130 replies to this topic

[Russ]

This thread actually has me completely tempted to join Google+.

I wouldn't if I were you. Facebook might not be perfect with privacy settings, but Google is far worse. If Facebook is the guy who walks out of the gas station with a pack of gum he didn't pay for, Google is the head of the mafia. They keep track of EVERYTHING you do. They have a profile for you. Everything you search for goes in that profile. Every email you send or receive through gmail gets copied and put in that profile. Got Chrome? By default, everything you do through it is sent to your profile, unless you switch the function off. Heck, they have tracking cookies everywhere that find out what you do and add it to your profile. As far as I'm concerned, Google+ is a geniusly disguised information mining plot. Stay away.

[Jared]

This thread actually has me completely tempted to join Google+.

Too bad we can't...it's not open to the public yet.

Is the privacy policy different anyway?

I wouldn't if I were you. Facebook might not be perfect with privacy settings, but Google is far worse. If Facebook is the guy who walks out of the gas station with a pack of gum he didn't pay for, Google is the head of the mafia. They keep track of EVERYTHING you do. They have a profile for you. Everything you search for goes in that profile. Every email you send or receive through gmail gets copied and put in that profile. Got Chrome? By default, everything you do through it is sent to your profile, unless you switch the function off. Heck, they have tracking cookies everywhere that find out what you do and add it to your profile. As far as I'm concerned, Google+ is a geniusly disguised information mining plot. Stay away.

Um...nevermind o.o

[Fabbrizio]

I wouldn't if I were you. Facebook might not be perfect with privacy settings, but Google is far worse. If Facebook is the guy who walks out of the gas station with a pack of gum he didn't pay for, Google is the head of the mafia. They keep track of EVERYTHING you do. They have a profile for you. Everything you search for goes in that profile. Every email you send or receive through gmail gets copied and put in that profile. Got Chrome? By default, everything you do through it is sent to your profile, unless you switch the function off. Heck, they have tracking cookies everywhere that find out what you do and add it to your profile. As far as I'm concerned, Google+ is a geniusly disguised information mining plot. Stay away.

Ahhhh...paranoid much? And anyway, I already have Gmail, Blogger, GoogleDocs, and Google AdSense accounts set up, so it's not like I can avoid any further damage at this point.

[Radien]

I wouldn't if I were you. Facebook might not be perfect with privacy settings, but Google is far worse. If Facebook is the guy who walks out of the gas station with a pack of gum he didn't pay for, Google is the head of the mafia. They keep track of EVERYTHING you do. They have a profile for you. Everything you search for goes in that profile. Every email you send or receive through gmail gets copied and put in that profile. Got Chrome? By default, everything you do through it is sent to your profile, unless you switch the function off. Heck, they have tracking cookies everywhere that find out what you do and add it to your profile. As far as I'm concerned, Google+ is a geniusly disguised information mining plot. Stay away.

What exactly are you basing all these theories on?...

If you suspect that Google logs your emails on a profile because you've realized that they personalize your ads based on what you're writing, please realize that it's perfectly possible for a computer to personalize ads without making your email public to anyone. The data is processed before it is sent to you, after all. Google handles that data, which is a lot better than letting the advertisers handle it.

If you are paranoid that they hold on to your emails... well, of course they do. They already store your emails on their server, because you told them to. It's impossible to do otherwise if you're providing email services through a browser. Thanks to computers, data can be stored without necessitating that the person storing it has direct access to it. For instance, even though site staff run this website, Invision does not provide a way for them to read our PMs. Even WildBill would have to hack into the system in order to do that.

As for tracking cookies, I have programs that block unauthorized cookies and tell me who requested them. Google is not usually among them. Yes, they have a site traffic tracking service which appears on many sites. But those are done with javascript, and as far as I know javascript isn't capable of invading your system without a cookie. All major websites keep track of their traffic, and serverside information about the visitors. It's like a mail order catalog company keeping track of how many of their customers order from Michigan. It's not unusual or wrong.

[Fabbrizio]

What exactly are you basing all these theories on?...

If you suspect that Google logs your emails on a profile because you've realized that they personalize your ads based on what you're writing, please realize that it's perfectly possible for a computer to personalize ads without making your email public to anyone. The data is processed before it is sent to you, after all. Google handles that data, which is a lot better than letting the advertisers handle it.

If you are paranoid that they hold on to your emails... well, of course they do. They already store your emails on their server, because you told them to. It's impossible to do otherwise if you're providing email services through a browser. Thanks to computers, data can be stored without necessitating that the person storing it has direct access to it. For instance, even though site staff run this website, Invision does not provide a way for them to read our PMs. Even WildBill would have to hack into the system in order to do that.

As for tracking cookies, I have programs that block unauthorized cookies and tell me who requested them. Google is not usually among them. Yes, they have a site traffic tracking service which appears on many sites. But those are done with javascript, and as far as I know javascript isn't capable of invading your system without a cookie. All major websites keep track of their traffic, and serverside information about the visitors. It's like a mail order catalog company keeping track of how many of their customers order from Michigan. It's not unusual or wrong.

The defense rests. TAKE THAT!

...okay, so this isn't really the time for Ace Attorney references, but I would like to say that I (in fact, most people) tend to side with evidence and cold logic much more often than conjectures based on theories which are pulled from other theories.

What Russ said was basically like saying, "Bob is a person. People like cookies, therefore Bob is holding a chocolate chip cookie right now". It's very possible that Bob IS, in fact, holding a chocolate chip cookie, but you had no way of justifying the claim, and even if you did, you didn't use it, you used statements which were themselves baseless. A conjecture pulled from baseless statements will also, inevitably, be baseless.

Edited by PowerGauntlets, 11 August 2011 - 07:56 AM.

[Radien]

The defense rests. TAKE THAT!

...okay, so this isn't really the time for Ace Attorney references, but I would like to say that I (in fact, most people) tend to side with evidence and cold logic much more often than conjectures based on theories which are pulled from other theories.

What Russ said was basically like saying, "Bob is a person. People like cookies, therefore Bob is holding a chocolate chip cookie right now". It's very possible that Bob IS, in fact, holding a chocolate chip cookie, but you had no way of justifying the claim, and even if you did, you didn't use it, you used statements which were themselves baseless. A conjecture pulled from baseless statements will also, inevitably, be baseless.

That's true, but let's see if Russ has something else he's basing these suspicions on.

Thank you for agreeing with me, though.

[King Harkinian]

http://www.youtube.c...r/NewYork420420

Their YouTube account. Call them activists, call them hackers, call them whatever you want. But if these people truly believe what they want, and have done is just, they are wrong. There are better ways to show anti support and protest. Taking down websites of big companies and foreign countries isn't the right thing to do.

Personally I could care less if they take down facebook, which I oppose myself. But PSN, which is basically Xbox Live but PS3? I don't think taking down that does anything. And government websites? If their leader got caught by the authorities, he or she could be charged with so many things. Also, this person probably isn't in America, and if caught in their own country, there would be a chance he/she would be sentenced to death. The person behind all this should really be thinking about there actions, and what the impact of what ANONYMOUS is doing to other people, who don't support their ideas. Once again, I'll say that they have the right to protest things, but to go to this extreme is ridiculous.

[Eddard McHorn Van-Schnuder]

http://www.youtube.c...r/NewYork420420

Their YouTube account. Call them activists, call them hackers, call them whatever you want. But if these people truly believe what they want, and have done is just, they are wrong. There are better ways to show anti support and protest. Taking down websites of big companies and foreign countries isn't the right thing to do.

Personally I could care less if they take down facebook, which I oppose myself. But PSN, which is basically Xbox Live but PS3? I don't think taking down that does anything. And government websites? If their leader got caught by the authorities, he or she could be charged with so many things. Also, this person probably isn't in America, and if caught in their own country, there would be a chance he/she would be sentenced to death. The person behind all this should really be thinking about there actions, and what the impact of what ANONYMOUS is doing to other people, who don't support their ideas. Once again, I'll say that they have the right to protest things, but to go to this extreme is ridiculous.

LulzSec brought down the PSN, not Anonymous. Also, the whole point of the group is that they don't have one single leader. There's no single person one could blame for all of that, because they're all just as guilty. They oppose the idea of leadership. Also they would not be tried with the death sentence, that is ridiculous. o.o

The difference is that one is doing it "for the lulz" while the other has serious reasons (in their minds) for doing it. I personally support this, Facebook needs to be taken down a notch, because they are in many ways breaking laws in many different countries and are seemingly getting away with it. Invasion of privacy is probably the most important thing we can fight here on the internet, because if we "lose" that battle, the internet as we know it is dead. Period.

Facebook will be back though, maybe even in a matter of hours. They can't kill Facebook, and if anyone think that after this happens, Facebook is going to just disappear, they are wrong. Hopefully though, they'll take the hint or I suspect they're gonna keep attacking them until they do. Which I couldn't support anymore than I already do.

Listen, I use Facebook mostly with my job (my editor has put up a secret group in which new game releases are put up so writers can pick which they want to review and so on), so it'd "hurt" me just as much as any other guy, but I do not like Facebook if only because of the stupid crap they're doing. I'm hoping this will stop, though I do doubt it.

[Eurysilas]

I love it when Anonymous does s*** like this. That it's FACEBOOK of all things this time nearly brings a tear of joy to my eye

Like I said on a more trollish avenue of Interweb City:

FACEBOOK. KILL IT WITH FIRE.

[Old-Skool]

Do you honestly believe that? I bet the average person either hears about this in passing and forgets about this in about 10 minutes or doesn't hear about it again until Facebook is down for an hour on November 5. What is there to even seek out?

You're assuming nothing serious were to happen. Likely as that may be, it's not the scenario I am discussing.

[sigtau]

I love it when Anonymous does s*** like this. That it's FACEBOOK of all things this time nearly brings a tear of joy to my eye

Like I said on a more trollish avenue of Interweb City:

FACEBOOK. KILL IT WITH FIRE.

You do realize that, despite how likely the attack is to succeed, Facebook is large enough and invulnerable enough to these kinds of attacks to the point that even if they are severely affected, they'll probably bounce back within a week at the longest, right?

Also, EURY, WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN

[Russ]

That's true, but let's see if Russ has something else he's basing these suspicions on.

I'll admit, I am a bit paranoid, but I'd like to think rightly so. I don't have my sources saved, and I don't feel like digging through a year's worth of history to find them, but I can offer this over-the-top-dramatic video, at least: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=oNofb-OlZyQ Yeah, the guy who made it's probably a bit out there, but it's gotta count for something, right? (Not saying I agree with everything he says, just throwing it out there.)

In addition, there's this: https://secure.wikim.../Google#Privacy Allow me to quote a few highlights from it.
"Schmidt reaffirmed this 2010 in an interview with the Wall Street Journal: "I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions, they want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.""
"On December 2009, Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, declared after privacy concerns: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines – including Google – do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.""

In addition, I've got a Firefox add-on called "Ghostery", and have it configured to show me all the trackers and whatnot it's blocking. Nearly every webpage I'm going to has Google stuff blocked. No exaggeration.

And as for Chrome, right here: https://secure.wikim...hrome#Criticism

So yeah, maybe I am a bit paranoid. But I think I've got enough evidence backing my paranoia.

[Eurysilas]

Oh, Facebook WILL bounce back. No question. But it's the TROLL that counts. For at least a few hours, people will have to find some other way to pretend anything they do really matters.

Also, sigtau, I figured I'd up and pissed off anybody worth knowing here. So I "left". Which is to say I'm a lurker now.

[Old-Skool]

Facebook doesn't have to die. Anon just needs to get the info out of it.

[thepsynergist]

In addition, I've got a Firefox add-on called "Ghostery", and have it configured to show me all the trackers and whatnot it's blocking. Nearly every webpage I'm going to has Google stuff blocked. No exaggeration.

And as for Chrome, right here: https://secure.wikim...hrome#Criticism

So yeah, maybe I am a bit paranoid. But I think I've got enough evidence backing my paranoia.

Noscript and Adblocker+ do the same thing.