
Condoleezza Rice, surveillance and torture fan, joins Dropbox board - rberger
http://boingboing.net/2014/04/09/condoleeza-rice-supporter-of.html
======
mehwoot
_As a country, we are having a great national conversation and debate about
exactly how to manage privacy concerns_

The phrase "having a conversation" or "having a debate" shits me off more than
any other bullshit speak. The reason being, whenever somebody uses it, it is
exactly because they don't want to have a debate about that topic because they
know they're in the wrong. Nobody ever says "we're having a debate about
privacy" and then goes on to actually debate it. It's just used by companies
or organisations who are doing something objectionable and want to see whether
they can get away with it. If everybody complains, well they "listened to your
feedback" and can it.

For example, I went to a panel recently about Google glasses that had some
Google employees on it. Every time privacy was brought up they said "well
that's a debate that we [society] should be having" _even though they were
literally in a debate about it right there_ , they never actually put forward
their case. They just leave it at this vague notion of a "conversation" that
society is having in general without engaging in it themselves. And it's
because they know people are opposed to what they are doing, and so engaging
in an actual substantive debate about it won't help them at all (not really
trying to pick on google here, this is just the first example that came to
mind). They just want to ride out the storm and then continue doing exactly
what they are doing.

~~~
snowwrestler
The debate is really happening, because it is impossible to provide a browser-
client cloud data service without also creating a massive collection of
people's private information. And this entire ecosystem has been largely
unregulated to date.

In daily life the debate looks like this: "that service could make my life
better, and it's free. But do I feel comfortable sharing my info with this
company?" Remember the big news cycle about Gmail's ad targeting technology?
But since then millions of people have signed up to use Gmail anyway. So I
would not agree that society as a whole has deemed this sort of thing to be
wholly bad.

~~~
xyzzy123
> impossible to provide a browser-client cloud data service without also
> creating a massive collection of people's private information

Well instead of just hoovering up every photo you take with Glass into G+ [1],
they could implement even a fig-leaf's worth of client-side encryption. This
is _far_ from impossible. Just saying.

[1] Not just by default, but as I understand it, without even the option of
turning that off.

~~~
snowwrestler
Client-side encryption doesn't help much with privacy concerns because the
client and the server are both wholly produced by Google, so you have to
assume that Google can pierce that encryption if they want to. That's exactly
what happened with DropBox.

It helps protect against unauthorized access, but doesn't really address
privacy concerns with Google itself.

~~~
xyzzy123
I did say "fig leaf". But some level of client-side would at least demonstrate
good will, or some level of "giving a fsck".

There _is_ a real difference though, which is the difference between code on
your client which perhaps you _could_ at least check if you're stubborn
enough[1], and plaintext in a datacenter. This can mean the difference between
targeted surveillance and mass surveillance.

Dropbox is a separate case - it was always "trust us" (we have your keys)
encryption, and not what I would refer to as "client side" at all.

[1] This is a hard problem if you don't trust the OS

------
georgemcbay
“As a country, we are having a great national conversation and debate about
exactly how to manage privacy concerns,” Rice says about her new position. “I
look forward to helping Dropbox navigate it.”

When dealing with pretty much any national level politican closely associated
with the executive branch of either the current administration or the previous
one it is really easy to read this in a cartoon "evil villain" voice with an
implied ellipsis and malicious sarcasm on the "...navigate it" part.

Ouch.

------
bane
Gosh, if DP wasn't so convenient and worked so well. They've always given off
a "not quite right" vibe from the corporate level that I can't quite put my
finger on ever since the TC Cribs video [1]. The weird public responses
surrounding privacy and security issues since then have kind of reinforced
this feeling. [2][3] But it's so convenient and works so well you kind of
quickly forget about all the fuss. And even this [4] just sort of blew by like
a summer storm.

It goes to show how offering a _really_ good service can make all kinds of
principles take a back seat I guess. Let's see how many people offering to
boycott DP are still on the service in 3 or 4 months now.

1 -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAfIDUTPJJM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAfIDUTPJJM)

2 - [http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/01/dropbox-has-become-
problem...](http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/01/dropbox-has-become-problem-
child-of-cloud-security/)

3 - [http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2011/04/how-dropbox-
sacrifices-u...](http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2011/04/how-dropbox-sacrifices-
user-privacy-for.html)

4 - [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/dropbox-
clarifies...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/dropbox-clarifies-
its-policy-on-reviewing-shared-files-for-dmca-issues/)

------
scintill76
So, are we going to boycott Dropbox because of the past political actions of
one of their board members? And/or force her to resign?

~~~
fatjokes
Starting a war that cost thousands of lives on now-proven false claims and
condoning torture does seem to be a bit more evil than contributing a few
thousand dollars to a piece of legislation. But no, no boycott I imagine.

------
vezzy-fnord
Ignoring Rice's convictions, I'm really curious as to how a person like her
ends up at _Dropbox_ of all places.

~~~
mehwoot
I get the feeling she has gained a lot of respect from wealthy and powerful
people in general and has quite a few connections.

For example, she is also on the newly created 13-person College Football
Playoff selection committee even though she has never played or coached
football. One sports writer justified it as she has a "plethora of experience
making important decisions under intense pressure". This is the committee that
will decide which 4 teams get to play for the championship.

~~~
tomp
Heh, many people have a "plethora of experience making important decisions
under intense pressure". The question is, were most (or any) of these
decisions correct?

