Really frustrating that our privacy eroded to the point anyone would think this is reasonable.
But it does explain some conversations with Gemini when I wonder why it's talking about particular things. Like asking it about consultation processes for changes to parks only to get a response that's uncannily tuned to the email I got prompting the enquiry.
Any tool having manual human reviewers or annotator like all of Gemini and notebooklm (now Gemini notebook) suffer from this. Your data has high chance being read by random people or being leaked for training because they might flag it then use it to "improve" the model.
I am in the process of moving my stuff from Google to selfhosted alternatives. Google Photos => Immich, Google Drive => probably Next Cloud or some better alternative.
I am also looking into how to selfhost my email (and yes I know, the horror of inboxing from self hosting. But I am at the point of not only willing to give it a tr, but actively saying "fuck you" to everybody that does not receive my email, because they are on Outlook or O365 (or Google, bt inboxing into Google is easier imho).
Especially with my paid Google now daily having spam in my inbox, while valid emails are so often in spam, that I have to check spam at least once per week.
I had a Google Meet Gemini transcription take well over 24hours once recently, rather than the usual <1hr. I could only assume manual intervention was the cause.
It might also explain why Google do not provide a page to view transcription job queues from meet. You just have to sit and wonder
This is exactly why I spent most of this year building the new software stack at https://safebots.ai
I am just fed up with people having no choice but to trust giant corporations.
Yes, I liked blockchain in 2018, because it was the only environment where I could really trust the code. But, it was public, slow and expensive. Until recently there was nothing besides that, where I could trust the code. Maybe SGX, in a limited way.
So I invented something new this year, called the Safebox that retains all the positives of blockchain but without those three downsides (EDIT: this technology is not a blockchain at all, apparently this needs to be said).
Imagine if you could run your entire company from one or more Safeboxes in whatever cloud you want, not have to actually manage anything, but trust auditors of your choice to sign off on the software stack. All your data goes in, and no one can exfiltrate it. Your policies and business rules are guaranteed to apply to every single piece of data. Oh, and it's also nigh-unhackable, unlike your on-prem unpatched Linux and 100 employees' laptops. Wouldn't that be nice?
EDIT: I knew I was going to get massive downvotes, for actually offering a solution. I find it maddening that people on HN share woe stories of "look at what this corporation does to betray our trust" but as soon as you share anything that you worked hard on, it's downvoted to oblivion. For a platform called "hacker news", where is the ethos... what is even the point of your silent downvotes? You don't want people to have an option other than corporate overlords? The regularity with which I see these things downvoted does get to me sometimes. Why not allow some viable actual ALTERNATIVE to Google, Microsoft, Meta, X, and the billionaires have a chance to be discussed, without the drive-by downvote, without even the courage to discuss why.
PS: Oh. It's likely also because the word "blockchain" is in comment. OK. Blockchain. Blockchain.
As far as securing the system -- yes there are about 25 layers of isolation and hardening to get through, to pwn the system. Even if you got through all of it, the data can just be restored on a previous system. Here are just some:
6) All network egress goes to a second Safebox, whose job it is to actually enforce policies before signing transactions / sending emails / using your credentials. So even if you totally compromised the first Safebox somehow, or even a single app on it, the policies still get enforced
7) All credentials / keys encrypted and split between Safeboxes
Of course they do. Now that all the freely available training material has been consumed, every website ingested, every image classified, every YouTube video watched, and even books scanned and destroyed, the insatiable hunger for more data must be fed.
"Rock Solid" Google was known to be privacy invasive. Idk how people trust Google for privacy when it comes to Ai. Look at this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40965892
But it does explain some conversations with Gemini when I wonder why it's talking about particular things. Like asking it about consultation processes for changes to parks only to get a response that's uncannily tuned to the email I got prompting the enquiry.
No mention of I just read your emails etc .
There’s nowhere to go.
in case the reply is not clear, I mean to emphasize and amplify the alarming Google behavior described above
Unfortunately, the alternatives are all so bad...
I am also looking into how to selfhost my email (and yes I know, the horror of inboxing from self hosting. But I am at the point of not only willing to give it a tr, but actively saying "fuck you" to everybody that does not receive my email, because they are on Outlook or O365 (or Google, bt inboxing into Google is easier imho).
Especially with my paid Google now daily having spam in my inbox, while valid emails are so often in spam, that I have to check spam at least once per week.
It might also explain why Google do not provide a page to view transcription job queues from meet. You just have to sit and wonder
I am just fed up with people having no choice but to trust giant corporations.
Yes, I liked blockchain in 2018, because it was the only environment where I could really trust the code. But, it was public, slow and expensive. Until recently there was nothing besides that, where I could trust the code. Maybe SGX, in a limited way.
So I invented something new this year, called the Safebox that retains all the positives of blockchain but without those three downsides (EDIT: this technology is not a blockchain at all, apparently this needs to be said).
Imagine if you could run your entire company from one or more Safeboxes in whatever cloud you want, not have to actually manage anything, but trust auditors of your choice to sign off on the software stack. All your data goes in, and no one can exfiltrate it. Your policies and business rules are guaranteed to apply to every single piece of data. Oh, and it's also nigh-unhackable, unlike your on-prem unpatched Linux and 100 employees' laptops. Wouldn't that be nice?
This is my vision: https://safebots.ai/layers.html
EDIT: I knew I was going to get massive downvotes, for actually offering a solution. I find it maddening that people on HN share woe stories of "look at what this corporation does to betray our trust" but as soon as you share anything that you worked hard on, it's downvoted to oblivion. For a platform called "hacker news", where is the ethos... what is even the point of your silent downvotes? You don't want people to have an option other than corporate overlords? The regularity with which I see these things downvoted does get to me sometimes. Why not allow some viable actual ALTERNATIVE to Google, Microsoft, Meta, X, and the billionaires have a chance to be discussed, without the drive-by downvote, without even the courage to discuss why.
PS: Oh. It's likely also because the word "blockchain" is in comment. OK. Blockchain. Blockchain.
You mean the default prompts we use in safebots? https://safebots.ai/safebots.html
As far as securing the system -- yes there are about 25 layers of isolation and hardening to get through, to pwn the system. Even if you got through all of it, the data can just be restored on a previous system. Here are just some:
1) Immutable startup disk, nix-based builds
2) M-of-N signatures on any supply chain updates
3) ZFS based disk encryption and sync
4) Safecloud for storage (https://safebots.github.io/Safecloud)
5) gVisor isolation for all Docker containers
6) All network egress goes to a second Safebox, whose job it is to actually enforce policies before signing transactions / sending emails / using your credentials. So even if you totally compromised the first Safebox somehow, or even a single app on it, the policies still get enforced
7) All credentials / keys encrypted and split between Safeboxes
I could go on...