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Worried about google: was -> Re: chrome, Google DNS



I think linux will play a big role in keeping google and other media 
companies at bay, at least for those of us who know how to manage our 
own system using GNU software. I'm thinking a cell phone project is 
needed. Call it GNUFone. Adopt an open architecture cell phone and port 
linux to it. Then you can run KDE and/or Gnome Fone apps..

With our trusted GNU desktops, a distributed search database, and GNU 
Fone, we'd put a halt to the media companies trying to turn us into buy 
bots... (And reaping billions as their reward...)

Freenet is interesting, but I don't think we need to hide behind it. 
It's the gooles of the world, trying to amass our habits in their 
databases, that we need to shun... We do have the tools to do it..

On 01/18/2010 09:36 AM, theBlueSage wrote:
> On Sat, 2010-01-16 at 16:21 -0500, Stephen Adler wrote:
>    
>> I must say, I'm worried about google's dominance of information. The
>> recent attack on their gmail servers is one example of why the use of
>> free information systems (i.e. as in e-mail) is just dangerous. How many
>> people use yahoo, ms mail, gmail and other free mail services? Now with
>> google putting out its own cell phone, which has gmail installed on it
>> and I'm sure it uses google for is search engine. A google OS? A google
>> desktop system which "integrates its search ability" from desktop
>> through to all your internet searches... (I'm kind of feeling raped here..)
>>
>> Does anyone share this feeling of privacy violation?
>>      
> I am a huge privacy advocate, and if you think google is bad now, wait
> til 'waves' is mainstream. In effect, 'waves will combine your email
> with your blog with your IM with your pictures with your videos all in
> one interface. And every word that you type is passed through google's
> fingers (on the pretext of using an online interactive spellchecker).
> They will index everything with the intent of profileing you for ad
> placement. As it will go out free to the public, it will have a low
> barrier of adoption, and a high uptake as, for example, it enables
> people to C&P from an email directly into a weebsite/blob without
> leaving the 'waves' interface...
>
>
>    
>> I'm starting to
>> feel a bit like Kaczynski, not that I plan to mail bombs to Larry Page
>> and Sergey Brin, but that I feel the need to guard myself when I go off
>> and search the next. Some how do the online equivalent of running off to
>> Montana and learn survivalist skills. Actually, what we need is a
>> distributed search system, something akin to the SETI at home project,
>> where the search database is distributed throughout millions of desktops
>> and no one place contains the sum all of our queries...
>>      
> Well Ian Clarke set out to do this back in the late 1990's :
>
> http://freenetproject.org
>
> from the front page '
>
> Freenet is free software which lets you anonymously share files, browse
> and publish "freesites" (web sites accessible only through Freenet) and
> chat on forums, without fear of censorship. Freenet is decentralised to
> make it less vulnerable to attack, and if used in "darknet" mode, where
> users only connect to their friends, is very difficult to detect. '
>
> but it appears that apathy wins over concerns for privacy, and freenet
> is still unknow by 99.9999% of the population.
>
> reminds me of that muttering ... if you give up rights for security you
> deserve neither? .....
>
> Perhaps concerned BLU'ers with available servers could create a
> freenetnode/nodes as an experiment to see if it really is a viable
> option?
>
> Concerned Netizen ;)
>
> Richard
>
>
>    
>> I'm just rambling...
>>
>> /<http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Theodore_Kaczynski>/
>>
>> On 01/16/2010 03:58 PM, Tom Metro wrote:
>>      
>>> Stephen Adler wrote:
>>>        
>>>> Has anyone tried out chrome for linux?
>>>>          
>>> I have it installed on an Ubuntu desktop. They conveniently provide a
>>> repository for the beta builds, and I see the updates getting
>>> installed quite often.
>>>
>>> I've used it rarely. Mostly as a sanity check back-up when something
>>> doesn't work right in FF.
>>>
>>> I spent some time using it on a Windows box back when it first came
>>> out. On that platform, it was a bit faster than FF, but the deal
>>> breakers were lack of session management, and it didn't interoperate
>>> with FF's bookmarks.
>>>
>>>
>>>        
>>>> Does chrome keep track of all your searches and send them to google...
>>>>          
>>> Sounds redundant, if most of your searches already go through Google.
>>>
>>>
>>> Speaking of Google spying, anyone tried out their DNS servers? (They
>>> claim that they purge the logs.)
>>>
>>> Anyone ran across a DNS benchmarking tool for Linux? It would be
>>> useful to see whether the Google DNS servers really offer any
>>> advantage compared to your ISP's servers.
>>>
>>>   -Tom
>>>
>>>        
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>>      
>
>    







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