Condoleezza Rice, surveillance and torture fan, joins Dropbox board
boingboing.net
boingboing.net
The phrase "having a conversation" or "having a debate" shits me off more than any other bullshit speak. The reason being, whenever somebody uses it, it is exactly because they don't want to have a debate about that topic because they know they're in the wrong. Nobody ever says "we're having a debate about privacy" and then goes on to actually debate it. It's just used by companies or organisations who are doing something objectionable and want to see whether they can get away with it. If everybody complains, well they "listened to your feedback" and can it.
For example, I went to a panel recently about Google glasses that had some Google employees on it. Every time privacy was brought up they said "well that's a debate that we [society] should be having" even though they were literally in a debate about it right there, they never actually put forward their case. They just leave it at this vague notion of a "conversation" that society is having in general without engaging in it themselves. And it's because they know people are opposed to what they are doing, and so engaging in an actual substantive debate about it won't help them at all (not really trying to pick on google here, this is just the first example that came to mind). They just want to ride out the storm and then continue doing exactly what they are doing.
In daily life the debate looks like this: "that service could make my life better, and it's free. But do I feel comfortable sharing my info with this company?" Remember the big news cycle about Gmail's ad targeting technology? But since then millions of people have signed up to use Gmail anyway. So I would not agree that society as a whole has deemed this sort of thing to be wholly bad.
Well instead of just hoovering up every photo you take with Glass into G+ [1], they could implement even a fig-leaf's worth of client-side encryption. This is far from impossible. Just saying.
[1] Not just by default, but as I understand it, without even the option of turning that off.
It helps protect against unauthorized access, but doesn't really address privacy concerns with Google itself.
There is a real difference though, which is the difference between code on your client which perhaps you could at least check if you're stubborn enough[1], and plaintext in a datacenter. This can mean the difference between targeted surveillance and mass surveillance.
Dropbox is a separate case - it was always "trust us" (we have your keys) encryption, and not what I would refer to as "client side" at all.
[1] This is a hard problem if you don't trust the OS
I think the correct response to that kind of statement is, "so, defend your opinion right now, and we can further this 'conversation' you're referring to." Force a fight, then win using facts.
When dealing with pretty much any national level politican closely associated with the executive branch of either the current administration or the previous one it is really easy to read this in a cartoon "evil villain" voice with an implied ellipsis and malicious sarcasm on the "...navigate it" part.
Ouch.
It goes to show how offering a really good service can make all kinds of principles take a back seat I guess. Let's see how many people offering to boycott DP are still on the service in 3 or 4 months now.
1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAfIDUTPJJM
2 - http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/01/dropbox-has-become-problem...
3 - http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2011/04/how-dropbox-sacrifices-u...
4 - http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/dropbox-clarifies...
It's clear that my data isn't secure on Dropbox now, and, all things considered, I'd rather not support a company who makes morally unsound decisions such as recruiting a war criminal to be on their board.
On the other hand some corporate and especially government department contracts shouldn't have the same margin pressure and retention issues. A high profile political person is the perfect fit to pursue government department contracts, and Rice would fit this strategy well.
For example, she is also on the newly created 13-person College Football Playoff selection committee even though she has never played or coached football. One sports writer justified it as she has a "plethora of experience making important decisions under intense pressure". This is the committee that will decide which 4 teams get to play for the championship.