Google's Schmidt predicts end to global censorship in a DECADE Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt has been shooting his mouth of again – this time predicting the end of global internet censorship within a decade. The Chocolate Factory supremo was speaking at Johns Hopkins University on Wednesday. "First they try to block you; second, they try to infiltrate you; and third, you win. I …
the balance between privacy and security isn't static - it's a pendulum which swings one way or the other, but then usually swings back the other way. usually. eventually, in the end game, the pendulum will get stuck at either total privacy or total security. they seem to be mutually exclusive!?
UK government communications headquarters, (6000 workers), UK intelligence collection group (3000+ workers) etc etc all the way to the US national security agency family of 800000+ workers can't understand the needs for privacy - and will be fighting to the last to keep their digital copy of society's meta+data - (accidentally) preventing the evolution of society.
I'm not yet convinced that we'll get out of this current zero-privacy-loop within a decade, last time I looked there were zero 'real' ways of avoiding internet censorship in our digital world. to go from zero-ways to 'the end of global internet censorship' within a decade is impossible, unfortunately impossible, hopefully somehow-possible, but remember that FVEY are very good at whatever it is that they do. their ground work for PRISM etal was laid down in the nineties, what have they got lined-up for 'global internet censorship' in the next decade?
The headline really made me laugh. The google has been censoring me for several years. I'm not even sure what services it covers, though it certainly spans most of their help systems. However, the infuriating part is that the google never said which of the many clauses of the ToS I was in violation of. This started a couple of years ago, so they've had plenty of time to say something, ANYTHING, if they wanted to, but they obviously don't want to. To heck with you puny human life forms, says the google of EVIL.
For what little it's worth, my theory is that it was my potty mouth that got me in trouble. The research claims that obscenities may reveal your emotional sincerity, and sometimes I get a bit too sincere? Or is it my military experience? Serving my country seems to have expanded my vocabulary in the wrong directions, but I've heard that they don't swear nearly as much these days. (They just go nuts from insanely repeated deployments. My timing was much luckier, and I am happy to note (or claim?) that I had no actual combat experience.)
That's a bit OTT. I don't feel especially oppressed by the presence of a car filming the street I happen to be walking on, any more than I'd feel oppressed by a Japanese tourist accidentally capturing me in a photo then uploading it to flickr.
It is a public space, after all. If you don't want to be seen in public, then first I'd ask why, what are you up to? Second I'd ask why it's OK for everyone but you to be seen in public? And third I'd ask why you don't just barricade yourself into the sanctity of your own private space at home, preferably behind several layers of tin foil, if you're that paranoid?
As for Schmidt's predictions about the end of censorship ... unlikely, unless there's a global revolution (I live in hope).
As it happens, I don't care about being occasionally captured on a photo either, be it a Japanese tourist or a Google car. However, I'd get rid of a drone following my every step and taking pictures in short order and by any means possible. And I can't help but note that your arguments are rather misplaced and/or facetious:
1) Yes, you may ask. It's none of your business. Or anybody else's for that matter.
2) How everybody else feels about being seen is not my concern and has exactly zero relevance to how I feel about that.
3) You know as well as I do that we just don't live in a world where not going out at all, ever, is a feasible way of life for most people.
The substantive point is that this is a public space, as in not your space but everyone's, and therefore what you do in it most certainly is our business.
It's like walking on stage, expecting the audience not to look at you, then being outraged when they do.
I've read about a fair number of revolutions. Most of them end badly.
Ironically, the largest cluster of revolutions that didn't end badly occur in British Aisles. I can't call our single fight on the side of the pond a cluster, although I'm willing to group it with the British Aisles cluster if you Brits don't object.
In fact, it’s more than likely that Schmidt’s optimistic words will go down in history alongside Bill Gates’ famous declaration back in 2004 that spam would be a thing of the past by 2006.
Hate to tell you this, but for users of Google Mail services, spam has been pretty much a thing of the past since about 2006.
"China, North Korea, Syria, THE UK ... are you listening?"
Ever heard of cleanfeed?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_%28content_blocking_system%29
Oh wait, that's not the bad kind of censorship, it's the good kind! The kind that protects you!
So insidious even the tech literate register crowd are barely aware of it.
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If anything, the major nations are going the other way. By spying on who people associate with, their email, online docs and services like Twitter, the pendulum is swinging toward draconian oversight rather than the fluffy sunshine, unicorns, and puppy pipe-dream offered by someone responsible for the oversight.
George Orwell. If I'd known how right he would be, I would have paid more attention in school when they assigned his books.
How does he reconcile that with his words just two days earlier when it talked up Google's plan to censor search queries? I know it's a bit inflammatory to suggest blocking child pornography is a type of censorship, but it is, by any definition that doesn't also exclude China, Saudi Arabia, et al. They too can say they only block content which is illegal, immoral and harmful, and they probably even believe it.
Not to mention that blocking queries rather than only results means they will inevitably block people who are searching for information about child pornography. And I don't think most people would persist after being confronted by that warning message once. That serves no purpose except keeping the whole topic in the dark. Some people may like that idea, but surely no one who actually has the best interest of children at heart.
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