Joe Abley wrote:
The ability to automatically discern users' political positions from their inbox is not one that any email provider reasonably needs.
It's arguably something that gmail users consent to when they give Google rights to index and process their mail, though.
Or... Maybe account X is attacked, and it is registered to somebody
named Liu Xiaobo, and Liu Xiaobo turns out to be a prominent human
rights activist. After some investigation, it turns out accounts
belonging to people whose names match known human rights activists were
attacked and those that don't, weren't. Sure, assuming Google is being
Sinister Santa Claus (brings gifts ostensibly from the goodness of their
hearts, but mysteriously knows what you want, knows when you've been
sleeping, knows when you're awake, etc) through data mining makes a good
story, but it isn't the obvious conclusion.
you can probably also simply compare the usernames with the search term
blacklist that the government provides you...
Interesting radio piece re:Google in China this evening on NPR's radio
program "All Things Considered".
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122540813
Stefan Fouant, CISSP, JNCIE-M/T
www.shortestpathfirst.net
GPG Key ID: 0xB5E3803D
The Google Spokesperson I heard on the radio yesterday evening said that they had not yet stopped censoring, and declined to give a date when they would. His point was that the clock is ticking and Google can see it.
I'm not Chinese, but putting myself in their position...
I would be surprised if they were trying to determine anyone's political positions. Google's observation that the targeted parties were dissidents suggests that they are known to be dissidents without looking at their gmail content. If I were of the specified mindset and were looking at their mail, I think I might be mapping dissident networks to identify potential dissidents I was unaware of and looking to see if they mentioned any specific plans or pointed to specific content.
i am confused here, which is not at all unusual. did the chinese get
any data which google does not give to american LEAs in answer to an
administrative request, i.e. not even a court order?
randy
You mean why didn't they just ask for it instead of going through all
this trouble?