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[ahoyhoy]

Interesting article that has relatively little to do with Wikileaks proper and instead with the growing hand Google and its various pet projects and leadership have had in government affairs and promotions both openly and transparent (especially international ones)

In June 2011, Julian Assange received an unusual visitor: the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, arrived from America at Ellingham Hall, the country house in Norfolk, England where Assange was living under house arrest.

For several hours the besieged leader of the world’s most famous insurgent publishing organization and the billionaire head of the world’s largest information empire locked horns. The two men debated the political problems faced by society, and the technological solutions engendered by the global network—from the Arab Spring to Bitcoin.

They outlined radically opposing perspectives: for Assange, the liberating power of the Internet is based on its freedom and statelessness. For Schmidt, emancipation is at one with U.S. foreign policy objectives and is driven by connecting non-Western countries to Western companies and markets. These differences embodied a tug-of-war over the Internet’s future that has only gathered force subsequently.

Schmidt was a good foil. A late-fiftysomething, squint-eyed behind owlish spectacles, managerially dressed—Schmidt’s dour appearance concealed a machinelike analyticity. His questions often skipped to the heart of the matter, betraying a powerful nonverbal structural intelligence.

It was the same intellect that had abstracted software-engineering principles to scale Google into a megacorp, ensuring that the corporate infrastructure always met the rate of growth. This was a person who understood how to build and maintain systems: systems of information and systems of people. My world was new to him, but it was also a world of unfolding human processes, scale and information flows.

For a man of systematic intelligence, Schmidt’s politics—such as I could hear from our discussion—were surprisingly conventional, even banal. He grasped structural relationships quickly, but struggled to verbalize many of them, often shoehorning geopolitical subtleties into Silicon Valley marketese or the ossified State Department micro-language of his companions. He was at his best when he was speaking (perhaps without realizing it) as an engineer, breaking down complexities into their orthogonal components.

I began to think of Schmidt as a brilliant but politically hapless Californian tech billionaire who had been exploited by the very U.S. foreign-policy types he had collected to act as translators between himself and official Washington—a West Coast–East Coast illustration of the principal-agent dilemma.

I was wrong.

It was at this point that I realized Eric Schmidt might not have been an emissary of Google alone. Whether officially or not, he had been keeping some company that placed him very close to Washington, D.C., including a well-documented relationship with President Obama. Not only had Hillary Clinton’s people known that Eric Schmidt’s partner had visited me, but they had also elected to use her as a back channel.

Some bits

In 2003, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) had already started systematically violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) under its director General Michael Hayden. These were the days of the “Total Information Awareness” program. Before PRISM was ever dreamed of, under orders from the Bush White House the NSA was already aiming to “collect it all, sniff it all, know it all, process it all, exploit it all.”

During the same period, Google—whose publicly declared corporate mission is to collect and “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”—was accepting NSA money to the tune of $2 million to provide the agency with search tools for its rapidly accreting hoard of stolen knowledge.

In 2004, after taking over Keyhole, a mapping tech startup co-funded by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the CIA, Google developed the technology into Google Maps, an enterprise version of which it has since shopped to the Pentagon and associated federal and state agencies on multimillion-dollar contracts.

In 2008, Google helped launch an NGA spy satellite, the GeoEye-1, into space. Google shares the photographs from the satellite with the U.S. military and intelligence communities. In 2010, NGA awarded Google a $27 million contract for “geospatial visualization services.”

In 2012, Google arrived on the list of top-spending Washington, D.C., lobbyists—a list typically stalked exclusively by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, military contractors, and the petro-carbon leviathans. Google entered the rankings above military aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, with a total of $18.2 million spent in 2012 to Lockheed’s $15.3 million. Boeing, the military contractor that absorbed McDonnell Douglas in 1997, also came below Google, at $15.6 million spent, as did Northrop Grumman at $17.5 million.

In autumn 2013 the Obama administration was trying to drum up support for U.S. airstrikes against Syria. Despite setbacks, the administration continued to press for military action well into September with speeches and public announcements by both President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. On September 10, Google lent its front page—the most popular on the Internet—to the war effort, inserting a line below the search box reading “Live! Secretary Kerry answers questions on Syria. Today via Hangout at 2pm ET.”

One way of looking at it is that it’s just business. For an American Internet services monopoly to ensure global market dominance, it cannot simply keep doing what it is doing and let politics take care of itself. American strategic and economic hegemony becomes a vital pillar of its market dominance. What’s a megacorp to do? If it wants to straddle the world, it must become part of the original “don’t be evil” empire.

But part of the resilient image of Google as “more than just a company” comes from the perception that it does not act like a big, bad corporation. Its penchant for luring people into its services trap with gigabytes of “free storage” produces the perception that Google is giving it away for free, acting directly contrary to the corporate profit motive.

Google is perceived as an essentially philanthropic enterprise—a magical engine presided over by otherworldly visionaries—for creating a utopian future. The company has at times appeared anxious to cultivate this image, pouring funding into “corporate responsibility” initiatives to produce “social change”—exemplified by Google Ideas.

But as Google Ideas shows, the company’s “philanthropic” efforts, too, bring it uncomfortably close to the imperial side of U.S. influence. If Blackwater/Xe Services/Academi was running a program like Google Ideas, it would draw intense critical scrutiny. But somehow Google gets a free pass.

Link to the Newsweek piece

Would recommend reading the entire piece. It's rife with linguistic hurdles, but many of the points Assange makes are backed up by citations.

The piece has that kind of alarmist undertone common to anything eying Google's dominance with suspicion, but the basic underpinning is that we might need to consider how we perceive how Tech companies cozy up to government actors in the near future, lest we find ourselves with Military-Technology complex in full swing.

 

[cooljeanius]

The articles about this on WikiLeaks proper are interesting reads, too:
http://www.wikileaks.org/Op-ed-Google-and-the-NSA-Who-s.html
http://wikileaks.org/Transcript-Meeting-Assange-Schmidt.html
http://wikileaks.org/Op-ed-The-Banality-of-Don-t-Be.html

 

[Captain Fish]

Great read, engaging and eye-opening.

As Google’s search and Internet service monopoly grows, and as it enlarges its industrial surveillance cone to cover the majority of the world’s population, rapidly dominating the mobile phone market and racing to extend Internet access in the global south, Google is steadily becoming the Internet for many people.

I think that quote in particular is an important takeaway, the amount of people to which Google is a filter through which people receive information is ever increasing, so it's really important to think about their political connections.

 

[ebullientprism]

This was a really good (and really long ) read.

I think maybe he gives too much "credit" to Eric Schmidt. I imagine anyone who is heading one of the biggest companies in the world, will have to have a certain amount of political influence. Its inevitable.

Also every time I read something by Assange, he comes across as a really intelligent person.

 

[leadbelly]

Eric Schmidt was at Bilderberg last year when it was held in the UK. It's interesting that the subject he apparently came to speak about was 'big data'. Now the problem with processing big data is becoming an increasing issue in general, but knowing now the extent of data the US and UK governments are collecting, that talk becomes all the more curious to me. It's clear that 'big data' is probably the single biggest issue the NSA face.

The point of bringing up Bilderberg is that it is the one place where heads of business brush shoulders with politicians, in secret. And obviously we're increasingly aware of the relationship with business and politics.

 

[terrisus]

A company whose core is based around information and searching has more access to information and searching of that information than people would be comfortable with?
Shocking!

 

[Coreda]

The articles about this on WikiLeaks proper are interesting reads, too: http://wikileaks.org/Transcript-Meeting-Assange-Schmidt.html

Yeah, I remember coming across that Schmidt transcript a while ago, really solid read.

Just recalled this part from when I first read it:

I mean, people often say, you are tremendously courageous in doing what you are doing, and I say, no no you misunderstand what courage is. Courage is not the absence of fear. Only fools have no fear. Rather courage is the intellectual mastery of fear by understanding the true risks and opportunities of the situation. And in keeping these things in balance. And not simply having prejudice about what the risks are. But actually testing them. There are all sorts of myths that go around about what can be done and what cannot be done. It is important to test. You don't test by jumping off a bridge. You test by jumping off a footstool, and then jumping off something a bit higher and a bit higher.

 

[Zynx]

Wow, so much for "don't be evil".

A big reminder to be careful what data I choose to give to google, especially when considering what it picks up even without my consent. And if google becomes super entrenched in cozy government-business arrangements, I don't know if anyone can disrupt those.

 

[CrankyJay]

I think we all suspected this. I can't say I'm shocked.

 

[Vyer]

One can't help but wonder how that NSA relationship has evolved since 2003.

 

[whatever77]

One can't help but wonder how that NSA relationship has evolved since 2003.

Well Google made peace with Verizon on net neutrality issue, so its entirely possible Google made a deal with NSA.

Only county whose people are free from google's reach is China.

 

[BigDug13]

A company whose core is based around information and searching has more access to information and searching of that information than people would be comfortable with?
Shocking!

That's your takeaway? Nothing about the whole accepting money in exchange for full government access to that info? That's kinda the whole point for the article, not the obvious fact that Google has access to more information than people are comfortable with.

 

[terrisus]

That's your takeaway? Nothing about the whole accepting money in exchange for full government access to that info? That's kinda the whole point for the article, not the obvious fact that Google has access to more information than people are comfortable with.

Search engine company with access to massive amounts of data and the ability to search through said data, and whose core business is monetizing said searching and data, monitizes said searching and data?
Not exactly shocking, no.

 

[BigDug13]

Search engine company with access to massive amounts of data and the ability to search through said data, and whose core business is monetizing said searching and data, monitizes said searching and data?
Not exactly shocking, no.

Yeah that's fine, but this paragraph is different than your previous paragraph which implied that people are upset just because of the over abundance of info Google has. This time you mentioned the monetization side which you failed to mention in the text I quoted.

 

[terrisus]

Yeah that's fine, but this paragraph is different than your previous paragraph which implied that people are upset just because of the over abundance of info Google has. This time you mentioned the monetization side which you failed to mention in the text I quoted.

I apologize for not being clear. When I said "A company whose core is based around information and searching," given the fact that Google is not a non-profit, that the implication would be that they would be monetizing their core business.

I mean, if people thought Google was just doing all that for fun all these years, I guess then it would come as a shock.

 

[ItAintEasyBeinCheesy]

Dammit, I shouldn't have read that stuff high. It's a conspiracy man, the government.

Fuck.

 

[hateradio]

Google is too big for good, I see.

 

[UrokeJoe]

I think we all suspected this. I can't say I'm shocked.

Exactly. Information is damn powerful and the technology is there.

 

[Renekton]

Seems odd.

Those JV and contract amounts are very tiny compared to what they earn or were funded by at the time.

 

[outunderthestars]

Is any aspect of this shocking to people?

All of these free services have to come at some sort of cost. Want to keep something private? Don't put any aspect of it on the internet.

 

[Laekon]

I was worried about them since they bought Boston Dynamics. It didn't make a lot of sense for them to buy a robotics company focused entirely on military projects.

 

[hateradio]

^ Self driving tanks are going to be awesome, though.

Is any aspect of this shocking to people?

All of these free services have to come at some sort of cost. Want to keep something private? Don't put any aspect of it on the internet.

Use pen and paper and burn everything afterward. It's the only way!

 

[terrisus]

Use pen and paper and burn everything afterward. It's the only way!

Including the surface you wrote it on, since there may be indentations in the surface from your writing.
Heck, just be on the safe side and burn down the entire building you write it in.

 

[Kinitari]

I feel like mustache twirling bad guy is probably no more accurate than altruistic charity.

They're people running a company with all sorts of desires and wants and needs. That doesn't mean they bought Boston dynamics to build a robot army for the man to hold us down.

I think, due to the nature of some of the stuff that came out from wikileaks, maybe some of us aren't being as critical as we should be. Or rather, we're looking for blacks and whites.

 

[terrisus]

That doesn't mean they bought Boston dynamics to build a robot army for the man to hold us down.

But it doesn't mean that they didn't do that... >.>
<.<

Spoiler

>.>

 

[Chichikov]

Is any aspect of this shocking to people?

All of these free services have to come at some sort of cost. Want to keep something private? Don't put any aspect of it on the internet.

What's upsetting is that it's totally possible to have true privacy on the internet, we have the technology to achieve it.
But big corporations whose business model is to monetize personal information and spy agencies are fighting to make it hard, or possibly even illegal.

 

[See You Next Wednesday]

Google = Evil!

 

[Mineshaft_Gap]

Isn't this the guy who raped someone?

 

[demon]

Isn't this the guy who raped someone?

That was proven?

 

[PhoncipleBone]

This just makes me think of The Onion's awesome article about Google apologizing about privacy concerns.

 

[Suikoguy]

What's upsetting is that it's totally possible to have true privacy on the internet, we have the technology to achieve it.
But big corporations whose business model is to monetize personal information and spy agencies are fighting to make it hard, or possibly even illegal.

Oh, it's certainly possible. But many things would switched to a fee based service. I seriously doubt neogaf would exist for free without targeted advertising.

 

[Whitechocolatekrispies]

Oh the humanity! ... I get targeted discrete adverts that actually apply to my life rather than flashing noisy pop ups for tampons and baby nappies.

Fuck them though right?

All they offer in return is the best search solution, free email, free data back up, free phone software, free applications that run on that software, free operating systems that destroy windows, free browsers, free music, free videos ...

Yet, the little personal information I put on the internet is worth less than just a one of those services alone ...

 

[NintendoGal]

Including the surface you wrote it on, since there may be indentations in the surface from your writing.
Heck, just be on the safe side and burn down the entire building you write it in.

Fuck it, let's just go to those plastic neon pads you buy at the dollar store. No indentations on the surface left once you lift it up!

 

[Fliesen]

Oh the humanity! ... I get targeted discrete adverts that actually apply to my life rather than flashing noisy pop ups for tampons and baby nappies.

Fuck them though right?

All they offer in return is the best search solution, free email, free data back up, free phone software, free applications that run on that software, free operating systems that destroy windows, free browsers, free music, free videos ...

Yet, the little personal information I put on the internet is worth less than just a one of those services alone ...

Google knows much more about you than you actively "put on the internet".
If you constantly write gmails to your peers about feeling ill a lot or constantly injuring yourself; if you google for plenty of unhealthy food but never click on ads offering sports equipment ever, insurers might value this information very highly when making you an offer for health insurance, for example.

Not saying that they're doing that, right now, but we should still be a little bit more weary than saying "lol, at least i don't get ads for tampons, lol free e-mail".

 

[Renekton]

If you constantly write gmails to your peers about feeling ill a lot or constantly injuring yourself; if you google for plenty of unhealthy food but never click on ads offering sports equipment ever, insurers might value this information very highly when making you an offer for health insurance, for example.

So... you get offers more tailored to your needs?

Is this a stealth Google endorsement?

edit: nvm im dumb

 

[Fliesen]

So... you get offers more tailored to your needs?

Is this a stealth Google endorsement?

no, you get higher rates on the health insurance because Google knows you're a high-risk fat, lazy slob.

 

[The Technomancer]

Great read, engaging and eye-opening.

I mean, is it really? Google hasn't exactly been publishing papers on this stuff, but they've hardly been keeping it secret. I've seen whats going on with them for a while now, my parents have as well.

I don't like to trust anyone who's ultimate goal is the extraction of my money, and that goes doubly so for anyone who wants to treat me or my information as a commodity.

 

[Slavik81]

Isn't this the guy who raped someone?

He's wanted for questioning in relation to consensual sexual encounters he had in Sweden. If he did go, he'd probably face trial for 'nonconsentual acts during a consensual sexual encounter', known as 'lesser rape'. It's not entirely clear to me what he's thought to have done, but it sounded like consent might be partially invalidated by lies or omissions under Swedish law. Not sure, though.

Because he's wanted in the United States and could face very serious charges over the Manning leaks that WikiLeaks published, he's terrified of being extradited to the US if he goes to Sweden. The UK was going to send him to Sweden, but the Ecuadorian government is protecting him in their embassy.

He has been there for about 2 years, and it's honestly looking like he's going to stay there until the statue of limitations runs out in another 8 years. He's probably going to end up stuck in that building for longer than he would have been jailed were he actually convicted. Of course, if he were extradited to the US, he'd probably face something more like 35 years, like Chelsea (Bradley) Manning.

 

[Cyber Caesar]

In this every increasing complex global economy big data is equivalent to the sun.

 

[Whitechocolatekrispies]

Google knows much more about you than you actively "put on the internet".
If you constantly write gmails to your peers about feeling ill a lot or constantly injuring yourself; if you google for plenty of unhealthy food but never click on ads offering sports equipment ever, insurers might value this information very highly when making you an offer for health insurance, for example.

Not saying that they're doing that, right now, but we should still be a little bit more weary than saying "lol, at least i don't get ads for tampons, lol free e-mail".

1. You are making a giant assumption that Google would sell this data to those industries. They are people working there as well, and selling peoples medical histories to insurance companies is a giant leap from helping government security agencies hunt criminals. It's ridiculous, any employee working for google would laugh in your face at such accusations.

2. I don't buy heath insurance, because I don't live in a broken country that actually supports the crippling multibillion dollar industry hell bent on keeping a standard universal human right out of peoples grasp.

3. Even if ... and that is a giant fucking if. Google does this, you should be charged more for been unhealthy and accident prone. That's how insurance works, and they will already employ far more harsh and inaccurate methods for doing this.

 

[ahoyhoy]

I feel like mustache twirling bad guy is probably no more accurate than altruistic charity.

They're people running a company with all sorts of desires and wants and needs. That doesn't mean they bought Boston dynamics to build a robot army for the man to hold us down.

I think, due to the nature of some of the stuff that came out from wikileaks, maybe some of us aren't being as critical as we should be. Or rather, we're looking for blacks and whites.

I enjoyed this article because it wasn't explicitly alarmist in tone. It's a pretty good compilation of truths about all the government sectors and international organizations Google has been in bed with over the past decade or so. Assange isn't saying that Google is out to exploit all your data all the time for pure profit and to benefit all aspects of government security concerns (especially since this is probably an unrealistic expectation right now considering the vast amounts of data they handle), I think he's just pointing out that our perception of Google might need to change.

Google has done a great job integrating themselves into our daily lives and pretty much handling all aspects of our online social and monetary exchanges, especially (as CappyFish pointed out) in developing countries, all under the guise of a friendly, "do no evil" organization that, despite their massive profits, don't seem profit-driven based on their oblique marketing model. Even if you understand how they make money off of their data, it isn't something you think about much compared to any other industry that explicitly markets products to you in exchange for currency, or even with Military contractors that explicitly profit from war enterprise.

I guess, like a lot of us, Assange is wondering if and when the other shoe will drop, and what it'll look like when it does.

 

[Paganmoon]

So google isn't a giant corporation, trading in your personal data, and in the long run bent on world domination?

 

[that1dude24]

it's amazing how little this bothers people. this isn't explicitly about google, either. it's an example of the interconnectedness and mutual benefit that large tech companies will have with their governments and local power structures, including the less savory parts.

They're people running a company with all sorts of desires and wants and needs. That doesn't mean they bought Boston dynamics to build a robot army for the man to hold us down.

i doubt they'd be opposed to being contracted for such a purpose if the agreements were sweet enough.

 

[New002]

Including the surface you wrote it on, since there may be indentations in the surface from your writing.
Heck, just be on the safe side and burn down the entire building you write it in.

I write all my notes in my mind palace?

 

[Akahige]

I write all my notes in my mind palace?

Aren't you suppose to be solving crimes then and not posting on gaf?

 

[juliushandle]

Google in bed with government to continue the Military Industrial Complex. War, Google, Robots, ...Skynet.

 

[UncleSporky]

OP is easier to read and to be concerned about if you read it in Paul Eiding's voice.

 

[Tesseract]

nothing surprising or scary, dunno ...

 

[Nicktendo86]

I just find it really hard to give a shit. Google are an information company, I know that if I choose to use their services they have access to my data and in turn government agencies do. It is my choice.

I love the shit Google does. Of course they want to get people in third world countries online so they have access to more data, but in turn it will empower more people with information.

 

[Bold One]

well, duh