Escaping from google
category: offtopic [glöplog]
*giggles*
@psionice:
What you've described as an imaginary example does in fact exist since ... ages ... in matters of private debt issues.
It's this guy:
El cobrador de frac
...which is pretty much just an archaic form of mobbing.
I think the bottom line of your concerns, which I actually share, is that if a vast corporation like Google, whos sole product is "information", develops close ties to government facilities, this could lead to -- and historically always had -- dramatic results.
There is a nowadays misinterpreted term for the merger of corporate and state powers: Fascism.
And because this term today is synonymous with "marching brown shirts" and racial and social discrimination, very few see the corporate-political development for what it is or where it's heading for.
Folks come up with ridiculous terms like "casino capitalism", "neo liberalism" and what not, when the best definition of Fascism comes right from the horse's mouth:
Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power. - Benito Mussolini
The thing today is that this dangerous merger between huge corporations' interests and those of the "hidden" government figures (e.g. the guys who draft the legislation) is sold with the three major buzzwords that totally work at least on western society: SAFETY, SECURITY and CONVENIENCE.
This is the proverbial honey that is pastered around our mouths to sell this ever so "convenient" and "secure" way of "navigating the Web" or easily pay without actually carrying cash money with you.
Thus, people will loose track what information is or what actual money is.
What you've described as an imaginary example does in fact exist since ... ages ... in matters of private debt issues.
It's this guy:
El cobrador de frac
...which is pretty much just an archaic form of mobbing.
I think the bottom line of your concerns, which I actually share, is that if a vast corporation like Google, whos sole product is "information", develops close ties to government facilities, this could lead to -- and historically always had -- dramatic results.
There is a nowadays misinterpreted term for the merger of corporate and state powers: Fascism.
And because this term today is synonymous with "marching brown shirts" and racial and social discrimination, very few see the corporate-political development for what it is or where it's heading for.
Folks come up with ridiculous terms like "casino capitalism", "neo liberalism" and what not, when the best definition of Fascism comes right from the horse's mouth:
Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power. - Benito Mussolini
The thing today is that this dangerous merger between huge corporations' interests and those of the "hidden" government figures (e.g. the guys who draft the legislation) is sold with the three major buzzwords that totally work at least on western society: SAFETY, SECURITY and CONVENIENCE.
This is the proverbial honey that is pastered around our mouths to sell this ever so "convenient" and "secure" way of "navigating the Web" or easily pay without actually carrying cash money with you.
Thus, people will loose track what information is or what actual money is.
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Put it this way. Imagine they pay a guy to follow you everywhere, watch everything you do and record every conversation. At night he's right outside your bedroom window at the top of a ladder, with a microphone and camera. Whenever you go out he knows where you're going and what you're doing...
It wont be a guy, it'll be a mega cluster of servers with high powered processors running the analysis software (being deved by companies like Google and some Universities) 24/7 - analysing our raw datastream directly. You know even our new "Smart" water-meters will be online. :) There's talk of fitting online scanning devices to bins, which scan the barcodes of our rubbish to help manage and, possibly, fine us for generating too much rubbish.
Like IBM say, it's going to be a "Totally Smart Planet" by the 2030. Running from Google is only delaying the inevitable, so stop crying! :D You might as well join the party and live in a greenhouse.
you can't run from the machines, they already have us trapped!
and as someone has already said, at least Google has a lot of eyes targeted at it. They have told you exactly what they will do with your data and if they slip-up there will be people egar to expose them
i wouldn't trust those little independent alternatives which are below the radar. they'll probably be doing a lot worse with your information.
i wouldn't trust those little independent alternatives which are below the radar. they'll probably be doing a lot worse with your information.
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Like IBM say, it's going to be a "Totally Smart Planet" by the 2030. Running from Google is only delaying the inevitable, so stop crying! :D You might as well join the party and live in a greenhouse.
You know people said the same thing about hitler back in the 1930s right? Sorry, but I'm not going to roll over and get fucked because it's "inevitable".
...aaaand there's the Godwin! Took a while, innit.
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and if they slip-up there will be people egar to expose them
Yeah, let's hope that the others will discover possible "slip ups". Ever come across the thought that the others might do the same?
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Running from Google is only delaying the inevitable, so stop crying!
I'll try a bad analogy to paraphrase what I read in your post:
On your way to Revision, you come across a deep chasm. It's pretty wide too, so you're not sure if you can jump over it. But you're too lazy to take a detour.
You decide to jump right into it.
Is that about right?
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Yeah, that's it, I'm switching to linux, then google can't hack my computer and install viruses.
You could ssh into a headless server. Your google image results for the ritr in lynx or links2 will look like shit tho. ;P
ted: but we are talking about lemmings here (the average joe). and unfortunately, both you and I are chained to them by the ankle. so when they wilfully jump into that chasm, we get dragged along for the joyride :D
you would need the support of the majority to resist what is heading our way (our technological hellhole). in addition, most people would need some sense of what might be heading our way - far beyond myopic "booohooo, Google are scanning my emails, i feel invaded".
that's never going to happen, no body is going to be on your side to help you fight "SAFETY, SECURITY and CONVENIENCE" (as mention in Dodge's last post).
So just join the fun and hope the the real pain is not in our lifetime :)
i love all these allegories! :)
you would need the support of the majority to resist what is heading our way (our technological hellhole). in addition, most people would need some sense of what might be heading our way - far beyond myopic "booohooo, Google are scanning my emails, i feel invaded".
that's never going to happen, no body is going to be on your side to help you fight "SAFETY, SECURITY and CONVENIENCE" (as mention in Dodge's last post).
So just join the fun and hope the the real pain is not in our lifetime :)
i love all these allegories! :)
This is "nice".. http://collusion.toolness.org/
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So just join the fun and hope the the real pain is not in our lifetime :)
Well, there is a wise word saying that: "only the dead salmon are going with the stream"
There's also a saying about means to an end though.
well, you know, like a wise man once said: "sometimes, there's no place i'd rather be, than on a tropical island. fish from the water, fruits from the trees and wonderful silence."
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ted: but we are talking about lemmings here (the average joe). and unfortunately, both you and I are chained to them by the ankle. so when they wilfully jump into that chasm, we get dragged along for the joyride :D
Well I just cut the chain. You follow them in, I'll follow in my concrete mixer and fill the chasm, everyone wins :D
Also, what reed said. Online stuff has its uses, but a beer and a laugh with friends by a log fire is where it's at.
2 days of surfing with collusion (bright dots = visited sites):
Uhm...
raer: conclusion?
There's more tracking going on than I had imagined, so I installed TrackerBlock.
somewhat related.
not very different from Facebook or the Apple App store, but still.
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Google has reportedly been warning Android developers to adopt its Google Wallet payment service or face removal from the Marketplace, which has been re-branded as Google Play.
not very different from Facebook or the Apple App store, but still.
what are the parallels? to me this seems like a whole new level of extortion.
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(e.g. the guys who draft the legislation)
Hi guys, I'm d0dge, and I have a perfectly good point to make. Also, I know my terminology well. Oh, and by the way, I'm a complete conspiracy theorist nutjob!
Btw, "the guys who draft the legislation", in most countries, are typically relatively junior political science graduates, working at some ministry for a mediocre pay, taking bets on whether they can draft a law that gets passed through their minister and parliament verbatim.
and back on topic, reed wins the thread!
Here are my points:
1) You can't avoid being tracked or information harvested:
Even if you don't have a facebook or a google account, you will eventually visit a site that has google javascript on it, will send you cookies, flash cookies (the worst kind) and from that they can deduce where you've been. Everybody does this as Collusion shows. Moreover, companies have no ethics, and they will handily exchange information about their users if there's profit in it for them. If you give some info to Apple and you think they won't exchange it with Microsoft, Facebook or Google you are deluded. To avoid this you need to take extreme measures, disable javascript, disable cookies and flash, to the effect of making internet surfing close to useless.
2) What are you protecting anyway?
If you are the average joe who emails his buddies about the beers they had yesterday, vote for a centric, leftish or rightish political party, take notes of his shopping and listen to some music, guess what? You are one of a zillion and you have nothing really interesting to the "bad guys". You are not special. If on the other hand you are using the internet to overthrow the government, learn how to make bombs, visit far-left/far-right political material, or engage in child pornography, financial scams, tax evasion and any illegal or questionable activity whatsoever, every single one of those services will turn you in, Apple included. You shouldnt be using the internet in the first place.
What I see from my end is an Apple fanboy. "Google is getting too powerful, lets switch to Apple stuff instead". I see many people like you everyday. Their minds have been poisoned by Mr Jobs rhetoric and they have lost the capacity to think straight. If you have stuff to hide, Apple is as evil as everyone else, Google included. Your delusion that Google only is evil is the result of Apple marketing trying to eat into Google's profits by using yourself an unpaid sales drone. Note that all companies do this trick, its just that Apple has recently been more active than the others.
And the saddest part of all is that, if your brain has been rotten by corporate marketing beyond a certain point, there's nothing I can say or do that can make you snap out of it. That stuff is as potent as lobotomy.
In closing, please don't take offence in what I said. I have absolutely no problem in you usign Apple products and services. I only have a problem if you do it for the wrong reasons.
Peace.
1) You can't avoid being tracked or information harvested:
Even if you don't have a facebook or a google account, you will eventually visit a site that has google javascript on it, will send you cookies, flash cookies (the worst kind) and from that they can deduce where you've been. Everybody does this as Collusion shows. Moreover, companies have no ethics, and they will handily exchange information about their users if there's profit in it for them. If you give some info to Apple and you think they won't exchange it with Microsoft, Facebook or Google you are deluded. To avoid this you need to take extreme measures, disable javascript, disable cookies and flash, to the effect of making internet surfing close to useless.
2) What are you protecting anyway?
If you are the average joe who emails his buddies about the beers they had yesterday, vote for a centric, leftish or rightish political party, take notes of his shopping and listen to some music, guess what? You are one of a zillion and you have nothing really interesting to the "bad guys". You are not special. If on the other hand you are using the internet to overthrow the government, learn how to make bombs, visit far-left/far-right political material, or engage in child pornography, financial scams, tax evasion and any illegal or questionable activity whatsoever, every single one of those services will turn you in, Apple included. You shouldnt be using the internet in the first place.
What I see from my end is an Apple fanboy. "Google is getting too powerful, lets switch to Apple stuff instead". I see many people like you everyday. Their minds have been poisoned by Mr Jobs rhetoric and they have lost the capacity to think straight. If you have stuff to hide, Apple is as evil as everyone else, Google included. Your delusion that Google only is evil is the result of Apple marketing trying to eat into Google's profits by using yourself an unpaid sales drone. Note that all companies do this trick, its just that Apple has recently been more active than the others.
And the saddest part of all is that, if your brain has been rotten by corporate marketing beyond a certain point, there's nothing I can say or do that can make you snap out of it. That stuff is as potent as lobotomy.
In closing, please don't take offence in what I said. I have absolutely no problem in you usign Apple products and services. I only have a problem if you do it for the wrong reasons.
Peace.
[url=http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os]'Nuff said[/ur]
I like the black/white of your view mot. But I don't see how it turns to apple bashing at the end - surely Safari is just as easy a browser to track as any other (without adblock, noscript tracker blockers etc.)
Just sayin' is all.
I like the black/white of your view mot. But I don't see how it turns to apple bashing at the end - surely Safari is just as easy a browser to track as any other (without adblock, noscript tracker blockers etc.)
Just sayin' is all.