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Re:Google backtracks on privacy promise with messaging servi... by M_Grey on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @09:04PM (#12553558)
No one should be surprised by this, they should just make intelligent choices about how they protect their personal information. If you're in a position where you have to trust Google or Facebook or any other large company that lives by selling your data, you have to question how and why you got there.
Re:Google backtracks on privacy promise with messaging servi... by thingexplainer on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @11:11PM (#12554055)
The rest of the world brought me here, and I was unwilling to let them pass me by and leave me alone but with perfect control of my data.

The world is rich in complexity and devoid of absolutes. I've yet to see someone build an ivory tower with the foundations to stand more than a small shove.

Re:Google backtracks on privacy promise with messaging servi... by M_Grey on Thursday September 22, 2016 @09:48AM (#12556765)
Maybe there's something to be found between dreams of an ivory tower, and just laying there and taking it with a smile?
Re:Google backtracks on privacy promise with messaging servi... by thingexplainer on Thursday September 22, 2016 @12:13PM (#12557873)
There surely is, but the first step is to acknowledge that the world has come to a certain point where we've lost control of our data and intelligence agencies, and not to write off people who's privacy has been compromised as fools who should have known better.

Because we are all those fools. Do you use gmail? If you don't, do you email people who do? Do you use Facebook? Do people talk about you on Facebook, even if you don't have an account? Do you email people who give Facebook their contacts? Is that even something you can find out?

Trust is transitive. If someone close to you along your social graph is being observed, you are being observed indirectly. If many people around you are being observed, you are being observed rather closely.

Re:Google backtracks on privacy promise with messaging servi... by M_Grey on Thursday September 22, 2016 @12:34PM (#12558031)
There's a difference between protecting your data from a company that collects it when you use their service, and hiding from a state-level actor like the NSA.

I don't use Gmail. I don't use Facebook. For just those reasons. I do use uBlock Origin, NoScript, uMatrix, and Random Agent Spoofer, and depending on the site a VPN. I don't throw up my hands and pretend that a platform like Facebook is somehow fundamental to life.

Re:Google backtracks on privacy promise with messaging servi... by thingexplainer on Thursday September 22, 2016 @02:16PM (#12558881)
Collection by intelligence/LE agencies and by private companies are increasingly interrelated. These are not separate problems, but two sides of the same coin.

I'm afraid you've missed my point, because I don't use those services either. No man is an island. And very few of them are OpSec masters, either. For instance, consider how unique that precise set of tools is, how easy it is to fingerprint browser extensions, and how you've effectively announced your identity in a public forum.

(Edit: Though doing that without JavaScript would be a pretty neat trick. I'm pretty sure it'd be possible to do if you can convince tags to load sequentially, so you can send requests to your server interleaved with requests for add-on resources, and observe timing. I'm thinking many levels of nested iframes ought to do the trick. But I don't know that for a fact.)

What I am trying to say is that this is hard, and we cannot solve anything by oversimplifying or victim blaming.

Re:Google backtracks on privacy promise with messaging servi... by M_Grey on Thursday September 22, 2016 @08:29PM (#12561477)
It's not a population of victims, by and large it's a population of people who don't see the point, and can't be bothered. The population of people whom the NSA keeps tabs on might be victims, the people who use Facebook are definitely not.

Besides, victim facilitation and precipitation is an ugly, and sad reality of life. You can be aware of your role in becoming a victim, without blaming yourself for the actions of other people who took advantage of your situation.

As to the rest, again, we're not talking about dropping off the grid or avoiding a government, just about not broadcasting everything all of the time for some paltry "free" service.

Re:Google backtracks on privacy promise with messaging servi... by thingexplainer on Thursday September 22, 2016 @09:21PM (#12561664)
I feel like you're talking over me rather than trying to understand what I say.

But stay safe and have a good life anyway, traveler.

Re:Google backtracks on privacy promise with messaging servi... by M_Grey on Friday September 23, 2016 @10:19AM (#12564799)
Disagreement can feel like that. Take care.