Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4408
Lea Kissner is back at her alma mater, the University of California at Berkeley, armed with a crisp gray blazer, a slide deck, and a laptop with a 'My Other Car Is A Pynchon Novel' sticker on it. Since graduating in 2002, she's earned a PhD at Carnegie Mellon in cryptography and worked her way up at Google, where she manages user privacy and tries to keep things from breaking. She's here to tell a hall of computer science students how she did it—and also how to create privacy-protective systems at a scale that you won't find outside a handful of massive tech companies.
Source: https://gizmodo.com/meet-the-woman-who-leads-nightwatch-google-s-internal-1825227132
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Meet the Woman Who Leads NightWatch, Google’s Internal Privacy Strike Force
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(Score: 4, Funny) by Bot on Wednesday April 18 2018, @09:16AM (2 children)
I guess the worst part of her job is keeping her mouth shut when her friends ask her "so how are things at work"?
(no, I am not sexist, I just collect factoids over the internet. One of them is: Jesus announced his resurrection to a woman, first. So that the news spread more quickly.)
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 18 2018, @09:30AM (1 child)
You should be aware that many things you find on the internet are not, in fact, factoids. And even where they are, they are not the result of unbiased sampling, even if you do an unbiased sampling of the internet (which you are unlikely to do, even if you are not actively trying to bias your sampling).
So whatever you collect on the internet will, by its very nature, be affected both by your biases, and by the collective biases of the internet users. Also note that those two are not independent either, as whatever you find on the internet will likely affect your own bias, too, in ways you most likely are not even aware of.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Wednesday April 18 2018, @09:34AM
ACK, I will put your un-factual biased-both-ways assertion in my database.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Wednesday April 18 2018, @09:33AM (5 children)
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 18 2018, @11:50AM (2 children)
Except in Game of Thrones it's "Night's Watch" and not NightWatch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 18 2018, @06:53PM (1 child)
Oh thanks Captain Anal!
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday April 19 2018, @10:56AM
Heh. Sometimes I call .@VP [twitter.com] Pence that, just to give him a hard time.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 18 2018, @02:29PM
Nice. Makes me think of Robert Frost, and "miles to go before I sleep". Of course, I don't need much of an excuse to think of Robert, LOL. If Rudyard Kipling or Robert Frost didn't write something about it, then it's probably irrelevant. :^)
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday April 18 2018, @07:51PM
There's another fictional NightWatch, though, which said something very different [youtube.com]:
That guy was part of a totalitarian system being set up to equate political loyalty to the president to being loyal to the government that president is in charge of.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday April 18 2018, @10:23AM (2 children)
https://www.amazon.com/Long-Night-Watch-Ivan-Southall/dp/0416446108 [amazon.com]
End-of-the-world religious cult goes off to an island during world war two.
Similarities?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Wednesday April 18 2018, @11:47AM
I was wondering that to, except that I thought that it was either from that series of Russian fantasy books (1) or I guess they could have taken it from Pratchett (2) or from Babylon 5 (3). I guess they could have just picked it cause it sounded "cool" and not like some creepy Orwellian wet dream.
(1) https://www.amazon.com/Night-Watch-Book-Sergei-Lukyanenko/dp/0062310097 [amazon.com]
(2) https://www.amazon.com/Night-Watch-Discworld-Terry-Pratchett/dp/0060013125 [amazon.com]
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightwatch_%28Babylon_5%29 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday April 18 2018, @11:52PM
Why not the section of the Ankh-Morpork city guard headed by Vimes?
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 18 2018, @12:29PM (8 children)
Googles privacy team?
I'm sure her team is just as busy as Amazons sales prevention team, the Goldman Sachs team for promoting Universal Basic Income and Donald Trumps "Hillary for president" team...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 18 2018, @01:05PM (1 child)
Just a PR stunt. Maybe she thinks she has an important position as a woman in technology, and a privacy team in a company dedicated to violating privacy is a great place to put diversity hires.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 18 2018, @07:02PM
Who could criticize Google for privacy violations when they have a whole division that is dedicated to protecting privacy? You are probably a sexist if you do. Once they replace her with a black tranny you'll really be screwed.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 18 2018, @01:06PM (1 child)
Like Nazis having a "Jewish Relations Committee"
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday April 19 2018, @10:45AM
Israel, best place to be Jewish, right? I'm a big fan of Israel. But there's only an Israel because of the Nazis. And because of their wall. They were having a total disaster coming across and they had a wall. It’s 99.9% stoppage.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by lx on Wednesday April 18 2018, @01:43PM
It's a strike force.
Wherever there is privacy, they will strike mecilessly until there is none left.
(Score: 3, Touché) by PiMuNu on Wednesday April 18 2018, @02:09PM
Someone has to stop Google's competitors from accessing their datasets without paying.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday April 18 2018, @02:15PM
I think not as busy as Trump's Fact Checker team.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday April 19 2018, @07:54AM
I think you're being sarcastic. Maybe, probably, you're being sarcastic. Because everyone knows there was no team. There was just me. I donated very heavily to Crooked Hillary. As a businessman and a VERY SUBSTANTIAL donor to VERY IMPORTANT people, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do. As a businessman, I need that. Hillary Clinton, I said "be at my wedding," and she came to my wedding. She had no choice because I gave to a foundation. And I asked Ivanka (my daughter) to chip in a token amount. $5K or $10K.
They call me a world class businessman. I built a great, great company. I filed my papers and everybody's amazed at how big, how strong, how good it is, how little debt, the cash flow, the quality of the assets, iconic assets and this is what our country needs, they need this thinking. But as a businessman that deals all over the world, you give. I mean this is very standard. You help people from Republicans to Democrats and I think it's very well accepted even within the Republican Party, that's why I'm so popular.
I don't regret it, it's the way it is. When I was a businessman you get to everybody, you're friends with everybody, you get along with everybody and that's the way it is and when you're running for office and not in the world of business and you don't have to go all over the world and you don't need recommendations and other things it's different but when you're a businessman you give to everybody and keep everybody happy, everybody loves them. Maybe it's a good system and maybe it's not a good system but it's the system in which I was under and I thrived. #MAGA [twitter.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday April 18 2018, @02:14PM (6 children)
Not a very good name to choose. Very ominous name for any B5 fan.
The Psi Corps
Is Your Friend.
Trust The Corps!
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Weasley on Wednesday April 18 2018, @02:20PM (2 children)
The corp is mother; the corp is father.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 18 2018, @02:46PM (1 child)
And, the Legion is the fatherland? "Although it is part of the French military, it is the only unit of the military that does not swear allegiance to France, but to the Foreign Legion itself." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 18 2018, @02:58PM
They do via contract. You can not be a French citizen though. This allows France to have low protests due to military conflicts. No citizens were hurt in the making of this intervention.
After your seven years you are given the option of a new identity as a French citizen and even a not so bad retirement option. Approximately 10% attrition. On par with Marine corps training.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Wednesday April 18 2018, @05:20PM
How can you not trust an organization set up by the Ministry of Peace? Aren't you loyal to President Clark? ;)
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Wednesday April 18 2018, @06:13PM (1 child)
First thing that I thought of...
Pretty ironic to use the name of an organization in Babylon 5 that was created to spy on everyone. And one wonders how many geeks there are at google that would recognize the significance.
But they had nothing to do with Psi Corps. As mentioned earlier they were part of the Ministry of Peace and civilian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightwatch_(Babylon_5) [wikipedia.org]
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday April 18 2018, @07:39PM
That is what makes it so creepy, the fact -everyone- at Google would know where the name came from because someone in every working group would be a B5 fan. Everyone would instantly understand the meaning of the codename and thus correctly infer the actual mission of the group without it ever needing to be written down and subject to a court order. An obscure sci-fi fandom reference would never be brought up at a Congressional hearing, never discussed on CNN because it would be 'a crazy conspiracy theory'; yet it is right out in the open and everyone knows what it is. Combined with "Don't be evil" as the old corporate motto. Oh yea, sure we can trust them with knowing more about ya than yer own mother does.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 18 2018, @04:54PM (5 children)
Google, and privacy. Several posts have mocked the idea that Google respects privacy. I chuckled, some of them are funny. And, Google gets further and further away from their old "Don't be evil" motto. They aren't squeaky clean, that's for sure.
But - overall, Google is a helluva lot more privacy conscious than say - Facebook. THAT company puts your ass on the auction block, routinely. And, they aren't too concerned about anonymizing data. Despite their disclaimers, I'm sure that Facebook had a damned good idea what Analytica was up to.
IMO, Google is pretty secure. And, they actually have privacy policies that kinda make sense, with different values of "making sense". Few companies offer policies that make as much sense.
Sure, Google scans your email - but how many of you have had the contents of your email forwarded to third parties? Google does intrusive advertising - but you can "opt out" by blocking their ad servers, if you can't "opt out" any other way. Intrusive - that intrusiveness has it's limits. Google hasn't made any special attempts to bypass my adblockiing! Assuming that they are pretty damned smart, they have to know that millions of us block their advertising. Why aren't they defeating out adblocking? Well - maybe - just maybe - that old "Don't be evil" lingers.
I can't be a Google Phanboi because they piss me off in several different ways. But, putting things in perspective, I don't think they just shit on privacy, like so many others do. They could do a whole helluva lot better, but Facebook proves that Google could do infinitely worse! Remember, the young woman who was targeted for maternity products was targeted by Target - not by Google.
I'll continue to use Google products in the foreseeable future. I trust them, to some extent, now. Of course, my degree of trust is subject to change. If they screw up a couple more times, like when they insisted that I MUST identify myself with a "real" identity, I can be gone.
Oh - that real identity thing. I won that round. You and I both know that if Google were really determined to positively identify their users, they would have won. They are big enough, they have enough clout, they COULD HAVE won. But, I, along with some unknown number of other people, objected, and won. Google still doesn't have my verified, real identity.
Don't get overly comfortable using Google products, because things could go to hell in a handbasket tomorrow. But, at this point in time, there is little reason to be uncomfortable with them.
All of that, despite the fact that they engage in chickenshit social engineering, and social justice warrior nonsense.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday April 18 2018, @07:46PM (2 children)
Ever heard of DoubleClick AdSense or AdMob? Google sells you to the highest bidder, they just have the auction house in house and doesn't sell you to outside ad firms because they bought all of the big ones they could get their paws on and won't help any of the remaining small ones get big by sharing their trove of user data.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 18 2018, @08:13PM (1 child)
I think he mentioned this but that your data set is anonymous. Lacks a name to refer.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @04:40AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Re-Identification [wikipedia.org]
It's a thing, obviously.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by vux984 on Wednesday April 18 2018, @08:01PM
As a business, its common sense to actively diversify the companies you depend on as much as you can. A business should take care to avoid too much reliance on a single vendor or supplier; and so too should individuals -- even if they are a great vendor right now. It will go to 'hell in a handbasket' sooner or later; and it will be worse the more dependant you are on them.
I agree with you. I don't think google is toxic the way facebook is. But given how much reach they have, and how much I "have" to use them already; i pretty much always choose 'not google' when i can.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 18 2018, @08:56PM
*dons oven proof hat*
OR they got access to enough data that 99.9% of users are easily identified anyway.
Ok ok, seems more likely that they don't really care about real identity as they can still send ads to your account. Better to have a larger herd than to know every detail about each animal.