

What Could Google Do With the Data It's Collected? - unwantedLetters
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/06/what-could-google-do-with-the-data-its-collected/58396/

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jakevoytko
Google's data mining capability is comparable to that of a major government.
Just using their search data, they can predict disease outbreaks [0], and can
probably predict other macro events like recessions and cultural shifts.
Google is just more effective at processing the data that is already
collected.

If Google ran the War on Terror, they would dissolve 99.9% of plots before
they begin. The falsely accused would have to sit in prison, since they
couldn't get anyone on the phone even if they wanted to. That's fine though,
because they would get free food and Internet in their Google jail cell, and
hear talks by other famous inmates.

[0] <http://www.google.org/flutrends/>

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jmg
Why don't any of these articles put blame on the users, for broadcasting their
data without any encryption set up? I guess that's not the exciting news
story. They could at least use the opportunity to educate people a bit..

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lwhi
Many regular users - and younger members of society especially (like my
younger siblings for example) - have absolutely no concern for privacy or the
potential for abuse by companies like Google.

What will it take before the general public understands kind of dangers
involved? Or are privacy concerns largely theoretical musings by geeks, which
simply aren't as important as we imagine them to be?

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dan00
The general public cares too little and the geeks care too much.

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Revisor
The general public cares too little. Period.

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retube
"Google blamed the collection on a rogue bit of code that was never removed
after it had been inserted by an engineer during testing"

I've seen this quoted before. If it's accurate it's pretty damn weak, in fact
totally unbelievable. There's absolutely no way this data could have been
collected unless deliberately.

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ugh
Why? Their goal was to collect MAC adresses of all the WiFi hotspots they
encountered. If you want to do that you have to – at least temporarily – save
all packets that are coming in. The code to do this already exists, Google
probably repurposed something. Deleting all the packets you received is a
additional step, it’s not guaranteed that whatever they used automatically
deletes all received packets as soon as they are no longer needed. Someone has
to think of that and fix it.

They are collecting gigabytes of data, so those additional packets wouldn’t
exactly be obvious. And they probably just copied the HDDs those cars have
wholesale, without any prior processing of the data.

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retube
yes but isn't it the MAC addresses they collected "by accident"? That's my
point (or have I totally misunderstood this?)

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ugh
They wanted to collect MAC addresses. There is, of course, also the question
whether they can do that without asking, but that was their intention.

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temphn
Among other things, they could easily blackmail any public figure who used
Google search (or mail, maps, etc.)

There are various ways they could frame this to retain their image...one would
be to announce a campaign to crack down on the use of gmail for lawbreaking.
Then sweep email for selective incidents involving politicians (and
reporters!) threatening Google with regulation, and report to the authorities.

They already do this with child pron, so this would just be moving the bar
back towards things that 99% (as opposed to 99.999...%) of society opposed.
Escorts are probably a good place to start if you wanted to take down
politicians.

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Ardit20
Well, maybe politicians should not do naughty things. If they are using gmail
for lawbreaking then I am in favour of google outing them.

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JadeNB
This seems to me like a variant of the ‘nothing to hide’ argument, which Bruce
Schneier
([http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/my_reaction_to...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/my_reaction_to.html)),
Daniel Solove (<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565>),
and others have thoroughly rebutted.

It's true that politicians should be subject to more scrutiny than the rest of
us, but that doesn't mean that they should have _no_ privacy. Do you trust
Google to make that decision about politicians? Once politicians are afraid of
the power that Google wields, do you trust them to protect _you_ from Google?

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hackermom
No trolling, just a supposition: I'd like to answer this with a movie quote (I
just can't recall the movie for some reason) - "...and like it or not, they're
going to build you a new civilization, under a new world order."

What _can't_ be done when a single company in the world has, with a multitude
of "free" services, crawled into every crevice of your private life? They know
who you e-mail and what you mail about. They know your calendar and schedules.
They know your economy. They know your medical history. They know who your
friends are and what you do on your vacation. They know your hobbies and
interests. Traverse the list of Google products and you'll quickly see that
every single aspect of your life can now have a Google tag on it.

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lwhi
So what's the answer? Revolution?

I'm honestly at a loss, when I try to think of solutions. The most sensible
reaction might be to break Google up into smaller companies - which would mean
that the benefit it gains from being interconnected would be reduced - but I
don't think this would currently be possible.

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naner
"So what's the answer? Revolution?"

Haha, no, not in this day and age. People in power these days know you have to
keep the public sated to prevent revolution. People with family and jobs who
live in relative safety and have a reasonable amount of income aren't going to
revolt. And the public shouldn't initiate a revolution anyways because the
cost becomes too great with a society this size.

The answer is deceptively simple. Develop a theory of change (work backwards
from your end goal to discover the steps that need to be taken) and devise a
strategy that takes into account the dynamics of power. The problem is that
this is very difficult. You have to be very disciplined, you have to abandon
your personal life goals, you have to find people to help you, and you will
almost certainly have to do something out of line with your ideals (such as
manipulating people or temporarily acting like the people you are trying to be
rid of).

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lwhi
Well, they say that every society is only three meals away from revolution.
Maybe it's true. Even if not, I think there are certain cataclysmic events
that could provoke a reaction (Greece recently showed that).

I think developing a theory of change is useful, but then again - wouldn't it
involve creating an instrument of power to control the masses? Rather than
moderating the power networks we have, the public would be pushed from pillar
to post.

I think it would be more useful to society in general, if we were able to
define limits to the amount of power a single entry has.

