

Scroogled (2007) - infocaptor
http://www.scroogle.org/doctorow.html

======
simonw
You can tell this is from 2007 because Google employees are obsessing about
what Yahoo! are doing. Today, it would be Facebook.

~~~
icebraining
Or because Google did move out of mainland China and stopped censoring
searches in 2010.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
This is an important reminder that events do not progress in a straight line.

~~~
fuzzix
"This is an important reminder that events do not progress in a straight line"

Yes, Google+ is the intermediate step in the all seeing "identity" service
depicted in this story ;)

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jcr
Of course, the potential (but improbable) implications of up-voting this story
should not be lost on anyone.

~~~
icebraining
Or reading it on a Google Chrome browser...

~~~
Vivtek
D'oh! Might as well upvote, then - in for a penny, in for a pound.

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notaddicted
I guess this is minor, but why does it say 1997 in the title? I can't find the
year anywhere in the story or in these comments.

~~~
code_duck
The top line in the article is "( This short story is from the October 2007
issue of Radar magazine. )".

1997 would make Cory Doctorow amazingly prescient, as Google was only a
research project and not officially a company at that time.

~~~
rmc
And the DHS didnt exist

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brokentone
If 1984 were written today, I believe it would read a lot like this. However
this one reads remarkably like reality. Good story Mr. Doctorow.

~~~
dennisgorelik
Reality?

Since when have government started using information technology efficiently?

~~~
angelbob
They haven't. But they _do_ leverage civilian companies who do - for instance,
the credit bureaus routinely do what turns out to be police or intelligence
surveillance, without specifically meaning to.

If they could make Google do the same, they would.

~~~
ImprovedSilence
Brings to mind the line "the greatest trick the devil ever pulled, was
convincing the world he didn't exist." Just because some govt institutions are
notoriously bad at IT, doesn't mean that all are. And perhaps those capable,
are more than content to let you think they aren't? There are some _spooky_
mother effin agencies out there.

Rickmb makes a good point as well.

Also, I already thought Google had been involved in doing some work with the
NSA? I'm too lazy to dig up the sources for it, but I'm pretty sure they're
already in bed together.

edit: my bad, this was in reply to dennisgorelik's comment

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arethuza
This story is also included in the excellent "With a Little Help" collection:

<http://craphound.com/walh/>

The free audio versions of the stories are particularly good.

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rmccue
I like the reference to China, considering Google recently backing out of
there due to these sorts of reasons. Makes me wonder if they'd ever consider
doing the same in one of their key markets, such as the US.

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chrislomax
I didn't read the short story line at the top there, I actually thought this
was a real account then. Coming from the UK none of this applies to the UK so
I wouldn't have heard about this initiative if any of it was true.

Good story and could quite easily be true

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user24
reminds me of the nine billion names of God:
<http://365tomorrows.com/09/12/the-nine-billion-names-of-god/>

~~~
adaml_623
May I point out this:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God>

Nothing to do with Google and I hope that all that are interested can find a
copy of the original story which I remember quite well.... even though
according to that wiki article it hasn't been republished in the last 45
years.

~~~
gue5t
<http://downlode.org/Etext/nine_billion_names_of_god.html>

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icebraining
Of course, the irony of this being hosted on that site is that using Scroogle
primarily would result on a suspiciously light Google profile, which would
most definitively get yourself marked for further investigation. After all,
that's the corollary to "if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to
hide".

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pothibo
I couldn't help myself from drawing subtile comparison with 1984. And I loved
it.

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kevinalexbrown
Particularly the bit about probable cause from statistical anomalies. Oh, we
don't indiscriminately go through your records, unless you use TOR, in which
case what are you hiding?

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gwern
The suicide bit is cute. Indeed.

