal system). So they added a clause for that. Unfortunately it's worded in a way that limits your copyright even outside of Hotmail.
Replies
Jody
PS oops forgot the link
http://www.imilly.com/google-cookie.htm
Reminds me of how some paranoids got all worked up because some new TVs produced in the past ten years have a special device inside whose original purpose was to assist disbled people, but could be used to monitor you. As if the US government has a shadow workforce whose very lives were spent committed to Big Brother-style activities. (And all that misappropriation and bureaucracy are just a front for a humming, well-oiled machine of a ruling class!)
When the guys in the gas masks come to my door, then I'll worry. (I LIKE City 17!)
/jzero
It's not like they've got a team of evil-minded people sitting in an office somewhere, reading everyone's mail word for word just so they can blackmail or arrest you.
As I understand it, all they do is use software to look for certain words in e-mails, and use that to place ads on the right of the e-mail when you read it. To be honest I don't even notice these ads anymore.
Buncha paranoids
Privacy is a human right. You wouldn't surrender your right to free speech, many Americans wouldn't even surrender their right to bear a gun, why would you surrender your right to privacy?
You're losing freedom and privacy here and there, little by little, at a rate slow enough over the years to not raise any concerns.
Soon, you might only be allowed to have guns at home that have some smaller caliber, some will panic, others wont care. Few years later, you'll only be allowed to use some new developed non lethal ammo, then only airsoft guns, then airsoft guns that don't look realistic to avoid mistakes, and then no guns at all.
You can pull that off over the years, new coming generations grow into the new limits and accept them as normal, while people that used to have more freedom and privacy will sound paranoid.
At the end, you'll be assigned your industrial job at birth, and will be trained from childhood to do it properly and efficient, and it will be perfectly normal and fine for you.
It's not as dramatic with Gmail, since, if you dont like, you dont have to use it, but all this stuff sets or follows a trend that desensibilises people. Like violent games, bad parents, movies, polycount, rap, heroic war-news reportages do for violence.
If someone feels like investigating me, fine, their money -- I've got nothing to hide 'cause I tell everyone anyway. Especially about the size and texture of my shits, they're awesome, green, and usually somewhat chunky -- a bit like a Polycount shit, hey, maybe my shits could be a Polycount mascot team?
Wow, I went off-topic there.
what if you engage in some activity you'd rather not have people know about or something that gets outlawed or pinned on the list of "traits that identify a terrorist"? If you talk with a friend about CDs you have that you want to trade mp3s of, could the RIAA access that mail and get you locked up? Would you like it if the law that prohibits other people from reading your snail mail got abolished?
[/ QUOTE ]
KDR: I'm gonna have to go with the 'innocent have nothing to fear' platitude on all of those. It is true that recent US government actions border on the Bulgarian in terms of peace and justice. But what you're talking about requires the passage of yet-unproposed laws.
You use the phrase "something that gets outlawed" -- I think most things that should be illegal already are, and barring the creation of a new class of felonies, that's not a distinct possibility. The RIAA will never be allowed to read my mail, and neither will existing privacy rights laws be abolished. Those things have been established, and if they are overturned, then US society will be moving in just that direction, backwards.
This reminds me of the Libertarians who believe that private ownership of full-auto weaponry should be legal. When asked why, they say because the public needs to be able to arm itself in case the government becomes tyrannical and needs to be overthrown. To which I respond, if the government becomes so tyrannical that it needs overthrowing, they sure as Shinola won't let me keep that machine gun. So the point there is moot.
I believe that American public opinion still holds enough sway over privacy laws that I don't have to worry about misuse of my Google records. If I start to get persectuted for my web search keywords, it's already too late, and I will be leaving this country anyway.
StrangeFate : I thought I knew what you were going for, but at end ya sorta lost me.. desensiblilizes?
/jzero
GMAIL IS GW! THE PATRIOTS ARE TAKING CONTROL!
Actually that's the part we aren't sure about. Who says the RIAA can't read your mail if they ask Google and say they have a reason to believe you are engaged in an illegal activity? That was the main point of that site, noone nows how much Google is sharing and the RIAA is using so many legal ways I wouldn't be surprised to find out they subpoenaed Google.
And another thing. Read Number Six on that list. Not an ironclad guarantee, but at least it's a 'Kane list'.
/jzero
Who says that Google will try to resist when he RIAA comes up to them, lists a few addresses and says "we believe these might be involved in illegal activities"? That was the whole point of the website, that Google offers no gurantees on who they'll give your data to. That you don't know whether the RIAA really needs to go the legal way to make Google hand over that information or just has to ask nicely.