Tech Giants In Human Rights Deal 97
Ostracus writes "Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have signed a global a code of conduct promising to offer better protection for online free speech and against official intrusion." Anyone want to know what this means for China & Australia? I bet it means even less to all of us in America where every major data center has a secret room where the government sniffs our packets.
Re:Paranoia (Score:4, Informative)
It doesn't matter what they say... (Score:5, Informative)
Any contract or promise contrary to the law is null and void.
"It is very little more than a broad statement of support for a general principle without any concrete backup mechanism to ensure that the guidelines will be followed."
This is little more than a PR stunt used to shore up their public image. The agreement language is vague, and there are questions about if it is even binding. It can probably not even be enforced, because in most countries, conspiracy is a crime. So if a company should do anything which would hinder prosecution, they could be charged with:
I'm not counting on this having any effect other than people saying, "Look, Google really isn't evil!". Which is exactly the intended effect.
Re:Paranoia (Score:5, Informative)
I used to work as a sysadmin for a major datacenter. There was no room as far as I knew. If there was, it was pretty hidden from everyone.
We did have people from the FBI or Secret Service come in every once in a while and ask for a hard drive out of a server. We'd tell the customer he had hardware problems as we mirrored the drive.
Also, it seems obvious that if the government wanted to spy on traffic, they wouldn't do it at endpoints like datacenters. They would do it at major routers.
Re:Paranoia (Score:3, Informative)
The EFF was involved in the deal. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/10/global-network-initiative [eff.org]
Still, the EFF isn't completely satisfied with the results: