
Google’s Schmidt: Surveillance fears are ‘going to end up breaking the Internet’ - karlheinz_py
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/10/08/googles-schmidt-surveillance-fears-are-going-to-end-up-breaking-the-internet/
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brianstorms
Schmidt did NOT say that _surveillance_ _fears_ are going to "end up breaking
the internet." That is the Washington Post's misleading headline. He spoke
more about the erosion of international trust because of American surveillance
activities.

To hear what Schmidt did say, watch the actual video.

He starts talking at around the 21-minute point.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-P4Q-M1tW8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-P4Q-M1tW8)

The actual quote is at around 24:00: "I think the simplest outcome is that
we're going to end up breaking the internet. Because what's going to happen is
that governments will do bad, bad laws of one kind or another and they're
eventually going to say 'we want our own internet in our country because we
want it to work our way and we don't want these NSA and other people in it.'"

~~~
waterlesscloud
I guess I'm missing whatever distinction people are trying to make here.

He says he thinks that fears of surveillance will lead to the breakup of the
internet. Which is what the headline says.

What am I missing here?

~~~
hahainternet
I think the distinction is between "Fear of being surveilled" and "Fear of the
NSA surveillance program"

~~~
ColinDabritz
Exactly, the headline turns "the surveillance we are doing and have done" will
break the internet, to "being afraid of surveillance" (implying "without
reason") will break the internet.

~~~
kefka
It's very evident that he was directly referring to the NSA spying program.
Unless they were living under a rock since Snowden, the direct reason is the
NSA.

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EthanHeilman
>"The simplest outcome is we're going to end up breaking the Internet," said
Google's Schmidt. Foreign governments, he said, are "eventually going to say,
we want our own Internet in our country because we want it to work our way,
and we don't want the NSA and these other people in it."

This age of Nation-States, and their private agents, attacking other countries
companies through the internet reminds me of the age of piracy in which
nations employed privateers acting under a letter of marque to harass and
destroy enemy commercial shipping interests. How does any nation think this is
an acceptable non-warlike behavior to do allies and friendly nations?

~~~
rayiner
> This age of Nation-States, and their private agents, attacking other
> countries companies through the internet reminds me of the age of piracy in
> which nations employed privateers acting under a letter of marque to harass
> and destroy enemy commercial shipping interests. How does any nation think
> this is an acceptable non-warlike behavior to do allies and friendly
> nations?

It's an irrelevant question. They don't have to consider it acceptable--they
do it because they can. The only reason nation-states don't engage in piracy
anymore is because the major powers' domination of sea power has made it
untenable. And the major powers don't do it, in turn, because they have more
to gain from trade than from piracy.

~~~
raldi
_> The major powers don't do it, in turn, because they have more to gain from
trade than from piracy._

Don't you think that applies to the Internet, too?

~~~
rayiner
Maybe. Spying is less invasive than piracy and less likely to dampen commerce.
Is anyone not going to shop at Amazon because the government might spy on the
transaction?

~~~
EthanHeilman
That is the claim the story makes for instance:

>Wyden himself cited a study from Forrester Research that found that
surveillance concerns could cost U.S. companies a quarter of their foreign
revenue by 2016.

The bigger issue is not consumer behavior but how Nation-States react. If they
balkanize and securitize the internet then consumers may not be able to access
amazon/google/facebook even if they wanted to (see Great Firewall of China).
This is exactly the point Google and members of the US Senate are making in
the article.

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john_b
What Schmidt actually said, from the article:

> _" The simplest outcome is we're going to end up breaking the Internet,"
> said Google's Schmidt. Foreign governments, he said, are "eventually going
> to say, we want our own Internet in our country because we want it to work
> our way, and we don't want the NSA and these other people in it."_

------
higherpurpose
Google (and others) has a simple solution to this: encrypt everything end-to-
end. If Google can't know what the user's data is, then neither can the US
government (supposedly). That should increase the trust other countries put
into Google and other tech companies.

~~~
raldi
Then how do I search my GMail?

~~~
peatmoss
EDIT: Fat clients

This is where Apple's and Google's respective computing strategies start
showing their strengths and weaknesses. Apple has put a lot of effort into
creating the best "fat" client platforms around. From iOS to Mac OS X, the
majority of the functionality exists at the endpoint, augmented by optional
cloud services with fairly narrowly-scoped purposes.

By contrast, Google delivers an end-user experience by pushing their platform
closer to end users. Google operates on the basis that the network is cheap
(RIP Sun, "The network is the computer"), and that it can economize by
providing functionality at the data center.

I'd argue that Google reflects a more modern way of thinking, and that Apple's
approach is somewhat anachronistic. However, as far as surveillance goes,
Apple is perhaps at an advantage. All things equal, it's easier to attack a
few datacenters than to individually attack millions of reasonably secure
endpoints.

This is doubly true when we consider business models of the two companies. In
order for Google to monetize your information, it needs to _see_ your
information in some sense. That makes Apple's business model of mostly doing
cost recovery through device sales even more beneficial in a surveillance-
averse world.

EDIT 2: If Apple wanted to be proactive about divesting Google from some of
its monetizable data collection, it would extend something like iMessage
encryption to Apple users on Gmail. Send email from Apple's client to another
iDevice user over gmail? Give them the option of encrypting it. Don't let
Google peek in.

------
balabaster
It's funny because even though the headline is hyperbolic, I feel that it's
not far from the truth... except it's not going to end up breaking the
internet. The internet has been broken from the outset. It wasn't originally
designed for high security, it was designed for collaboration and it's only as
we start retrofitting security on top of it are we realizing just how
inadequate it is. It just goes to show that when you leave security as an
afterthought, this is what happens... so all those companies that are still
designing software with security as an afterthought, take note - because
you're walking down the same path. Security should be at the forefront of your
mind with every development task you complete.

~~~
rsync
There is a term for this - it is "peak internet". I suggest that peak internet
occurred in 2010, give or take:

[http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2010/12/peak-
internet.h...](http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2010/12/peak-
internet.html)

------
jordanpg
How does it follow that companies will turn to building a new network due to
concerns about the NSA in the US? This takes for granted that the privacy
concerns outweigh the economic ones. Foreign countries have just as much to
lose as the US if internet-based commerce across borders is stopped.

I worry more about the internet breaking up due to foreign governments' desire
to censor and isolate their internal networks, not because they are worried
about the NSA.

------
asadotzler
Eric Schmidt:

If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't
be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the
reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this
information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all
subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all
that information could be made available to the authorities.

~~~
joesmo
I can think of a ton of legal things that I don't want anyone to know about
that I __should __be doing. Eric Schmidt will say anything to advance his own
agenda, regardless of truth.

------
thrush
How would things change if Schmidt held political office? What if all big time
VCs we're politicians too. Basically, what I am wondering is whether this is a
policy problem or a technology problem.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
"With only a bare majority of Americans opposed to U.S. government anti-
terrorism surveillance," it's first and foremost a political one [1].

[1] [http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few-see-adequate-
limi...](http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few-see-adequate-limits-on-
nsa-surveillance-program/)

~~~
mikeash
More specifically, a _public opinion_ problem.

Techies tend to think that the US government has gone rogue and is defying the
people, who universally want to tone this stuff down. But really, the
government is just responding to the will of the people here. Many Americans
are terrified of terrorism and approve of these sorts of government efforts to
fight it.

~~~
thrush
I could see where you're coming from, but the two objective arguments I see
that argue for the toning down of government surveillance, or at least major
changes to our surveillance system would be:

1\. The current policies and attitude are [seemingly] going to have negative
economic impacts of enormous proportions.

2\. Surveillance will always be a cat and mouse game as technology improves,
and surveillance will become increasingly difficult, perhaps impossible.

~~~
mikeash
I agree, and I think the surveillance should be drastically reformed. I just
think that the only way to accomplish this is to convince a large chunk of the
population to change their minds on the issue, _not_ to try to start at the
top of government.

~~~
thrush
I guess eventually those people will be at the top of government, which is
really cool to think about.

------
lispm
Google has contributed to that nicely. Google undermined privacy wherever
possible. They make money from having access to as much other peoples data as
possible.

------
enlightenedfool
What's involved in say an alliance of nations (-USA) creating a 2nd Internet?
Is it too hard. I know it won't stop surveillance but just wondering.

~~~
happyscrappy
The problem is that the entire West is working together on intelligence.

------
dmix
Eric "if-you-nothing-to-hide" Schmidt slams NSA?

~~~
hahainternet
Year later and people still misquote that, you should look up the reality of
your quote.

~~~
asadotzler
The misquote is close enough.

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't
be doing it in the first place."

Years later and people are still defending the indefensible by calling into
question the messengers instead of responding to his actual message.

~~~
hahainternet
> The misquote is close enough.

No it isn't, you proceed to misquote him again by missing out half of his
point.

> Years later and people are still defending the indefensible by calling into
> question the messengers instead of responding to his actual message.

Then quote his goddamn message, instead of cutting it in half.

------
pachydermic
While we're playing word games...

"The fact that you got caught spying on everyone is making it harder for us to
convince the world to hand over their personal data to _us_!"

------
Dirlewanger
What a pathetic farce. A bunch of feet stamping masquerading as actually
giving a crap. Only interesting part is the Forrester study about potential
revenue loss, which I can't imagine will be as much of a driving force as
people think it should. And people like Merkel aren't who offer these
seemingly poignant anecdotes, I'm sure they'd rather aid the competition to
American companies more than actually effecting real change.

