> We'll soon have source-included but secret-compiler software as a technical possibility, by means of zero-knowledge computational proofs.
could you elaborate on this?
Zero-knowledge proofs can prove that binary code conforms to a specification (e.g. source code) without revealing the process used to turn specification into binary code.
In the analogy, the specification is the information provided to government officials and binary code is planned governmental actions.
If both are known and the specification process for governmental action is proven it doesn't matter what biases the officials exhibit in the decision process - then the governmental action is proven-good according to the specs (e.g. system of laws) and the information provided (in which it would be relatively easy for citizens to have a say, e.g. "you MAY NOT ignore facts X, Y and Z").
> "Google Chrome ads started appearing next to Firefox search terms. Gmail & [Google] Docs started to experience selective performance issues and bugs on Firefox. Demo sites would falsely block Firefox as 'incompatible'," he said.
> "All of this is stuff you're allowed to do to compete, of course. But we were still a search partner, so we'd say 'hey what gives?' And every time, they'd say, 'oops. That was accidental. We'll fix it in the next push in 2 weeks.'
> "Over and over. Oops. Another accident. We'll fix it soon. We want the same things. We're on the same team. There were dozens of oopses. Hundreds maybe?"
> "I'm all for 'don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence' but I don't believe Google is that incompetent. I think they were running out the clock. We lost users during every oops. And we spent effort and frustration every clock tick on that instead of improving our product. We got outfoxed for a while and by the time we started calling it what it was, a lot of damage had been done," Nightingale said.
You can do a lot more damage as a trusted friend than you can as a known enemy.