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Google Spy Drones For Street View?
Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter
Back in 2009, Google CEO and now Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, already under heavy fire for his company’s strategy to collect, store, and mine every shred of personal data out there, said on CNBC, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
It makes sense. Why worry about surveillance if you haven’t done anything wrong? This, in his unvarnished manner, is what he thinks about privacy. There is none. You don’t need it. You don’t want it. It’s not good for you. It just makes you appear guilty. It’s the philosophy under which police states operate.
Google has no compunction about reading emails of its Gmail users, browsing through user details in its social network services, tracking people throughout their searches, purchases, and reading patterns. It draws conclusions and combines it all with other data into a beautiful whole. For people with Android mobile devices, there is little Google doesn’t know.
Google isn’t the only data hog out there, and perhaps not even the one with the most intimate data – that would probably be Facebook – but it has some unique non-internet tools. Its Street View cars for example. They record visually what is going on in every neighborhood in the world – while also picking up wireless data from home or business networks. So when its new “privacy policy” took effect last year, it caused a lot of fretting. “Calling this a ‘privacy policy’ is Orwellian doublespeak,” lamented John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog. It should instead be called a “spy policy.” But the ruckus, like so many things, subsided after a few weeks.
But suddenly, Schmidt got all riled up about privacy issues of devices that Google doesn’t control through its software and that can access and record promising details of life: civilian drones. Including the toy-like “everyman” minidrones, such as multi-rotor helicopters. He wants them banned outright. And if they can’t be banned, he wants them regulated. To make his point, he dragged out an unfortunate example of a neighbor with an axe to grind:
“How would you feel if your neighbor went over and bought a commercial observation drone that they can launch from their back yard,” he said. “It just flies over your house all day. How would you feel about it?” He didn’t like that prospect. Not at all. “It’s got to be regulated,” he said, he whose company fights regulations wherever it encounters them. “It’s one thing for governments, who have some legitimacy in what they’re doing, but have other people doing it … It’s not going to happen.”
An unfortunate example because an insidious and at once funny Google moment of this type erupted in a village in France. A guy was urinating in his yard. We know he did; just then a Street View car drove by. Its camera, mounted on a rooftop post, could see over the closed gate and the perimeter enclosure and caught the hapless dude in flagrante delicto.
He didn’t know it at the time. And he didn’t know it when the scene appeared on Street View. His neighbors discovered the photo of him in his yard, relieving himself, face slightly blurred. It was only after he’d become the laughingstock of his village that he learned about it. Sure, in Schmidt’s surveillance-state words, he “shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
So the difference between a Street View car and a drone is one of degrees. One can only capture what’s visible from its elevated equipment; the other can fly. One is an essential part of its business model; the other should be banned? Why his sudden handwringing about privacy when it comes to drones? Especially since Google is plowing a fortune into cars that drive themselves – road-bound drones, so to speak. The next step would be devices that fly. The mapping and control software would by then be on the shelf.
In a couple of years, the FAA will take up the delicate matter of drones used by civilians and companies. Perhaps by then, Google Ventures will fund a company that is developing the latest and greatest unmanned multi-rotor helicopters the size of a briefcase to replace the awkward Street View cars. They’d take pictures of the insides of homes, to show what a neighborhood is really like, beyond the facades. Users would love it. Software will blur the faces of the people inside to guard their “privacy,” very helpful, as the hapless dude in France found out. And then Google will oppose vigorously any regulation that doesn’t suit it. Because Airborne Street View would be the next leap forward for Google – and Schmidt must already be fantasizing about it.
Here are some tricks I use to maintain privacy and security on the internet – written in my own manner so that even I can follow the instructions: Windows 7, Internet Explorer, Silverlight, Flash Player, & Java Privacy Settings and Cleanup.
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We have found a great and cost saving way around the google spy software and such. Yea we make a pot of coffee and throw some cookies on a plate and invite our friends over every other week for a little face to face time. We turn off the computer and TV and everyone keeps their cellular phones in the car (including us). Works great. What? Don't have time this week for a visit? Jot down some thoughts on paper and HAND DELIVER it to your friend. Everything old is new again!
The thing that fucknards like Schmidt fail to realise is that the Internet Hate Machine is WAY better at finding out stuff than his iCult-reject cubicle-donkeys. But it's beautiful how the internet retains a memory of the rank hypocrisy ("Privacy is a silly expectation if it's your data, but ZOMFG nobody must be permitted to drive a quadrotor over my [tasteless] palace!!!").
That said, I sort of agree: if someone is too fucking stupid to properly encrypt their important shit, then fuck 'em.
And if they are NTRs (net tax recipients - anyone who receives more FROM the tax base than they contribute TO it... so every .gov-tard), fuck 'em again for good measure.
Every politician should live in absolute wake-up-screaming terror of having their every fucking sordid detail posted to pastebin. And their fucking pensions should be means-tested (after all, they're motivated by deep-seated desire to do 'public service', doncha know).
As it is, there is no combination of savings rate and return on investment that would enable the average poltician to actually do his job and accumulate net assets at the rate that politicians accumulate wealth while in office. They retire WAY richer than you would expect given their income, and plausible guesses at the rates of return achievable without illegal behaviour.
So... you know... they're always saying to us "If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear."
So let their every fucking sordid detail be hacked and leaked, and let's see if that's true (and given that 5200 Pentagon employees downloaded child porn, and that the bittorrent habits of the denizens of Vatican City tend to be "overweight anal"... I'm sure it would be entertaining).
"Mr President...we cannot have a no privacy gap." you people are such tools.
" “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”"
I like to use a big handful of unsalted Breakstone butter when I masturbate. I don't particularly want my friends and family to know that. But I also don't want to stop doing it.
But seriously, that comment not only shows his contempt for his customers, but for people in general.
Not a Lurbeck man then? That's fucking heresy, yo.
So if I happen to be standing out in my back yard... and a drone goes wizzing by..... is it ok for me to shoot it down if 1) I believe it was flying below one thousand feet, and thus a hazard(much like hot air balloons), and 2) it looked like it might be a Google product, as opposed to US-MIC products(cuz ya know lotsa pix and designs of their shit's'r all over the place)?
Signed, Just Curious No Really
P.S. What if there is an Iranian flag on the tail feathers?
Where the hell did Google come from, anyway? It arrived on the scene almost overnight, with dozens of expensive projects and being, overall, 100's of times more powerful than Microsoft, Sun, Apple, Oracle, or even NASA.
I hate googles search results too. It used to be a mass variety of info would come up on any search. Now, it's the same thing over and over and it seems they are seriously controlling what you get access to.
The Google people are helping to destroy the iNet as we know it. Please add them to your hate lists.
It's not right to fucking take shots at man peeing in his castle's yard. What kind of fucked up world is this becoming?
"we're evil now and we love it."
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/google-releases-details-about-g...
(if you see someone approaching wearing Google Glass - tell them politely to go fuck themself and then demand that they delete any images or recordings they have made that include your image or voice and proof thereof)
Funny thing is this will backfire on the majority of these 1% ers.
There will be no more "wow we have a lot in common" coincidences- why? Because we can do the face recognition thing on you- anywhere in the world and time any place all the time. There will be websites dedicated to "G-spotting" yes I coined that, celebs or any other person of means or influence.
They will be hounded everytime in public by hack script writers, failed interns wanting ibank jobs, gigalos, juggalos, goldiggers, stalkers, blackmailers, cheaters, kidnappers, flashers, rapists and any other sicko, creep and chronic masturbator out there. Woman, powerful men, famous/infamous and regular people will live in a constant state of paranoia wondering if anyone is real and what their real motives are and rue the day of the google glass.
Everyone scanning everyone, a constant vetting and judging that one only got in very small towns, towns small enough where the best looking girl may be related to you.
We forgot why we wanted to move to the big city from our little small judgmental towns, place we move now will be prisons of judgement, immortalizing every nose pick, middle finger, kegger, stare and panty pull for the world to see forever and to judge you for.
What a wonderful world.
Google is a US Government Company. Started by and managed by the USA. No doubt about it.....
I wouldn't be as worried about univerrsal access to information, i.e. everyone gets to know everything I do if it were truly universal. I'll be happy to let you have a spy cams in my backyard:
When I get to know who owns the Federal Reserve
When I get access to everything .GOV does with the money I 'give' them
When dear Mr. Schmidt stops using non-disclosure agreements in his business dealings
What an ass, pardon my French
Google's street view images of my farm are mostly blurred. That's because the minimum wage idiot they hired to drive by forgot to clean the lenses on the camera. Ain't technology great?
Google doesn't have any street view images of my farm as I have a gate.
“If you didn't have something that we want, you wouldn’t have to be concerned in the first place.”
Fixed it for 'em. hujel
Maybe this happens more often than we know. Our neighbor had this Sheep Dog, it passed away years ago. Makenzie the dog lives forever on Google Street View. There she is, taking a dump right as the Street View car went buy. At least the guy in France wasn't squattin'.
google and facebook are "jewish" spy programs.
hitler was right about these people
Anybody ever heard of Axciom? They know when you buy a pack of gum...
If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it
Someone needs to send an insect drone to Schmidt's house and film him taking a dump... and post it all over the Internet.
+1 No shit. I mean, yes to the shit. Err, good idea...
Like his fellow Megalomaniac, he would be having his niece crapping on him.
Could it have something to do that rich assholes like the guy from google have mansions that can't be seen from the street, but could be seen from the skies?
Hit the nail on the head, me thinks.
Anybody have a look at Microsoft's privacy politcy lately? It says in no uncertain terms if they violate your privacy, even knowingly and intentionally, you agree to it.
I thought I would share a response from Senator Corker's office to my encouraging the good Senator to join Rand Paul's filibuster on the surveillance bill.
Anybody care to comment on the Senator's thoughts?
"
Thank you for contacting me about U.S. drone policy. Your input is important to me, and I appreciate the time you took to share your thoughts with me.
Like you, I have reservations about our nation's drone policy, both at home and abroad. While these aircraft can contribute in supporting border security, fire detection, and search and rescue efforts, I share your concerns about their use and understand the unique risk they can pose to our civil liberties.
While I am pleased that the Department of Justice has made clear that the Administration does not have the power to target Americans in the United States who are not engaged in combat with armed drones, I believe that Congress must continue to ask questions and seek answers about the Executive Branch's use of military force.
For far too long, Congress has failed to perform its constitutionally-mandated due diligence in monitoring and authorizing the use of force. It is critical that Congress regularly and carefully review the way the Executive Branch employs the use of force. As the Ranking Member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has jurisdiction over the executive branch's use of its war-making authority, I intend to work with the chairman and other interested committee members in examining these important questions.
Thank you again for your letter. I hope that you will continue to share your thoughts with me throughout my service in the Senate.
Sincerely,
Bob Corker
United States Senator "
I want to fix an error in puppet Corker's letter:
As written: "Like you, I have reservations about our nation's drone policy,"
Should have been: "Like you, I have reservations about our nation's drone policy until, unlike you, the industry mails me a big fat reelection checks, fills up my Cayman account and employs my wife and son in high-paying "make-work" jobs."
I think that that sums it up better. hujel
Someone thought of this in November 2010.
The "Don't be evil" bullshit was a dead giveaway from day one.
Yeah, it should have said "Don't be evil, that's our job".
I'm sure if you look in the fine print of the user agreement you'll find it hiding in there somewhere.
Don't be evil, the government hates competition?
Someone else's humourous take on Google Street View:
http://youtu.be/CZ7U3Cu4Mr4
Crony-capitalists like Schmidt and big government types always trot out that old saying "you don't need privacy if you are not doing anything wrong". I say that goes double for the government & Google. Why do they hide so much information? They must be doing something illegal.
What Schmidt meant was "if you're doing something you do not want EVERYONE to know about..." He's just "talking his book."
Release the NSA recordings of his meetings with his tax accountants and his attorney's.
If he said what this article says he did then, "Impeach Schmidt."
I saw a Google Street View car just this morning. What had been a smallish, four-lens head in prior years is now a great big Pokemon ball bristling with lord-knows-what for sensors ... we know it's picking up wifi, but maybe it even has a sense of smell.
Meanwhile, my neighborhood exploded in controversy yesterday when one neighbor posted night-vision video of another neighbor peeping in his window, and other neighbors who learned the peeper's name also learned he had a string of priors for (among other things) peeping. A local radio host who lives in the neighborhood went on air to name and shame the perp and call him "guilty" on air.
Technology cuts both ways. I just hope WE will get to keep cutting and not lose all our newly-found tools to the state. It reminds me of the king claiming all the forests and forbidding peasants to hunt in there.
Technology cuts both ways. I just hope WE will get to keep cutting and not lose all our newly-found tools to the state.
We can do whatever we want, if we ACT.
Right now, we have bitching, moaning, requests for permission (which will NEVER be granted), but NO ONE DOES A DAMNED THING.
All of these privacy encroachments on the individual that seem perfectly acceptable by the elites that presumably will control said devices will, as Mr. Schmidt proves, become less acceptable when the privacy of our elites and politicians are put on the same playing field. Then and only then will they come out screaming for individual liberties and right to privacy. Turnabout, while slow to come, will be fair play before it's all said and done.
In fact "we the people" should be able to do a virtual colonoscopy on these bastards all day everday if they want the priviledge of making the rules that all of us have to live by.
Schmidt and Google: GET THE FUCK OFF MY PLANET!!!!
To discuss drone, come over to www.UAVWatch.net/forum . Should be interesting once things get going. News about UAVs/drones is getting more and more prevalent. The idea of this forum is to understand all the issues, including how to operate your own UAV and how to protect yourself against others UAVs.
How long before the first google glasses user's bowel movement uploaded to youtube?
I'll buy that for a dollar!
(Robocop)
Throw alkoseltzer at the drones and watch them explode.
"the difference ... is one of degrees." OK all you frogs, the warmth your feeling is a matter of degrees.
How much did the hapless dude's lawyers get from Google? How much did the French government take off his lawyers?
Vote with your feet. Minimize all use of telecomm. Take your business away from these arrogant assholes, let their Orwellian delusion collapse on itself, with them strapped in. Go back to the pub.
I think some 00 buck shot will take care of the little briefcase-size denizen when he comes to my neighborhood!!
A less "lethal" solution is to jam the RADIO SPECTRUM; they need this to operate. The solution is a simple jammer or a dirty oscillator.
Such things are a lot easier than most would believe.
We made TV jammers in high school electronics class. Simple circuit, low power, no antenna, ... need to find that. This was before cable TV natch.
Google wants drones regulated so that they can have them and you can't. Simple. Knowledge is power. When Google can access the information you have to go through them to get it.