Thursday, 7 April 2022 — The New Dark Age
Updated:
This is the latest outrage inflicted on our right to access information and it goes one step further in the war on freedom of expression!
Previously, intercepts like the one below, only happened when you clicked on a link in your Browser but Google have taken censorship onto an entirely new level. Google now intercepts your PRIVATE EMAIL, allegedly to protect you against phishing and other online scams.
This is how it works:
The email in question arrives in your Inbox and looks normal until you click on it to open it when this message appears, replacing the content of the email!
There are two live links in the offending message, one asks you to report the ‘offending’ site by saying “This isn’t a web forgery…”
Clicking on the link: ‘This isn’t a web forgery…” takes you to the page below:
Click on it, you arrive at this Google page
You can submit a report, either for or against. Once you have submitted the report, you are presented with the following page:
If you reply, which I did, cursing the bastards for interfering with my right to information. ‘Google Safe Browsing’ [sic] but not safe from Google! The algorithm even intercepts mail from Google!
If you click on the link, “Ignore this warning”, the message disappears and the original Email message is revealed but Google have another trick up their sleeve, as any links in the message, DON’T WORK! There is however, a workaround as the actual link is there it just doesn’t work! If you can, copy the link and paste it directly into your browser (Windows and Macs use a different method to reveal the link) and you’ll get to the site in question.
This is insidious censorship masquerading as protecting the user and it reveals the true nature of Google because it means that Google is not only scanning your PRIVATE EMAIL for ‘questionable’ links but of course, for ‘questionable’ content, which means Google is actually reading the contents of your formally, private Email!
Given the ubiquitous nature of Google’s role in ALL electronic communications, short of returning to actual, physical letters, I’m not sure what can be done about this outrage but at least let’s make the world aware that this kind of outrageous interception of our communications is going on. Frankly it’s the final nail in coffin of any kind of democratic control over communications.
The New Dark Age 
This is just a slightly bolder, more ‘in-your-face’ example of what has been going on for years. Virtually every interpersonal message (SMS, tweet, post, email) is filtered through the NSA and the large tech corporations. It’s not just google. At the university where I am, email (contracted out to Microscoft) is filtered through ProofPoint, both outgoing and incoming, supposedly for spam and security. But I have seen occasional cases where a controversial ingoing or outgoing email has been black-holed (disappeared in transit). ProofPoint via Microsoft, effectively has write privileges for personal inbox and outboxes. This has occasionally resulted in messages I sent disappearing from my outbox.
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Marty, you’re absolutely right but as you say, this is ‘in your face’ interference and reveals the fact that it’s no longer humans carrying out the surveillance but software, completely disconnected from people (except of course, it’s people who write the algorithms for their bosses). But you’re talking about an academic environment, this latest intrusion, is my regular, daily ‘private’ email correspondence that might all be read, stored and whatever, without my knowledge (let alone approval) but this is shameless, as you say, in your face intervention, even modifying the contents of my messages, so they won’t work! I don’t care if they read my mail, or decrypt my Telegram commuincations, fuck ’em! That’s not the point. It’s the fact that the unholy alliance of the state and giant corporations are colluding in controlling what was once legally protected communications. In your face doesn’t even begin to describe the nightmare the corporate-security state has created.
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I try to avoid google but with a smartphone it is impossible
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Don’t you get it? It’s intercepting my PRIVATE EMAIL on my computer, you can’t avoid it! It’s got nothing to do with a smartphone (though it will do it on that as well) or what kind of computer you use! Google is UBIQUITOUS!
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“Google is UBIQUITOUS!”
More correctly, the CARTEL of Big Money behind Google (and now Big Everything) is UBIQUITOUS.
That CARTEL has become like the new monstrous Hydra.
In Greek Mythology, the Hyrda (also called the Lernean Hydra because it lived near Lerna in Greece), was part of a brood of ancient mythical monsters. Its parents were the creatures Typhoeus and Echidna, and its siblings included other multi-headed beasts, such as Cerberus and the Chimera. The Hydra itself was a serpent with numerous heads (the exact number varied in ancient sources). Its blood and even its breath were poisonous.
That Hydra was nearly undefeatable because with its numerous heads, any attempt to cut off only one head allowed the other heads to keep the Hydra alive, and that one severed head resulted in the regeneration of numerous other heads in its place.
Today, that CARTEL of Big Asset Management firms & Big Banks are the parents of that new monstrous Hydra, also called Big Everything.
The numerous heads of that new monstrous Hydra are represented by the numerous differing industries dominated by that Big Everything, like Big Oil, Big Green, Big Ag, Big Chem, Big Food, Big Banking, Big Tech, Big Media, Big Entertainment, Big Politics, Big Government, Big Med, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, nd so on……
And any attempt to stop that new monstrous Hydra, simply by trying to attack & chop any one head, leaves numerous other heads remaining alive to continue supporting that new monstrous Hydra, and results in other new heads regenerating from that one severed head.
This is an absolute fact about life in contemporary times.
People need to be ware of falling for too simplistic, too easy, too convenient narratives, like fingering only one entity. like Google, and learn to better recognize the much more complex & massive causes of the numerous tremendous problems.
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It’s not just Google.
Google is a public company, meaning it is owned by Investors, large Investors.
The largest Investors of Google’s parent Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL) are:
Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, Fidelity (fmr), the Capital Group, T Rowe Price, Invesco, Morgan Stanley, and other of the largest Big Asset Management firms & Big Banks, whom now exist as the largest shareholders/owners of the largest “competing” corporations, in most every single industry, across most every continent.
Those largest Investors, holding the largest numbers of shares, therefore have the largest voting power (in the corporate world one share = one vote).
Meaning they control Executive Management.
Plus, existing as the largest shareholders they are given Board seats on those corporate assets they hold.
Giving them effective control over corporate governance.
Now, take a look at other “competing” Big Tech firms like Apple (aapl), Amazon (amzn), Microsoft (msft), Twitter (twtr), Yahoo (apo/vzn), etc.
You’ll largely see the same ownership schema.
And every Big Tech firm is doing the exact same.
Perhaps even worse, anything you buy online, using a Google Mail address, Google tracks & stores all those receipts.
All part of the massive surveillance effort called Big Data.
A big deal was made in the early 1900’s about the massive monopoly power achieved by Standard Oil.
But today we have even larger, but much more covert monopolies being created by these largest Big Asset Management firms & Big Banks.
The 60 largest Big Asset Management firms & Big Banks alone across the globe now hold & control over $100 TRILLION in global corporate assets.
In the “Dark Ages” of the Middle Ages the era was largely characterized by the massive control of information by the Big Church.
That Big Church determined whom could read what, even creating lists of banned books, and/or actively seeking to destroy unapproved books.
The control of information is often the control the power.
In 18th century Britain, Writers John Trenchard & Thomas Gordon wrote in their essays entitled Cato’s Letters about the massive influence & control that mega-corporations of their day held over the British government.
The Declaration of Independence was not a declaration solely against the corrupted British government, but similarly against those mega-corporations that were unduly influencing & corrupting that British government.
The Boston tea Party was not a direct action solely against the corrupted British government, but similarly against those mega-corporations that were unduly influencing & corrupting that British government.
But now we have come full-circle, right back to that same schema of corruption that the Founders & Patriots of the U.S. sought to escape.
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