Some have theorized that Google is actually run by the CIA. Other than the hangar out in the Bay area full of large jumbo jets, I can’t… never mind.
So while looking around at transmitter sites in Google Maps, I noticed a little link at the bottom, enticing me to go to Edit Google Map.
This is profoundly powerful, and potentially just as evil. It allows you to add information into Google Maps that is visible to anyone anywhere in the world using google maps. If you are plagued with a memory, you may remember that Google Earth was bought from a company called KeyHole, which just happens to also be the name of the US Government’s top “secret” spy satellite network (essentially the same as the Hubble Telescope with different optics, but pointed toward the earth)
So this is surely exactly how government intelligence analysts collaberate. With a satellite picture (or time series of the same location), as information is gleaned from sources, the locations are marked on maps so anyone else coming along later will know what we already know about some feature.
So now with a billion set of eyes and brains who collectively know everything about everything, and want you to you know they know all the secrets… Imagine people in China adding notes like “This is the secret building where they assemble the nuclear triggers for the bombs they are hiding from the West”…
But this can work both ways… it also can expose the weaknesses in the defenses of the United States “Here is the where the border patrol hides out during the week, but at 6 PM they all go home and it’s safe to cross the border”
Google ceased being a ‘search engine’ around 2009… when they ‘personalized’ search and began filtering and censoring results on an individual (per user/machine) basis.
Essentially, it is an advertising monopoly which acts as a one-way-mirror, sucking up every click and mouse gesture, building a dossier & profile, and then spitting ads back at you. I’ve been warning clients about ‘organic’ SEO and Google’s dubious methods.
http://www.legalpracticepro.com/the-long-tail-of-search-engine-optimization-rip/
If two people do a search with identical terms, they can get vastly different results. Google is deciding what -they- want you to see based on past behavior, ‘beacons’, etc.
http://www.thefilterbubble.com/what-is-the-internet-hiding-lets-find-out
Along with Facebook and others, they are corralling people via insidious filtering. Most people do not realize what is happening (i.e. they ‘like’ their search results).
As the author of The Filter Bubble states: this is dangerous for any democracy, because it means Google is hiding alternative links/viewpoints from each user.
It’s about pigeonholing you and maximizing ad delivery for the big boys.
Some of that Google filtering is happening because you are logged in to Google (for gmail) – but that’s only the most accurate filtering. The browser cookies are the second line of defense. Google Analytics is everywhere and watches everything you do in minute detail…. what you clicked on, how long you looked at a page, what you did next, what item did you ultimately buy (if you were searching to buy)
As my (slightly wrong) post about Firefox pointed out, Firefox is more than willing to cooperate to tell everyone where you are (but only with your permission – if you believe them…). My post was wrong about the detail of it being tied to GPS. My location from Firefox was just the name of a nearby town (or maybe was scrubbed to make it look inaccurate to me).
Sprint and Apple just announced they are disabling (Sprint) or removing (Apple) a piece of software they thoughtfully loaded onto their phones called Carrier IQ
Computerworld Story
Carrier IQ’s patent application. Note Claim 11:
http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20110106942
Of all people, it was Senator Al Franken that pushed them to do this.
I remember one of the Radio folks (probably Clark Howard, but maybe Leo LaPorte or Kim Komando) being hit with the issue of why a caller racked up a huge data bill in a foreign country when they were certain they had cellular data disabled. If your phone is actually running inside a virtual machine that isn’t aware of your phone’s “settings”, then it is pretty easy to see how that could happen.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/16/technology/carrier_iq/
There is a bit of Kabuki theater going on here from the Senate. The reason the carriers are potentially logging your keystrokes is to comply with the federal CALEA law that require them to be able to do that without alerting the person using the phone.
http://www.askcalea.net/capability.html
http://epic.org/privacy/wiretap/calea/FCC_order_04_02.pdf
If you traverse down to page 31, paragraph 79, the reasons start to become clearer (along with why this is so futile)…
Let’s say a “bad guy” the FBI is tracking knows he is likely being tracked so wants to be “extra careful”. If all his phone provider did was told the FBI what number was dialed… the person could dial into a service that provides “dial tone” in a remote city, and then enter the phone number that the remote phone line should dial (and could in theory repeat the process multiple times). So fhe FCC authorized the phone companies to record the keypresses you make after the call is connected (think a more traditional cell phone, not an iphone with a virtual keypad)
So with an iPhone, I can have Skype loaded which doesn’t use the phone network at all. It’s using the 3D edge data network that is encrypted, or if I’m sitting in Starbucks using Wifi, I’m not even interacting with the phone company – I’m just running an app that transmits data over the internet. Sure, Skype maybe can also cough up data… but it’s far from the only VoIP service on cell phones.