These companies just betrayed billions of people. Apple and Microsoft included.

[Berryracer]

Looks like the gloves are off and true colors just showed fully. The fight is on for privacy now:

https://www.youbetrayedus.org/

Apple, Micro$h4ft, Adobe, Symantec, and a handful of other tech companies just began publicly lobbying Congress to pass the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), a bill that would give corporations total legal immunity when they share private user data with the government and with each other. Many of these companies have previously claimed to fight for their users' privacy rights, but by supporting this bill they've made it clear that they've abandoned that position, and are willing to endanger their users' security and civil rights in exchange for government handouts and protection.

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Moved from the OS Forum, the issue above is Not a Technical OS issue.

JackMDS
Super Moderator.

 

[ninaholic37]

I remember reading a few years ago that Microsoft was one the companies opposed to NSA and battled for the user, and Apple was always the first to jump into NSAs pants (Or maybe it was the opposite, or a biased article?). I wonder what happened lately... maybe MS needed money after Windows RT and 8 was a bust and along came friendly old NSA ready to throw American's hard earned tax dollars into their hands to comply :awe:

 

[Sonikku]

The corporations are slowly but surely taking control.

 

[Jaskalas]

An elected leader worthy of our people, would stop this in its tracks.

 

[werepossum]

Hey, if you can't beat it, get indemnified against it.

 

[Rakehellion]

"Total legal immunity." What company wouldn't jump on this bandwagon?

 

[MongGrel]

Why would it be a surprise ?

I thought things like this would have happened long ago.

 

[mikeymikec]

Hey, if you can't beat it, get indemnified against it.

This. Berryracer has missed the point.

The point being, if you want to throw around words like 'betrayal', point them straight at the US government (other governments too). These companies want immunity in case the government tries anything like claiming "it was these companies who invaded your privacy, not us!" while destroying secret evidence of its involvement.

These companies are merely following sage advice, being "don't argue with the organisation that makes and rewrites the rules to suit its interests", especially given that in exchange the respective government will scratch its back at some point in future for going along with it (or at least to avoid the opposite from happening).

But I do find it interesting how Microsoft gets the "Micro$h4ft" treatment, but the others don't.

The only thing I could potentially find fault in these corporations with respect to the topic is that collectively they could have put the kibosh on any government's ideas to engage in mass surveillance, exploit backdoors, etc, by very publicly campaigning against such practices, however the newest thing to sell these days is marketable data and it's an absolute goldmine, and all these companies do it.

 

[Tombstone1881]

An elected leader worthy of our people, would stop this in its tracks.

This is the exact FREEDOM that the Tea Party and Republicans advocate.
The GOP does everything in it's power to give corporations the FREEDOM to do what they want.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

This expectation of your private information being either "yours" or "private" when it's held and accessed by a third party by your own consent is wildly unreasonable. And you can't trust any of these companies anyway regardless of what they openly lobby for.

Also:
https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/5/5970141/how-google-scans-your-gmail-for-child-porn

Google scans everyone's email for child porn, and it just got a man arrested

And I sure as hell don't feel betrayed by them doing that.

 

[Atreus21]

This. Berryracer has missed the point.

The point being, if you want to throw around words like 'betrayal', point them straight at the US government (other governments too). These companies want immunity in case the government tries anything like claiming "it was these companies who invaded your privacy, not us!" while destroying secret evidence of its involvement.

These companies are merely following sage advice, being "don't argue with the organisation that makes and rewrites the rules to suit its interests", especially given that in exchange the respective government will scratch its back at some point in future for going along with it (or at least to avoid the opposite from happening).

But I do find it interesting how Microsoft gets the "Micro$h4ft" treatment, but the others don't.

This (again).

The only thing I could potentially find fault in these corporations with respect to the topic is that collectively they could have put the kibosh on any government's ideas to engage in mass surveillance, exploit backdoors, etc, by very publicly campaigning against such practices, however the newest thing to sell these days is marketable data and it's an absolute goldmine, and all these companies do it.

Remember what happened to Lavabit?