Google CEO Schmidt Predicts End of Online Anonymity 591
Andorin writes "A tweet from the EFF pointed me to a short article detailing part of Eric Schmidt's speech to the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe on August 4. According to Schmidt, true transparency and anonymity on the Internet will become a thing of the past because of the need to combat criminal and 'anti-social' behavior. 'Governments will demand it,' he says, referring to full accountability and a 'name service for people,' possibly hinting towards mandatory Internet passports. The CEO of Google also made a couple of somewhat creepy references to the availability of information: 'If I look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use artificial intelligence, we can predict where you are going to go ... show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are. You think you don't have 14 photos of yourself on the internet? You've got Facebook photos!'"
No, I don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No, I don't (Score:3, Insightful)
Beat me to it ... same here.
Re:No, I don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No, I don't (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't stop your friends (or enemies) from posting photos and tagging them with your name...
Man who makes money from tracking web activity... (Score:5, Insightful)
Self-fulfilling prophecy (Score:5, Insightful)
What Schmidt actually meant was "True transparency and anonymity on the Internet will become a thing of the past because we here at Google can make a bundle by eliminating it. Advertisers, governments, you want it, we got it!"
All for marketing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No, I don't (Score:5, Insightful)
and ya know what, those friends of yours talk about you when you're not around too.
Re:No, I don't (Score:3, Insightful)
No kidding. I came to the internet from BBSes. Handles originated because it was hard to fit everyone's full name into 8 characters.
And you know what? I'm still using handles today. Handles and limited photo exposure for THIS EXACT REASON. I value my privacy and I value my anonymity. And y'know what? Every idiot I know who is doing/has done criminal behavior eventually trip themselves up, so claiming that you need to strip away everyone's anonymity to catch the criminals is not just ludicrious, it's CRIMINAL. And I hope swift and punitive actions are taken against the people who even dare breath word of doing such in public.
But hey this is the 'land of the free' and the 'home of the brave' right? Despite us being less free than a lot of other places, and being so brave despite covering and letting our rights be stripped away for the superficial semblance of safety.
I'm not bitter; I just don't know anybody who agrees with me.
Worrying (Score:5, Insightful)
This seeming blazay attitude, coupled with his comments a while back where he said something like "People only need privacy when they're doing something they shouldn't be" really worries me, since he commands a lot of power and sway online. Eric, imagine if someone posted a video of you taking a dump and posted it on youtube, your views on privacy and "I have nothing to hide" might change...
He's probably right in that every government will want online identity, of course they would. But it's up to us to battle for "what is right" and we always hoped Google would help us. If he just rolls over and accepts it, that's terrible for us.
Sadly... (Score:3, Insightful)
He is right. I do not like it, but he is right.
Re:Worrying (Score:2, Insightful)
What worries me is the general lack of resistance to it and the acceptance of "oh well, that's how it's going, that's what we'll do".
There, FTFY.
Fuck the doomed (Score:3, Insightful)
What about 99% of the population who won't take the time to carefully maintain pseudo anonymous identities?
Fuck 'em. It's their complacency and ignorance that has put us in this situation, and is forcing their betters to waste inordinate amounts of their time developing cryptographic and other methods of protecting the privacy they should be able to enjoy be default.
They get exactly what they deserve.
Re:This will not end well (Score:4, Insightful)
I rather doubt that would pass Constitutional muster in the United States, given that SCOTUS has an extensive history of upholding the right to anonymous political discourse. I also doubt it would fly in the Scandinavian countries. Not so sure about the rest of the world (the British seem to be competing with themselves to see who can surrender their civil liberties the fastest....) but that's not really my concern as an American.....
Re:No, I don't (Score:2, Insightful)
First of all, the police can tie your Slashdot account to your name in less than 24 hours if they really need. Slashdot will provide your IP and your ISP will provide your name and address. It works a bit differently in different countries, but they pretty much will get it if you are the suspect in a criminal investigation of any importance.
Secondly, that statement by Schmidt in TFA was just his wallet talking. When you use free (as in free beer) services on the Internet, you are the product, advertisers are the customers. The product ain't no good if it doesn't have a name. Simple as that.
Re:Fuck the doomed (Score:5, Insightful)
It's becoming more and more about exploitation of the user.
Re:Fuck the doomed (Score:5, Insightful)
No they'd just like to have you think that (Score:5, Insightful)
Creepy (Score:5, Insightful)
And Google wonders why nobody wants to join their social network? Schmidt makes Zuckerberg look good.
Re:No, I don't (Score:4, Insightful)
You've got Facebook photos! (Score:3, Insightful)
No I don't.
Re:Fuck the doomed (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't expect everyone to have working technical knowledge in cryptographic systems and anonymity.I think it would be the duty of those who still have free speech to spread the information to the rest of the population.
Thats absurd to say its everyone fault except those who know how to fight back or understand the broader nature of the issue. So your average citizen can now be screwed by his government when he is looking in the wrong direction and its his fault because he is an idiot and gets what he deserves? Seriously?
I understand you got to stand up for your rights, but we all got to help each other out.
Re:Worrying (Score:5, Insightful)
What worries me is his lack of resistance to it and his acceptance of "oh well, that's how it's going, that's what we'll do".
As others have pointed out he's not just accepting it, he is actively promoting it. All Schmidt cares about is profits for Google and if he
can get the Govts of the world to help him he would love nothing more then to build the Grand Unified DB that will track and report everything
we do. Governments win, advertisers win and Google makes ridiculous money from it all.
Don't be evil died when this guy took reigns at Google. Where the F are Sergey and Larry now? What do the think about the death of anonymity?
Re:Self-fulfilling prophecy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This will not end well (Score:3, Insightful)
The U.S. could always just create some new law, like the USA PATRIOT Act [wikipedia.org], that can bypass the constitution. They could even retroactively [wikipedia.org] change laws if it suits their goals [wikipedia.org] (make it easy for yourself and keyword search "retroactive legislation" here).
Of course these endeavors to find and punish 'criminal' and 'anti-social' behavior has, and will have to do with; sex, drugs, political descent, everything that is anti-war and anti violence. So that, like usual, the government will prop-up legislation that supports oppression and the jail economy and will punish things that involve pleasure (demonizing them as sinful and evil, and destructive to the [much cliched] 'moral fiber' of society). Of course these laws will only affect the common man, and not the rich and their corporations (again, read the link [suits their goals [wikipedia.org] (make it easy for yourself and keyword search "retroactive legislation" here)] above as just one example.)
The common man will have to live with their wits and luck on their side. Everybody else will have "diplomatic" immunity.
Re:No, I don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Drivers License (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:No, I don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Who DOESNT set their facebook as friends-only? This applies to photos friends tag of you too, at least if someone is going through your profile to try to find them. I'm not sure if the tag can be indexed and searched from elsewhere if the friends has his photos open to the public?
Either way, I'm sick of people claiming "lol you has a facebook!", as if a private friends-only website implies you're OK with a public open-to-everyone display of your personal information, posts, etc. If anything it implies the exact opposite - the friends-only nature of facebook is exactly why it's so popular. Just look at the backlash every time Facebook has tried to force people's private information public.
Re:This will not end well (Score:2, Insightful)
You can encrypt it *today*. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow, encryption alone becomes cause for suspicion and legal investigation.
We certainly don't want people being "anti-social" Goodness me, that's such an awful crime. We should start subsidizing and prescribing Soma. We must all be calm, beautiful, peaceful, placated, obeying zombies using the internet the way it is intended - to buy stuff and consume government directed news.
Re:No, I don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No, I don't (Score:3, Insightful)
There are pictures but not compromising ones unless by compromising you mean tied to my name.
You see I am old and boring now. I don't drink at all. I am married and faithful to my wife. In other words I am now as dull as dirt.
In my college days cameras used this stuff called film. People didn't carry them with them at all times and never to bars or parties.
So their are no pictures of my none boring miss spent youth.
That is why we call them the good old days.
Re:No, I don't (Score:4, Insightful)
What progressive cause reduces personal rights? Mandatory health care? Not being beholden to your employer, or an insurance company that can drop you on a whim greatly increases personal freedom. Financial reform? A stable economy increases personal freedom. Alternative energy? I'd certainly like to have the personal freedom to choose sustainable energy sources and not support oppressive regimes.
Seriously, what progressive cause are you thinking of? Or did Glenn Beck just tell you progressives were bad?
Re:No, I don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No, I don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Because progressive these days is moving away from personal rights, not towards more.
Progressives have always favored increasing government power, which inherently means reducing individual rights. The base idea of progressives is running society "scientifically". Progressives believe that allowing people to make their own decisions on a variety of things (exactly which things varies from progressive to progressive) is inefficient and that society would function much better if those decisions were made by some central authority who can identify the best way to do something and then mandate that everyone do it that way.
The root of progressive is progress. In the late 19th century the idea was that science was finding new and better ways to do things, but many people were resisting these new and better ways out of stubbornness and ignorance. Of course, it turns out that many of those 19th "new and better" ways of doing things were actually worse (and often not really new either), but today's progressives have learned from the mistakes of thier predecessors and so they have different "new and better" ways of doing things.
As you might guess, I do not believe the modern progressives have learned the most ipmortant lesson from thier predecessors. That being that a central planner cannot know enough to make better decisions than the people who are actually going to have to live with the results of the decision (at least not often enough to offset the misery that will result when they are wrong).
Re:No, I don't (Score:1, Insightful)
you are just being silly.
all rights are positive.
the right to bear arms is positive.
the right to a public education is positive.
the right to be judged by a jury of your peers is positive.
And it's simple enough to show speech as a positive right: If I express my right to free speech at 150dbs, then anyone within hearing distance of my speech is having their right to speech reduced or eliminated.
Re:Fuck the doomed (Score:1, Insightful)
It's all been downhill since the Endless September.
No (Score:3, Insightful)
No, we changed the spelling. Do stop reading books and keep up!
Re:No, I don't (Score:3, Insightful)
What progressive cause reduces personal rights? Mandatory health care?
Yes actually... I have a right to get healthcare, if I want it. Mandatory takes away that right of choice. I can choose to not have healthcare and die in a ditch if I want. Mandatory is the opposite of personal freedom.
Not being beholden to your employer... greatly increases personal freedom.
I don't know about you, but I can leave my employer at any time and go to another one. Nobody is forcing me to take their money for my work.
Financial reform? A stable economy increases personal freedom.
It depends on what you mean by stable economy. Personally, I have a nest egg set back for hard times and I feel a great amount of personal freedom, even in what everyone calls "our dire economy." I have a personal choice to set back money when I need it... so does everyone else. Why should I have to suffer to provide for their stability? Why should we (as taxpayers) have to bailout companies that don't know how to run their own operations efficiently? Why should we have to pay for some union employee to be fired for doing something completely moronic and have the union get his job back? (I've seen this MANY, MANY times... the place I work has a great union presence and is suffering because the workers have no accountability. It literally takes a criminal act to be fired.) How is that stability? Sure, you have a stable job, at the expense of others. Even if those others are the company suffering because you don't "feel" like working as hard today.
Alternative energy? I'd certainly like to have the personal freedom to choose sustainable energy sources and not support oppressive regimes.
You have that choice now. You don't have to buy a gas powered car. You can buy a bike, move closer to work and walk, or take city transport. If you live outside a big city, that's your personal freedom of choice infringing on your feeling of entitlement.
If you are truly willing to make choices you have to suffer some consequence. You can't have everything you ever wanted, and be truly free. By joining a society you give up certain personal freedoms to properly co-mingle.
Progressives have traditionally been anti-freedom to accommodate their own goals. Just as your post points out, you lack the ability to see beyond your own desires and don't care that you are removing the right of choice from some people to "progress" your whims.
The Internet doesn't pose new privacy concerns... (Score:1, Insightful)
It simply provides an entirely new avenue to execute the same exploits people could use before the Internet. It all ultimately comes down to practicing good OPSEC. Before the Internet and particularly social networking became popular, were you one of those people whom would brag to your friends about a new big screen TV and home theater system you installed? Your friends talk to other people too, those other people might decide you are a good target now. Were you that person who took the boxes for your brand new TV and home theater system and put them on the curb? You just advertised to your neighbors and passerby's that you have a collection of items worthy of stealing.
Fast forward to the Internet as it is today. Did you take a bunch of pictures of your new setup and post them on Facebook, photobucket, a home theater discussion board, etc? Even worse, did you take the pictures with a smartphone or camera that has GPS features and because you didn't know any better did you post the pictures online with GPS coordinates embedded in the exif data? Same exploits, different medium. As long as people are uneducated they will continue to be exploited.
Re:No, I don't (Score:3, Insightful)
Because progressive these days is moving away from personal rights, not towards more.
Not necessarily! Exhibit A: Same-sex marriage.
Beyond that, any honest view of freedom can't help but be: it's complicated.
For example, traffic laws restrict my freedoms to drive straight through any intersection at any time if I want to, my freedom to drive on whichever side of the road I want to, and more. On the other hand, they also create a much greater freedom to move about the country quickly than I would otherwise possess. So I give up something to live in a society where traffic laws are taken seriously, but I gain something, too. (And anyone who's ever spent an hour or more completely unmoving in a traffic jam in a part of the world that doesn't take traffic laws seriously because everyone decided they were going to go through the intersection at the same time and thus nobody could will realize what a big thing that is.)
Re:No, I don't (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree completely. I think most people have confused being curteous to others which is not the same as respect. Curteousness should be automatic respect is to be earned.
Even so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook isn't really the area of new risk. The area that's going to see the most impact if his prediction of "Internet Passports" is that of whistle-blowers, the non-violent but anti-establishment types, and of course the "criminal class", the never-to-be-forgiven felons, sex offenders and so on who are already locked out (by policy) of Facebook; people who are criminal by law such as adult drug users or polygamists who are actually engaged in consensual, informed, adult activities (which, IMHO, makes the government the actual criminal entity.) And I've probably forgotten some important other classes of people who need anonymity in order to pursue even normal Internet activity -- certainly if they're going to speak their minds in a hostile environment, whatever the current public opinion of them is. For some people, simply being atheist is enough to earn them severe censure in their own communities. Who are we to say they *must* be outed?
I really don't think it's a good idea to support repressive ideas like Schmidt's. Anonymity is what enables many of the "squeaky wheels" in the system; lose it, and you force those people truly underground, making even the act of speaking anonymously on the Internet a crime, instead of just a choice.
This is really a highly repressive idea -- it's not going too far to call it evil, frankly. An "Internet Passport" would be a very bad thing for the tatters of liberty and freedom we have left in the USA. For countries that have even less freedom, the Internet is the single gateway to freedom of expression that depends upon anonymity. Anonymous voices from repressive countries bring the world's attention to the plight of various individuals and classes; they really do make a difference. Should those people need an "Internet passport", their ability to speak out will be outright amputated.
This isn't a prediction, it is an admission. (Score:2, Insightful)
It is easy to decode what he was really saying What he says is not really a prediction, it is an admission that Google stores uniquely identifiable data about everything its users do. He is probably right that many of us have predictable search/browsing habits. He is offering to sell Governments a product that matches a browsing profile with users.
I have nothing that I can think of to hide, I think that this kind of thing sits poorly with Google's claim of not being evil.
Shall we all use Microsoft's search product instead?
Of course, it is hard to blame google. Most of us rely on an expensive service they produce for free, and have not been very picky about the terms of service before we have done so.
Re:No, I don't (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm just going out on a limb here, Eric, but I don't think that Google requires a lot of photos to find out where you and Dave live. Dave works at UXC, if I'm not mistaken. Are you still at Bluevest?
I know exactly who you guys are and it took me less than five minutes of meatspace time. Imagine a beowulf cluster of me armed with warrants, Google's hardware, and a sense of righteous indignation.
holy crap, libertarians (Score:3, Insightful)
Dude, this is mind-bogglingly dumb. Sure, you have the right to go die in a ditch. You also have the right to stop eating and starve, or the right to hold your breath until you pass out. Practically speaking, though, no one chooses to die in a ditch, starve, or pass out (with certain minor exceptions, and in those cases I doubt you really care what the government has to say about it anyway). What drives me crazy about libertarianism is that they prioritize the "freedom" to do something absolutely no one wants to do over the freedom of access to things people actually do want - like health care.
Do you have friends on FB? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No, I don't (Score:3, Insightful)
If the natural state of man is anarchy, why do we have so very few places where anarchy is the actual state of affairs?
Here's the thing that bothers me about social contract theory: it's fundamentally flawed once it gets past small groups, just like communism. It doesn't work when enforcement of the contract is not universal or absolute (read: always), nor when the contract is not fully agreed upon by all the parties. Sure, I'll give up some of my liberty for protection from external threats; but how much should be given up?
You benefit from the public school system whether or not you have kids in the school system; it contributes to the orderly society you reference. You are still free to send your kids to a different school at cost to you, or to homeschool your kids according to established criteria. Your freedom to NOT educate your children is one that you must give up in order for an orderly society to exist.
Your issue is not one of theory, but of degree and control. You have already established that you are a proponent of social contract theory; as such, you are surely aware that your existence in society means that you must abide by the established social contract. Your problem is that you have little control over what is in the social contract. Well, get used to it. We have 300 million people, and you are among a minority who do not agree with that part of the social contract. I don't agree that my taxes should support aggressive wars in foreign lands, yet I understand that not paying my taxes is not an option, on philosophical grounds (let alone on legal grounds).