[ale] Google Chrome just got a lot better on Linux

Thu Jul 9 08:14:10 EDT 2009

You're right there is no way to not leave traces.  My concern about
Google though isn't that you're leaving traces but that they actively
attempt to track and store those traces all in one location.   I'd
rather someone had to dig a little if they want information about
people.   The potential for abuse by one corporation (or one corporation
giving governments free range) is immense.   Look at the agreements
they've already made with the Chinese government to help suppress
freedom of information.   Should we assume that behind the scenes they
aren't actively providing information to that government so they can
stay in business?

It is similar to why I dislike MS.  It wasn't because they didn't make
usable products (not saying "quality" products).  I was because they
felt that wasn't sufficient and tried to push everyone else out of the
market (whichever one they were in) by practices that both the E.U. and
the U.S. (pre-W) decided were monopolistic.

________________________________

From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Jim
Philips
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 5:50 PM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!
Subject: Re: [ale] Google Chrome just got a lot better on Linux

I care about privacy too and I have thought about this a lot. But if the
network is going to be the village where you work, play and transact
business, how exactly are you going to do that without leaving traces
behind? I don't see any interest from the general public in encrypting
all e-mail traffic with PGP and obscuring their Web habits with Tor. The
simple truth is that there is so much of that data that practically
nobody is especially interested in knowing the real details about you or
me. If I get a few targeted ads, I'll ignore those to the same degree
that I always ignored TV ads. Most mega-companies don't have much
interest in us beyond analyzing our behavior in the aggregate. After
that it's not much worth doing. I do get rattled when I hear that AT&T
and others shared our data with the NSA, but they didn't need the
Internet to do that. I'm sure they were doing it in the days of POTS
too. And besides, data sharing doesn't just benefit large, faceless
business entities. It benefits you and me too. When some member of the
general public knows about an abuse, he can share it on the Internet
with an ease that would have been unimaginable at the beginning of the
last decade(Wikileaks, anybody?). So, on the whole, I'm not terribly
worried. If I were, I would become a Luddite and swear off the Internet
altogether. Because that would be the only true defense.

On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 10:07 AM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com>
wrote:

I agree with you Jeff. And it's not just the tin-foil hat talking
either.

Yet I also think we've already passed the point of no return.

You and many others use (myself included) use Google search daily
because it works. That ability to work is a direct result of the
constant tracking that they do. That search allows a data point of
topic and requester's IP.  The ALE list is mirrored on google groups
as an emergency backup medium. That means they also have the email
address of anyone who posts to the list. This now provides a directly
inferrable "interest route" that can be pegged against the IP address
and email address. The search links can now correlate between an email
persona and other people and can also obtain a fair estimate of
"degrees of separation" based on email correspondence and similarities
of search data.

Now couple that with "customer loyalty card" data and credit card
purchase data and it is quite easy to built up a solid profile with
fairly accurate personality profiles (Yikes! Free software/speech/beer
advocate alert!).  Google has Checkout already. Do they also provide
bulk mail services for Kroger and Publix? I don't know but is either
wanted to make sure their message made it past spam filters, sending
email coupons through Google mail servers would be a good way.

Somewhere a series of red blinking lights just activated....

On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 8:15 AM, Jeff Lightner<jlightner at water.com>
wrote:
> Sorry but a company that keeps tabs on everything you do on the
internet via
> little javascript embeds in every web page is unlikely to ever
convince me
> to use them for my browser.  Firefox lets me block their little embed.
I
> use Google for searching but don't think it is smart to use them for
much
> more.
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
Jim
> Philips
> Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 6:13 AM
> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!
> Subject: Re: [ale] Google Chrome just got a lot better on Linux
>
>
>
> Well, this definitely adds some fuel to the fire:
>
>
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html
>
> The Google OS is going to be a reality.
>
> On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 5:37 AM, Jim Philips <briarpatch.jim at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> There are already add-ons in an experimental state. I haven't tried to
use
> them in Linux. But the work is under way.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 1:29 AM, Richard Bronosky
<Richard at bronosky.com>
> wrote:
>
> Amen.
>
> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 9:51 PM, Andrew Grieser<agrieser at gmail.com>
wrote:
>> Is there any plan for add-ons? It seems like they have to do
something
>> similar to add-ons in order to win over Firefox users.
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 07, 2009 at 07:59:29PM -0400, Jim Philips wrote:
>>>    Well, Chromium really. I've been downloading the nightlies from
here:
>>>    http://dev.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel#TOC-Linux
>>>    Today, there was a giant leap ahead in features. You can manage
>>> bookmarks,
>>>    save passwords, switch to a GTK theme and do a whole lot of other
>>> things
>>>    you couldn't do before today. I don't know if I'll prefer it over
>>> Firefox
>>>    or not. But it is *nice* to have a choice.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Ale mailing list
>> Ale at ale.org
>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>>
>
>
> --
> .!# RichardBronosky #!.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Please consider our environment before printing this e-mail or
attachments.
> ----------------------------------
> CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail may contain privileged or
confidential
> information and is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). If
you are
> not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution, or
use of
> the contents of this information is prohibited and may be unlawful. If
you
> have received this electronic transmission in error, please reply
> immediately to the sender that you have received the message in error,
and
> delete it. Thank you.
> ----------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>
>

--

--
James P. Kinney III
Actively in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale

Please consider our environment before printing this e-mail or attachments.
----------------------------------
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail may contain privileged or confidential information and is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the contents of this information is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please reply immediately to the sender that you have received the message in error, and delete it. Thank you.
----------------------------------
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20090709/6a342329/attachment-0001.html 