Schneier on Security
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December 9, 2009
My Reaction to Eric Schmidt
Schmidt said:
I think judgment matters. 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.This, from 2006, is my response:
Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need.
[...]
For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that -- either now or in the uncertain future -- patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything we do is observable and recordable.
[...]
This is the loss of freedom we face when our privacy is taken from us. This is life in former East Germany, or life in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And it's our future as we allow an ever-intrusive eye into our personal, private lives.
Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.
Posted on December 9, 2009 at 12:22 PM • 98 Comments • View Blog Reactions
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Comments
Dear Bruce,
The well thought-out, rational responses by yourself to power hungry, incompetent bureaucrats and their disciples is the sole reason why you are a personal hero of mine. You are a true american, keep up the good work!!!!
Posted by: james at December 9, 2009 12:33 PM
Google is quite aware of privacy concerns and Schmidt's quote is disingenuous. Google is commonly used research medical conditions, and most people are rightly private with information about their health -- information that may, in the future, affect their job performance, their relationships, and their social status. Especially when given a tentative diagnosis -- in the 1920's Carl Jung wrongly diagnosed the UK's central banker with insanity secondary to syphilis -- people need the ability to keep it private. This is neither hypothetical nor shameful, it is a simple and clear case of information that should be kept private. Eric Schmidt was pursued at times by people seeking insight into his marriage, so he should understand privacy.
Posted by: Another Schmidt at December 9, 2009 12:52 PM
Hi Bruce,
I wrote an open letter to Eric Schmidt today with a similar view. Privacy isn't just about hiding things, or assuming that things that you do not want to disclose could be bad things. It's about choice and freedom. The biggest issue imo is that Google, and others, implicitly take some of our privacy away in return for services.
If interested the letter is located here:
http://vanelsas.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/...Posted by: Alexander van Elsas at December 9, 2009 1:03 PM
Bravo. I'm glad someone with your credibility is around to speak truth to power.
Posted by: Joe Grossberg at December 9, 2009 1:06 PM
Privacy isn't about getting away with illegal things. It's about being able to do what is legal and your business without having to answer to people who have no business questioning you to begin with.
Posted by: HJohn at December 9, 2009 1:08 PM
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." - Cardinal Richelieu
Posted by: RH at December 9, 2009 1:09 PM
Well said, Bruce. I read that essay when you first released it and it's no less true today than it was in 2006.
Another good read in regard to the "nothing to hide" argument is a paper written by Daniel J. Solove, an associate law professor from George Washington University, entitled "'I've Got Nothing to Hide,' And Other Misunderstandings of Privacy". In fact, Solove references Bruce's linked "The Eternal Value of Privacy" essay.
I had hoped that much of the anti-privacy rhetoric in the U.S. would have subsided by now, but alas, no.
Posted by: Archon at December 9, 2009 1:22 PM
Bravo for your stand. Let those who champion "have nothing to hide" be the first to let everyone else examine their private lives (i.e. Congress, the White House, NSA, CIA, FBI et al). Those seemingly in power want all your information but hide behind the very protections that they would deny you, in order to hide their information.
Posted by: kashmarek at December 9, 2009 1:22 PM
And kashmarek... there's also the point that, even if there are folks out there who want to live "the declarative life", whether I do so or not should be a matter of choice for me, not a factor driven by *their* choice.
My own rant on the topic via the URL, if you are interested...
Posted by: Robin Wilton at December 9, 2009 1:31 PM
Is it just me, or can Schmidt's quote be read as having a subtext with a helpful warning. Basically, "if you don't want this seen by anyone else, don't do it in a semi-public forum like the internet, because data on our servers is not 100% under our control and even the most committed dedication to user data privacy can be pushed aside with warrants and invasive legislation".
If he had said "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it _online_ in the first place", there'd be no doubt in my mind that was what he meant.
Posted by: Jared Lessl at December 9, 2009 1:45 PM
"It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
In this case the man is Schmidt, not Bruce :-).
Posted by: JohnJS at December 9, 2009 1:55 PM
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben Franklin, 1775
Posted by: John B at December 9, 2009 2:10 PM
One consistently glaring meme is that...
"respectability is inversely proportional to sexuality"
Which means that exposure of this particular biological drive can be used to diminish someone in public life.
(I was tempted to mis-spell "public" in the sentence above but managed to resist doing so but am remarking on it so some folks can smile.)
Posted by: John Campbell at December 9, 2009 2:12 PM
Also see Daniel Solove's paper:
'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of PrivacyAvailable here:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?...Posted by: AlanS at December 9, 2009 2:16 PM
@Jared Lessl:
To outward appearance, this is in fact what he's saying --- no defense against subpoenas, warrants, etc.
Note, however, that this is utterly disingenuous, because it glosses over the fact that nobody forces Google to _keep_ that data. They could delete it immediately, or within a few days. If they did so, the "Law Enforcement Can Make Us Screw You" argument evaporates.
The reason they don't delete the data is, of course, that mining that data for ad targeting is the central core of their business model. That is, Google deliberately creates this privacy vulnerability, because it's how they make money.
Schmidt, who ostensibly believes in "Don't Be Evil", evidently does not regard this fundamentally sociopathic choice as constituting "evil", presumably for the reason encapsulated by the bit of Sinclair quoted above by JohnJS.
It should be noted that it is a mistake to conflate the threat to privacy and liberty from private companies like Google with that from government. In a real sense, the threat from corporations is much more difficult to control: government is ultimately accountable to us, whereas Google is only accountable to its shareholders, who only judge it by whether it makes money.
Posted by: Carlo Graziani at December 9, 2009 2:20 PM
Being self-referential doesn't help your point, Bruce.
Posted by: Marcus Twain at December 9, 2009 2:48 PM
I whole heartedly agree. Those who collect information about us should always make it clear they are doing so, what they are collecting, and why. They should also give an opt-out option if using the services they provide don't require collecting that information. And they should always give an opt-out from the service altogether (or, more appropriately, be opt-in so you are always opting out unless you subscribe). I like google collecting information on my because it gives me far better search results. Some people don't, but they should still be able to get the less accurate results that google can provide. I don't like advertisers collecting that information because they use it to abuse me.
Posted by: Brian at December 9, 2009 2:56 PM
There are a lot of pithy quotes available for intelligent retort. Many of them have been posted here. And the reason there are so many good quotes is most certainly because of the popularity of such an obvious fallacy.
Eric Schmidt is terribly intelligent, and I can't believe he's so foolish as to believe that if you don't want people knowing about your sex life that you shouldn't be having sex. Otherwise, I think we would all invite him to twitter or maintain a live video feed on all his personal and private matters for public consumption and scrutiny. Can we get Tiger to debate this privacy thing? I’m sure he’d be pretty passionate about it.
On a more serious note, as Jared Lessl comments above, I'd like to think that Schmidt's comment governs posting or searching for things on the Internet rather than the actions themselves. That is, don't search for ‘vd’ on google if you don't want people to know or think you have vd. This argument is still full of holes, because it suggests that the very value of the Internet is immediately degraded in relation to the importance of privacy relative to it. Thus, if I believe I may have hemorrhoids, you ought not to search for information about it on the Internet unless you are willing to post a big sign on your home or add the line to your E-mail signature, “I think I might be suffering from hemorrhoids at this time.”
Furthermore, I’d like to note: have you ever met someone who lived under a no-privacy regime before? A lot of them would be considered suffers of delusional paranoia by American standards. They don’t tell anything about themselves and get really nervous if you ask them questions. Growing up in the US, I never would’ve thought that we’d come to a point where unrestricted secret government wiretaps(FISA), torture, and privacy invasion would become hallmarks of American society.
I’m tempted to use the Google Toolkit to write a random search engine that runs in the background, like SETI@Home that runs Google searches with meaningless strings, which in turn pollutes the databases making them so full of junk that they’re useless (yes I understand the limitations here).
Posted by: Robert at December 9, 2009 3:05 PM
Four components of data tracking controls:
Notice - notify people what is being collected and how it will be used.
Choice - people should have the option to not have the data collected, even if it means they are not going to use the site.
Access - people should have a mechanism to correct errant data, and even have data deleted, where appropriate.
Security - data should be secured, where appropriate.
Not perfect, but in a nutshell that would improve a lot of it.
Posted by: HJohn at December 9, 2009 3:07 PM
A great response Bruce.
Quantum Mechanics says when you observe a thing, it changes. People are the same way.The simple act of observation changes people's behavior. Political parties/groups recently have been taking pictures of people protesting and even our government is guilty of this behavior in the past.
I saw video of a protest and an activist was shoving a camera literally inches from someone's face and taking pictures of everybody. I am not sure how I would have reacted. As far as I'm concerned, it's intimidation.
I genuinely wonder where privacy and discourse are headed in this country. Everything that is done to protect us from pedos, terrorists, etc. I'm far more likely to be hit by lightning from my PC than be hurt in attack. If you have nothing to hide? Everyone who makes that statement should be issued a camera and made to walk everywhere broadcasting the live feed. Hey, John sounds like you need to eat more fiber....
Posted by: jacob at December 9, 2009 3:09 PM
I bet I'm not the only person who's seen a term (like "420") on the net and looked up the meaning on google.
Posted by: extra helping of 419 at December 9, 2009 3:49 PM
If Eric Schmidt thinks so little of privacy, then he wouldn't mind if someone stalked him with a camera and posted pics to the internet of his bathroom and/or bedroom ventures, right?
From a search engine perspective, so what if I search for VD. Maybe my kid is doing a book report for the GLSEN fisting class. Maybe I had a keyboard malfunction or mistyped.
God love her, but my wife was screaming in terror a few months ago - she went to "dicks.com" looking for Dick's Sporting Goods and didn't like the results. Should that make her a sex offender? Searching for "dicks" doesn't mean I'm gay or some kind of pervert - I could be innocently looking for Dick's Sporting Goods.
Posted by: derf at December 9, 2009 3:58 PM
"f you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. " - that can be an interesting criteria when you look at your own actions, but it only works under the assumption that those who will know what you do won't do anything *they* shouldn't do, like abuse their power. Which brings me exactly to your first sentence.
Posted by: Anna at December 9, 2009 4:03 PM
Things can always be taken out of context as well. Any off handed comments out of anger can be called motive, for example. (A text reads "Ugh, he makes me so mad I could kill him!" Next, you have Gil Grisson saying "was it really an accident, or were the brakes tampered with.")
There is also the very real issue of mistakes. Just last night, I went to book a hotel and instead of typing HotWire.com, I typed HotWife.com.
Posted by: HJohn at December 9, 2009 4:14 PM
Didn't Google blacklist all CNET reporters for a year, after it published personal information about Eric Schmidt?
Posted by: Stephen at December 9, 2009 4:22 PM
iGoogle personalizes your Google homepage! What users fail to realize is it links your username to your search history providing a complete search record mapped to your email address. Know what your signing up for as even legit technologies have privacy pitfalls.
Posted by: Anonymous Dude at December 9, 2009 4:39 PM
Just want to say one thing to your blog - amen, brother!
Posted by: spaceman spiff at December 9, 2009 4:52 PM
Did you ever notice, many will say or act as if privacy is not an issue. Of course, this only true until it comes to their or their family's own privacy. Then you here, "But that's different! My response, "Bravo Sierra"
Posted by: Grumpy at December 9, 2009 4:56 PM
Robert : Can we get Tiger to debate this privacy thing? I’m sure he’d be pretty passionate about it.
The fact that are jokes doing the rounds that call him
Tiger "10 Woodie" Wood
I think answers the question...
Posted by: Hey Nony Mouse at December 9, 2009 5:02 PM
We were all brought up in fear of the ever present Eye. 1984's television's with built in cameras that allowed the state to see all, and control all.
The truth turned out to be a little different. Yes, there are cameras everywhere, there is one in my laptop's casing, there is one in my phone. I expect there to be cameras every where, turned on all the time.
And I expect we will find out that a lot of people who have not been practicing what they preach.
Posted by: Brett Morgan at December 9, 2009 5:09 PM
In reality it is not about privacy or security or even freedom.
It is about the contempt those with significant money hold the rest of the population.
I'm told that in the US "personal data" belongs to whom ever collects it.
You then find that to get any type of good or service you "have" to hand over "personal data".
It has reached the point where it is not possible to exist in modern society without being "held to ransom" by those wishing to profit from your "personal data".
The various 1st world governments are just climbing on the band waggon.
We already see "Police Interviews" being put out on TV and "snippits of CCTV" footage being used to make programs.
As I said it is "contempt of the fellow man" anybody with any kind of morals would realise that this is wrong.
However you try to fight by treating these people with the same level of contempt and you will find they can afford to buy their privacy through lawyers etc.
Posted by: Clive Robinson at December 9, 2009 5:16 PM
I'm with Jared Lessl on this one.
Sorry Bruce: I'm positive you know far more then I do about internet security, but this is about assuming someone is self-contradicting. I can't agree with you on that one. Eric Schmidt knows this way too well to have said that in the way you interpret it. If anyone in power has secrets he'd like to keep safe, it's him: I've heard about (former) mistresses, Burning Man, etc. He's been a victim of that.
He cannot publicly oppose the Patriot Act, but he certainly would rather avoid what he describes. He can be honest about it and explain that the services his company provide are dependant on a business model that demands that he keeps data a long time, and that the laws in most countries can force him to share that data. He's asking people to be reasonable because otherwise, he'd be the one getting the blame for an absurd law, set up by an Administration he disapproved of.
He's not wrong, simply an adult talking to adults: he doesn't control the law, so you should behave accordingly, instead of blaming him whatever he does, says or keeps silent. If you have issues with that, write to the person who can take a decision; that would be your MP or congressman.
Posted by: Bertil Hatt at December 9, 2009 5:50 PM
Privacy is also about shielding yourself from those that might not show proper respect.
Ironically, the perpetrators of the western capitalistic system (those in power) are the ones who build the biggest walls and keep the longest passwords because they have most to loose.
Posted by: Anton at December 9, 2009 6:02 PM
great post, thanks for writing out what I'm sure many people feel
Posted by: neal at December 9, 2009 6:05 PM
That's a big heads up for any Google users in Iran and China: "maybe you shouldn't be [demanding liberty] in the first place".
Or closer to home: If you insist on keeping santas gifts a secret all the way to Christmas you're probably a bad boy! No pudding for you!
Posted by: Sven at December 9, 2009 6:06 PM
There have to be studies on animal behavior and what happens when you remove privacy from an animal's living condition. I'm specifically thinking about research involving primates in zoos. My hypothesis is that privacy is an inherent need in all primates, and that, without privacy, a primate will develop psychological disorders. There must be some research on this topic that could be very persuasive.
Posted by: D at December 9, 2009 6:09 PM
Go live in a university apartment in China for a while, teaching english or something. You'll certainly get to value the idea of privacy. Some examples: The guards at the school gates phone someone whenever they see you leaving. People follow you around (without approaching to try and practise English with you). The phones in your apartment can listen while they're on the hook. You know when a student in your class has been told to phone someone if you don't turn up or leave early: the other students hear about it and suddenly lose respect for you, and when you get home, your apartment's been walked thru. One time I left some money hidden in my apartment: it didn't take long for my only break-in to occur.
As you say, privacy laws protect us from abuses by those in power.Posted by: Mr Dreng at December 9, 2009 6:14 PM
@Bertil Hatt:
Again, that's a disingenuous excuse. Yes, the Feds can compel disclosures. But no, the Feds don't mandate that that data be retained in the first place. Google's business plan mandates that.
Google mines that data and turns it into revenue. In essence, they deliberately choose to place the privacy of people who use their service in potential legal jeopardy, because they make money that way.
Google could easily Fed-proof everybody's personal data, by deleting it after a day or two, or at least by anonymizing it beyond reconstruction. They _choose_ not to do so.
The business about the authorities having power of compulsion is a red herring. I'm sure Schmidt would prefer the discussion to remain on the subject of government authority rather than on the subject of Google's privacy-hostile business model
Posted by: Carlo Graziani at December 9, 2009 6:14 PM
How much personal information about Eric Schmidt is available
via Google? Can you see his house on StreetView, etc.?
That should be a good indication if he walks the walk, or
if he just talks the talk.Posted by: Anon Y. Mouse at December 9, 2009 6:36 PM
Right on, Bruce.
Foolish comments like that of Mr. Schmidt indicate the danger that could occur if the world becomes a hydraulic empire. The Internet has become necessary to us all. What will happen if attitudes like this allow it to come under the control of the would-be Big Brothers who administer the mediacracies we find ourselves in?
Posted by: Arthur Klassen at December 9, 2009 6:39 PM
Amen, amen, and amen.
It is totally frightening to see the influence that Google has at the White House.
Posted by: Dierdre58 at December 9, 2009 7:17 PM
Everyone knows what Google's business model is and how it generates revenue. If you don't like that Google collects information on you, stop using it. It's pretty simple. Good luck finding another search engine, email provider, etc that doesn't keep records on you, logs your traffic, etc. Privacy on the internet is a myth
Posted by: Casey01 at December 9, 2009 8:30 PM
I'm not a philosopher, so maybe I don't understand "freedom". I live a rather declarative live; I have a Nexus card so I can cross the border faster, which means the government(s) have my fingerprints and know when I cross. I book airfare on Expedia, and I usually blog about my travel plans. But it seems pretty likely to me that the idea of privacy of information is the basic principle for the Fourth Amendment and that people who are philosophers consider this necessary to a free society.
However I think the problem is understood. It's not about whether or not the government should have access to personal information, it's that the government, and corporations and even individuals, can obtain a lot of information to wield power over others. As consumers and citizens, we need to demand that corporations and governments be prevented from using technology that infringes on our core elements of privacy. Among other things, privacy is an essential component of freedom of religion and freedom of association. That's only going to work when we vote with our ballots and our wallets. When politicians' jobs depend on providing privacy, not just security, and when companies can make a profit by respecting people's privacy (or lose profit by not respecting it), then we'll start seeing solutions that work for us. I do have confidence in the ingenuity of the private sector. I have less confidence in the intelligence of consumers and voters to demand their freedom. That could mean a two-tier society where the elites get privacy and the masses don't.
If privacy becomes a commodity, I can probably make enough money to afford it, but I'd still prefer it to be considered an aspect of basic social infrastructure, not just a privilege of the rich.
Posted by: Alex von Thorn at December 9, 2009 9:16 PM
Some of you may be interested in the thread at webmasterworld: http://bit.ly/4GdXmK - GOOG has decided on an opt-in-by-default policy, for tracking your searches, even when you're NOT logged on to a GOOG account.
Thus, when you search on GOOG, you're agreeing to their Terms Of Service upon the first click! (Have you seen their Terms Of Service, and what the TOS say about what information is being stored about you, for how long?)
You might well want to consider a different search engine.
Posted by: fjpoblam at December 9, 2009 9:56 PM
Here is my object lesson in privacy. Take heed.
I have had an unlisted phone number since 1983. In 1989 I was on an e-mail list and I sent a fellow list member my home phone number. Remember, 1989: no Web, not even Gopher yet. Just e-mail.
Somebody archived that mailing list, and sometime during the 1990's Google snarfed it up.
Despite being unlisted for over a quarter of a century, it is possible to search Google and find my current home phone number.
When somebody tells you your privacy is safe, keep in mind it is only safe from threats that presently exist. In 1989 I could not imagine that Google posed a threat to the privacy of my phone number. But it did!
Posted by: Albatross at December 9, 2009 10:21 PM
here here! well said.
keep up the good fight, we are still owed the right to privacy our forefathers saw as a basic tenet of american democracy.Posted by: mike davis at December 9, 2009 11:10 PM
Privacy is important, but it is gone, eventually everything is known and exists only as a negotiated right or commodity market.
We are in an information arms race. Data collection is just a small part of the information race.
Survival today is information warfare, economic and people negotiation.
Protracted warfare is always bad for the state, but this war, is constant. More support for EFF, etc would be nice.
Too bad that so little debate revolves around how to keep societies balances in check. Too bad that we are still playing out the bad strategies of containment of the cold war. Church and state, is like privacy and pragmatism with the effects of the all seeing eye...
Posted by: PackagedBlue at December 9, 2009 11:49 PM
Perhaps Eric was making an innocent mistake with his words? Perhaps he wasn't thinking about the possible implications of what he was saying. Well I have said many things and wish I had not when the scope was larger than I thought.
Posted by: Jeremy at December 10, 2009 12:04 AM
Surely, Schmidt cannot be so naive as to believe privacy is about 'not doing anything wrong'? We *are* talking about a man whose company has come to an agreement with the Chinese government, and who sings the praises of USA PATRIOT.
This is not some ivory-tower computer genius new to the concept. He's been smack-dab in the middle of debates on privacy and freedom, and he's always chosen what is best for his pocketbook - not necessarily anyone's freedom.
Posted by: Nick at December 10, 2009 12:28 AM
Foucault's writings on the Panopticon should be sufficient response here.
Posted by: SA at December 10, 2009 2:21 AM
Suppose that you have two pieces of paper, one in each hand. One contains a datum that you feel should enjoy bounds of classification/privilege, while the other contains a list of people.
In the perfect world that Mr. Schmidt wants us all to live in, that list is a long whitelist, or it contains a single item: "Everybody."
For most of us, that list is a blacklist of variable length. When I hand my datum over to a service, I am implicitly trusting that service to keep my data out of the hands of the people on the blacklist.
It appears that Schmidt - and by implication, many decisionmakers at Google - seem to miss the fact that most individuals are inherently unwilling to let that implicit trust grow without limit.
The mandate to keep information offline that you don't want in general circulation is rather a no-brainer, but it's not a surprise that most people don't apply that much critical thinking to the problem.
That Google and social networks encourage the uninitiated to pour out their entire lives into their profiles is... wrong.
Posted by: ben at December 10, 2009 2:28 AM
Google is not about letting anyone know, it's about letting *everyone* one know.
Posted by: Particular Random Guy at December 10, 2009 3:02 AM
i agree with both.
everything that Bruce Schneier wrotes is correct, but it is not the whole truth.
Eric Schmidt shows to us one consequence of data mining, the Patriot Act and so on.
I agree with Mr. Schneier; it is the worst consequence, but it's reality.
hiding yourself because you are afraid (or paranoid?) and privacy are not the same. the second is a right you have, the first you are forced to do (you feel you are forced to adjust yourself).Posted by: hwKeitel at December 10, 2009 3:06 AM
Having listened the the interview, it looks to me like the interview was intentionally cut to pull this statement out of context. It looks like Schmidt was merely suggesting that the reality of the current situation is that information you post online can be viewed fairly easily by law enforcement. In fact, service providers are even *legally required* to retain identifying information for a minimum period to help law enforcement in some places (such as here, in the Netherlands); so Schmidt's statement strikes me as merely being a colloquially expressed common sense opinion that's been taken out of context.
It's a real shame that the poor journalism underlying this is being rewarded with such attention; I think you should remove the link to their site and explain the nuance and lack of context they provide. No need to boost their ad-revenue for posting inflammatory (witness the many comments), misleading content.
Posted by: Eamon Nerbonne at December 10, 2009 3:54 AM
Just to show how empty the quote is: "nothing to hide, nothing to fear"
Durham police demonstrate DNA will stuff you
Possession of non-illegal substance will still arse up your prospects
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/10/..."However, it is in police remarks relating to the consequence of possessing mephedrone that the greatest concerns are to be found. Barnard Castle-based Inspector Kevin Tuck is reported as saying: "In Durham police have taken a stance and anyone found with it will be arrested on suspicion of possession of a banned substance."
He adds: "They will be taken to a police cell, their DNA and fingerprints taken and that arrest, depending upon enquiries, could have serious implications for example on future job applications" (our italics)."
Winter
Posted by: Winter at December 10, 2009 4:28 AM
Eric Schmidt: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
aka "If you didn't do anything wrong you've got nothing to hide"
Schmidt is a stupid corporate hack without any discernible conscience.
"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."
Then don't collect it, dummy.
A distributed P2P search engine, anyone? I don't think Google can be trusted -- Google CEO pretty much confirmed that they are willing informants to the powers that are. I wonder if they are preparing lists of the "extremists" for the Feds by checking who searched for any unapproved version of history or political theory.
Posted by: averros at December 10, 2009 4:54 AM
A good point indeed good sir, without the right of privacy (in sense of legal or illegal acts) we may just as well become a collective entity like the borg (star trek ref.)
Posted by: Wighar at December 10, 2009 5:20 AM
@ Particular Random Guy,
"Google is not about letting anyone know, it's about letting *everyone* one know."
If that where true I would accept Mr Schmidt's view as that of a stary eyed idealist, not a rapacious marketing person on the make.
The simple truth is Google are responsive to MegaCorp and BigGov whilst pandering to the rest of us.
All personal feelings aside that is the pond Google swims in and you have to be a voracious minow to become a shark with any life expectancy.
Outside of religion marketing is the largest "industry" in the world. It easily outperforms 90% of the countries in the world.
Google I guess is still a guest at the table doing party favours to be accepted. It is no secret that the deal with Mr R Murdoc is not to their liking and Mr Murdoc is about to destroy his media empire with Pay Walls and piric litigation (which google appears to be side steping for now).
Once the likes of Mr Murdoc are out of the way by their out moded thinking and being on the wrong end of the marketing money supply that leaves the likes of Google as news and data agrigators and they will in time become the new Media Barrons
Their problem has always been income and that is the very life blood of such enterprises traditionaly it has been as the "output end" of marketing. Google has found this does not work so they appear to be trying the input side of marketing (ie the other end of the marketing money supply).
If we want to stop this and get some privacy back then there has to be a third way. And that is likley to be "micro charging" on content.
Otherwise we will need to evolve rapidly over the next couple of generations, and as Douglas Adams once pointed out "talk endlessly about the weather to blot out the effects of the most terrible of social diseses" (effectivly telepathy by 100% information availability).
Posted by: Clive Robinson at December 10, 2009 6:05 AM
A fundamental component to the argument is that certain people think that the internet is private — or that it should be regarded as such.
It isn't.
The internet is not like your bedroom, nor a conversation with your doctor or lawyer. It's much more like a loud bazaar, or perhaps masquerade party. There may anonymity, but anyone can get close enough to eavesdrop on your discussion.
Seeking privacy through anonymity is very much like the notion of security through obscurity.
Posted by: tb at December 10, 2009 6:22 AM
In other words, if you don't want the public to know something, don't put it in public.
Posted by: tb at December 10, 2009 6:24 AM
"because data on our servers is not 100% under our control "
So much for Google cloud. He answers the question "Can we trust this vendor with our data."
Lawful warrents and supeonas aside if he can't establish control over his own IT enviornment? No.
Posted by: BF Skinner at December 10, 2009 6:48 AM
Annoyed but not yet passionate?
Try the Passive aggressive response nr 3.
There's a button on the search page "I'm Feeling Lucky". It takes you to the top of the search heap. It also bypasses googles ads and costs them money.
Every time you use it they do not profit from your search.
Use it.Posted by: BF Skinner at December 10, 2009 6:51 AM
@tb: it is not that simple. the majority of information is not deliberatly *put* into public. It is collected by third parties, many time unbeknownst to you. It is a difference if someone puts lots of fotos and stuff on a facebook side and participates on a social network or if his ISP is logging his DNS requests and stores the data for later use.
It is the difference of locking yourself in in the toilet or being locked in into the toilet by others.Posted by: gattaca at December 10, 2009 7:00 AM
Privacy is that type of fundamental right that most people will miss only when they lose it.
Posted by: Anderson Ramos at December 10, 2009 7:22 AM
@tb
"...people think that the internet is private..."i always have a problem with "the internet". what is that? email, http, P2P, Ethernet, Bluetooth, facebook?
"the internet" is vague. what about old fashioned telephone network or mail?"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
When you look at social networks it is true, but my letters (email or paper) are private. not only the content, but also the addressee.
If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't publish it in the first place.
do we have a choice?in europe the payments for agricultural and fishing aid are released. Is this transparency or the publication of business secrets? what about other aid money, other industries?
it's a question of power. Google is powerful, a government is powerful, one person is not very powerful.
Posted by: hwKeitel at December 10, 2009 7:37 AM
I could not have said it better myself. We've suffered massive losses of privacy to the government and corporations, but like the frog in a pot of cool water being heated, we do not notice the subtle changes over time.
Posted by: Bill from Wine For Newbies at December 10, 2009 7:52 AM
Google == East Germany or Hussein's Iraq?
Wow, Schneier, you came dangerously close to a Godwin there. Good thing you said East Germany and not the N-word... and when I read the comments here, I'm amazed at how many people obviously forgot to take their medication this morning.
Google is not the government. If you give them your information, they can hold onto it and do whatever they want with in as long as they stay within the confines of the law. That includes the obligation to turn it over under the Patriot Act, etc..
You pick some bad examples. Google isn't in your bedroom, your bathroom, or your private journal... Unless you willingly show those things to Google or others.
If you don't want Google knowing about your sex life, DON'T PUT IT ON THE INTERNET. (And I'm not talking about searches here, I'm talking about blogging about it and whining later that it's up on Google for good.)
Remember, Google can't get anything that's behind a login or a privacy setting, unless the site in question allows Google's crawler to bypass authentication. (And some do, but that's not Google' s fault.)
I think the point Schmidt was trying to make, and one you and everyone else has misconstrued, was about criminal activity. Stuff you really SHOULDN'T be doing. If you Google for how to do it, there's a record that can be used as evidence.
Posted by: Coyote at December 10, 2009 8:38 AM
@Coyote
you are right with google != Eastern Germany etc.
but publishing your private life and being scanned is also someting different.
this is not about blameing Google for everything.
"Don't be evil" != "we scan your mails for improved advertising"I'm very happy about the "East Germany" analogy, because many people, even in former East Germany, forget about what happen. sometimes, governments and states choose the wronge way. surveillance has a deep impact on the community and the behaviour of people.
Posted by: hwKeitel at December 10, 2009 9:03 AM
Hi,
I just wanted to add to this discussion some wise words on the topic of Privacy from Steven Reiss, professor of Psychology at OSU.
Here you can find the link to his blog post: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/who-we-are/...
Posted by: John Reedaw at December 10, 2009 9:17 AM
I'd like to see someone remove all the doors on the bathroom stalls at Google and then see if Schmidt feels the same way.
Posted by: jb at December 10, 2009 9:36 AM
@Coyote: no, it is not about criminal activity. It is about pervasive survaillence. Mind you: the definition of "criminal activity" is not in your hands and can change rapidly over time. Your record of DNS-requests (google offers DNS now, how convenient!) prevails. Having this in mind is like living in the proverbial panopticon (by Bentham) - its changing your behaviour. This is dangerous in itself because it restricts the ability for free speech and information.
Posted by: gattaca at December 10, 2009 9:37 AM
With GOOG's decision to opt-in-by-default on tracking your search history, they're invading your privacy upon your first search.
You're *implicitly* signing their TOS by "using the service"! Thus, they have "the right" to track your information (your searches)!
That includes, my six-year-old who invades my laptop and does a GOOG search. (GOOG apparently is taking it upon themselves to have the right potentially to obligate the services and invade the privacy of six-year-olds.)
Invasion of privacy? Hell yes!!!
Posted by: fjpoblam at December 10, 2009 9:55 AM
Google has a problem, especially now that it bought Doubleclick. Doubleclick's sole reason for existing is to collect data about the pages viewed and ads clicked by Internet users. That's a lot of data to be responsible for and a lot of risk with respect to misuse. It's quite possible that not even Google can afford the consequences of keeping all that data.
But, given the ease with which Google organizes data, it should be a trivial matter for them to display to you all of the data it has collected about you and provide you with the ability to delete it if you so desire.
Google wants to be the library to the world. It wants to collect, store and index the web and books themselves. But Google is no librarian.
Now imagine walking into the library (a real library - oh and when is the last time you were in one? if it has been a long time, I suggest you go again) and finding that the meek mild-mannered Marians the Librarians behind the desk are actually beat cops, FBI agents and CIA agents, silently recording everything you do, say, and read - in other words, collecting all possible observable data about you and sending it all back to headquarters.
For the Internet user, that is what Google is doing - collecting all possible observable data. And of course, Google is not the only one to collect this data, just the most well known.
For the web site owner who wants to protect some content or data, imagine a home or office in a town where, regardless of whether you have subscribed to their service, garbage collectors roam the town, walking onto properties, pushing on doors and windows of homes and businesses and entering any that are unlocked or whose locks are broken or poorly made or give way, and collecting whatever they find there, cataloging it, "copying" it, and keeping the copy as long as they like.
Imagine further a world in which you have no idea what information Google has and what it doesn't have and you have no practical way to find out.
Imagine also that the government has only to supoena evidence about you from Google without you ever knowing.
Oh wait, that is the world we live in already. What then are we to do?
I say what's data for the goose is data for the gander. As to Google therefore, spider Google. As to the government, we need to know more about them than they know about us so start building your own database on them.
Posted by: Outtanames999 at December 10, 2009 11:04 AM
Try having someone take your own conversations down word for word and go back and see how many stupid things you say. Even in the cut down clip I feet the most plausible interpratation was that Schmidt was trying to suggest that if you don't want certain information stored in other people's caches then maybe you shouldn't put it on the public internet.
I mean how many people here honestly believe if you had asked Schmidt the second after that statement whether he felt people should avoid sex unless they want sex vids on the internet he would have said yes? I suspect no one. Since that's the literal meaning of his statement I think it's fair to conclude he failed to really communicate his view.
Posted by: TruePath at December 10, 2009 11:26 AM
This conversation concerns me. Clearly people are or can be upset, but I don't see how this can be pinned on Google, simply because they are pretty good at doing what they do, collecting all the worlds information and making it available. This not a bad thing, in and of itself, is it? Of course Google has to follow a business model of sorts, how else can a company succeed. I mean, are we saying that Google is 'corrupt'. I can't see that this is a given; Mr. Schmidt may have expressed himself naively but at least he was communicating; at least he was open to some kind of engagement. Google is not a super large company, comparatively, and I suspect that they are being singled out simply because they are very visible. Do not other companies behave in ways that warrant our concern. Are they less vocal hence less visible? All companies, including Google, operate in a political climate wherein abuse of individual privacy is becoming more common place and troublesome. Are larger companies responsible for this situation and/or exacerbating it? Would there be any dialog at all if we lived in a culture where political privacy was fully honored and guaranteed. It would seem that our government is interested in identifying those citizens who are 'compliant' and those who are 'not compliant'. The non compliant ones would be those who question governmental motives and regard transparency and truth as a necessity for individual well being. I do not think that information in itself is a harmful thing, abuse of information is troubling. Should we not be concerning ourselves with abusers of information rather than the collectors of information.
Also; all large companies have questionable practices so it seems. This is how corporate America survives, so it seems. Are we going to target a simple pimple
Artificial Car Noise
Nothing seemed to herald the end of the internal combustion engine more than the ability of hybrid cars to leap suddenly to life without the slightest sound. Unfortunately, it turns out that the sweet silence of 21st-century technology has a serious downside: pedestrians and bicyclists are less likely to hear hybrids and electric cars coming their way and are more likely to be clipped or run over. That has prompted a back-to-the-future solution: fake car noise that will alert the unwary.
The evidence that hybrids might be hard to hear coming has been accumulating for years, though it wasn't until the
ILLUSTRATION BY MARC JOHNS National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently released a study that the full extent of the problem was revealed. Data derived from thousands of accidents revealed that there was no difference between hybrids and conventional vehicles on straightaways. But at intersections, interchanges, parking lots and other places where cars traveled at slow speeds, hybrids proved far more hazardous, with pedestrians and bicyclists getting hit at up to twice the normal rate.
via nytimes.com
I haven’t been able to write as much on here as I would have liked, due to the ridiculously time-consuming task of filming and editing every stop on this tour. Someone messaged me on Twitter the other day, asking what the hold up was on the videos, and I just busted out laughing. I guess it’s hard for people to understand how much time goes into making these 2-minute clips. For each one, we get about three hours of footage (that’s why all of them have been so good — we whittle away A LOT). Then we have to put that footage onto a computer, which tragically happens in real-time (i.e. another three hours). Then we get to edit it, which usually takes another few hours. I’m not exaggerating when I say that we’ll be working the entire time on this tour, even on our “days off.” Thank god Greg (the other videographer) and I get along, because we have to spend a ton of time together.
I don’t want it to seem like I’m complaining, because I’m not. The tour has been awesome and really fun so far, and I knew going into this how crazy the hours were going to be. In exchange for remaining in a perma-exhausted state, I’m getting paid to receive a film school-level education in less than six weeks. Sounds like a good deal to me.
It’s funny, because whenever I really try to explain to anyone what I do or how I got here, their eyes kind of glaze over and I can see my explanation flying straight over their head. This is probably my fault, as I haven’t found a succinct way to explain it yet, but I also think that they just never considered a path like this as being within the realm of possibility. And actually, I wouldn’t think it was possible either a few years ago.
I haven’t really talked about this before, but I’ve failed more times than I can remember. I’ve tried starting up several businesses, tried patenting inventions, tried starting up online communities, tried building several websites, tried to win contests… and failed almost every single time. But I never chalked any of them up as failures in my head, because I learned so much in the process each time. So now, when I’ve finally reached a point where things seem to fall into place with far less effort, I can’t help but think about all those times where I didn’t succeed over the course of the last eight years. And I look back in fondness, because those lessons learned are the reason I’m here. None of this stuff happened over night — in a way, I’ve been working to reach this point since I was 15.
I actually shouldn’t even call them failures, because they were really just attempts. There’s a huge difference there. Everyone has failures, but most people never attempt things just for the sake of trying out something that looks fun, interesting, or challenging. For some reason, a lot of us reach a point where we stop doing things for the hell of it.
Why do you think I’m such a huge proponent of free work? Doing work for free forces you to find jobs where you can honestly say, “I would do this even if I weren’t being paid for it.” That’s an expression I took a bit too literally, but it is spot on.
My favorite part of The Dark Knight is when the Joker is talking to Harvey Dent in the hospital, and he says: “Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it! You know, I just DO things… I’m not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.”
And therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you don’t. No one does. You shouldn’t be trying to check off the boxes of life; they aren’t real and they were created by other people, not you. There is no explicit path I’m following, and I’m not walking in anyone else’s footsteps. I’m making it up as I go.
It’s harder, for sure, and kind of scary sometimes. But it will allow you to look at yourself in the mirror and know you’re playing by your own rules.
UPDATE: If you’re coming over from Kottke.org, be sure to check out my e-book on getting your dream job. You can also subscribe to this blog here.
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I.
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Do you fear the snakes in your own marriage? Are you clearer about your job as a parent than your job as a spouse?
Share your thoughts
I have a pretty good marriage. It could be better. There are things about my husband that drive me crazy. Last spring he cut apart a frozen pig’s head with his compound miter saw in our basement. He needed the head to fit into a pot so that he could make pork stock. I’m no saint of a spouse, either. I hate French kissing, compulsively disagree and fake sleep when Dan vomits in the middle of the night. Dan also once threatened to punch my brother at a family reunion at a lodge in Maine. But in general we do O.K.
The idea of trying to improve our union came to me one night in bed. I’ve never really believed that you just marry one day at the altar or before a justice of the peace. I believe that you become married — truly married — slowly, over time, through all the road-rage incidents and precolonoscopy enemas, all the small and large moments that you never expected to happen and certainly didn’t plan to endure. But then you do: you endure. And as I lay there, I started wondering why I wasn’t applying myself to the project of being a spouse. My marriage was good, utterly central to my existence, yet in no other important aspect of my life was I so laissez-faire. Like most of my peers, I applied myself to school, friendship, work, health and, ad nauseam, raising my children. But in this critical area, marriage, we had all turned away. I wanted to understand why. I wanted not to accept this. Dan, too, had worked tirelessly — some might say obsessively — at skill acquisition. Over the nine years of our marriage, he taught himself to be a master carpenter and a master chef. He was now reading Soviet-era weight-training manuals in order to transform his 41-year-old body into that of a Marine. Yet he shared the seemingly widespread aversion to the very idea of marriage improvement. Why such passivity? What did we all fear?
That night, the image that came to mind, which I shared with Dan, was that I had been viewing our marriage like the waves on the ocean, a fact of life, determined by the sandbars below, shaped by fate and the universe, not by me. And this, suddenly, seemed ridiculous. I am not a fatalistic person. In my 20s I even believed that people made their own luck. Part of the luck I believed I made arrived in the form of Dan himself, a charming, handsome surfer and writer I met three days after I moved to San Francisco. Eleven years later we had two kids, two jobs, a house, a tenant, a huge extended family — what Nikos Kazantzakis described in “Zorba the Greek” as “the full catastrophe.” We were going to be careless about how our union worked out?
So I decided to apply myself to my marriage, to work at improving ours now, while it felt strong. Our children, two girls who are now 4 and 7, were no longer desperately needy; our careers had stabilized; we had survived gutting our own house. Viewed darkly, you could say that I feared stasis; more positively, that I had energy for Dan once again. From the myriad psychology books that quickly stacked up on my desk, I learned that my concept was sound, if a bit unusual. The average couple is unhappy six years before first attending therapy, at which point, according to “The Science of Clinical Psychology,” the marital therapist’s job is “less like an emergency-room physician who is called upon to set a fracture that happened a few hours ago and more like a general practitioner who is asked to treat a patient who broke his or her leg several months ago and then continued to hobble around on it; we have to attend not only to the broken bone but also to the swelling and bruising, the sore hip and foot and the infection that ensued.”
Still, Dan was not 100 percent enthusiastic, at least at first. He feared — not mistakenly, it turns out — that marriage is not great terrain for overachievers. He met my ocean analogy with the veiled threat of California ranch-hand wisdom: if you’re going to poke around the bushes, you’d best be prepared to scare out some snakes.
II.
Elizabeth Weil, a contributing writer, is working on a memoir about marriage improvement called “No Cheating, No Dying.”
Sign in to Recommend More Articles in Magazine » A version of this article appeared in print on December 6, 2009, on page MM36 of the New York edition.
via nytimes.com
Managers, to Henry Mintzberg's way of thinking, don't get enough respect.
While plenty is written about leadership these days, Dr. Mintzberg, who is the Cleghorn professor of management studies at McGill University and a well-known management scholar, finds that there is surprisingly little serious study of managers and the essential work they do in organizations.
The Journal Report
See the complete Business Insight report.
Dr. Mintzberg is out to change that. Back in 1973, he published a book called "The Nature of Managerial Work," based on his doctoral dissertation at MIT's Sloan School of Management. In that research, Dr. Mintzberg studied what managers actually do—by following five executives through a workweek. He has now returned to the subject with a new book called "Managing," due out in September. For his latest book, Dr. Mintzberg again studied managers in action. This time he observed how 29 of them—from a CEO of a major bank to a manager of refugee camps—each spent a day. What he found were jobs filled with interruptions and activity, and varying widely by the type of organization.
Dr. Mintzberg spoke with MIT Sloan Management Review senior editor Martha E. Mangelsdorf for Business Insight. Here are edited excerpts of the interview.
BUSINESS INSIGHT: In your new book, you say there are a number of misconceptions about management. Can you talk about what some of those are, and what the reality is?
DR. MINTZBERG: The great myth is the manager as orchestra conductor. It's this idea of standing on a pedestal and you wave your baton and accounting comes in, and you wave it somewhere else and marketing chimes in with accounting, and they all sound very glorious. But management is more like orchestra conducting during rehearsals, when everything is going wrong.
Owen Egan
Henry Mintzberg
Peter Drucker said the manager is both composer and conductor. It's very grand and glorious, but I think it's a myth.
Then there are all these lists of the qualities of the effective manager. So I said, well, for the sake of a better world, here's a comprehensive list of the qualities of an effective manager, combined from all the lists—and there are 50 or so items on it! Put kryptonite on the list, and even Superman wouldn't succeed as a manager.
So I talk about what I call "the inevitably flawed manager." We're all flawed, but basically, effective managers are people whose flaws are not fatal under the circumstances. Maybe the best managers are simply ordinary, healthy people who aren't too screwed up.
BUSINESS INSIGHT: Another aspect of management that your research, and apparently other research, reveals is the high degree of interruptions that managers face.
DR. MINTZBERG: Yes, that comes out of my original doctoral thesis, but it's held up throughout the years: Management is largely about interruption. But email—and especially BlackBerries in the pocket and all that—really makes it much worse.
BUSINESS INSIGHT: Suppose you were meeting with a group of new managers who were just about to start their first day on their managerial jobs, and you had a few minutes to share some ideas with them, things they should know about the jobs they're about to start. What would you tell them?
DR. MINTZBERG: Be prepared. It's going to be a lot of interruption, a lot of pressures. And I'd go through the three kinds of planes—that you have a choice of managing through information, or through people, or through action. You're going to manage through all of them, but understand the difference and understand the choices.
BUSINESS INSIGHT: You talk about the three planes. Tell me a bit more about that.
DR. MINTZBERG: Basically, managing is about influencing action. Managing is about helping organizations and units to get things done, which means action. Sometimes managers manage actions directly. They fight fires. They manage projects. They negotiate contracts.
One step removed, they manage people. Managers deal with people who take the action, so they motivate them and they build teams and they enhance the culture and train them and do things to get people to take more effective actions.
And two steps removed from that, managers manage information to drive people to take action—through budgets and objectives and delegating tasks and designing organization structure and all those sorts of things.
Today I think we have much too much managing through information—what I call "deeming." People sit in their offices and think they're very clever because they deem that you will increase sales by 10%, or out the door you go. Well, I can do that. My granddaughter could do that; she's four. It doesn't take genius to say: Increase sales or out you go. That's the worst of managing through information.
BUSINESS INSIGHT: What's the alternative?
DR. MINTZBERG: The alternative is to give more attention to the people plane and the action plane. Even when you're managing information, you can manage in a much more nuanced way than just shooting a bunch of figures around.
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