US Coast Guard visits mysterious Google barge | Hacker News Reader

US Coast Guard visits mysterious Google barge

usatoday.com

35 pointsprawn50 comments

>> Tech site CNET has speculated that it might be a floating data center, while the local CBS TV affiliate points to a floating store for Google's wearable Glass computer. <<

A giant floating store to sell Glass, that is made out of metal shipping containers? CBS has gone off the deep-end.

Well this is interesting:

>>At least one Coast Guard employee has been required to sign a non-disclosure agreement with the company regarding the San Francisco project

An inspector with an unidentified California agency said he, too, had to sign such a document.<<

EDIT: On a second thought, it must be common practice for various inspectors to sign NDA's since they see private corporate stuff. Thus the signage of the document has no role in whether inspector would be allowed on board or not.

So if they hadn't signed the agreement, the Coast Guard would have been denied access to the vessel?

It's incredible how much power corporations have in the US.

My guess would be that the Google head honcho on-site asked nicely and offered some sort of carrot (e.g. "we will tell you our other spooky floating facility plans in advance"), and that the Coast Guard employee was "required" to sign the NDA by a boss who liked the deal.

I'll guess the converse, that it was the lead investigators who put on their best manners.

I agree. Since when does the Coast Guard need to ask permission to inspect a vessel?

But, maybe they would need a warrant, and by getting permission they avoid that? Don't know.

The vessel is already in the country/state, so the 4th Amendment applies.

You'd think so, but unfortunately, our government disagrees.

https://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/fact-sheet-us-co...

I'm not seeing much in that description of the border exception that would touch this vessel, which appears to be something akin to "at port," much less a vessel controlled by a company with as many legal resources as Google. It would be a shitshow if the USCG just stormed in there.

Ask any boater how any interaction with the Coast Guard goes. They wield an incredible amount of power in search and seizure and centuries of court precedence. Unlike the TSA they are pros at security theater, even if you think you are right you are almost always wrong.

The barge is not in a lake, it's in a bay and border rules take precedence.

I love HN. Coast Guard denied access to Google warehouse: corporations have too much power. NSA suspected of gaining access to Google warehouse: government has too much power.

I wasn't comparing the power a corporation has to the power wielded by the government; It was more corporation vs person.

I don't think I'd have the power to tell the US Coast Guard to fuck off if they approached me as I sped across the harbour in my little speedboat.

False dichotomy. Both of them can have too much power simultaneously! :)

If both corporations and the government act outside or above the law, then they both have too much power, right? (Note that I don't actually believe Google has violated any laws here - just commenting on the perception).

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. In particular that government and corporations are working together at high level, while maintaining opposing stance in public.

When you're a huge corp like Google that operates around the globe, you can't help but to rub elbows with the government - collaborate and make concessions, if necessary (e.g. PRISM).

The sad part is that the lack of privacy is advantageous to both government and corporations. One get better ad targeting, another tracking and control. So they're one team on this. The dispute is who and how will get to use the data.

yes, i kind of imagine how the Chinese bistro nearby (less than a mile from Google) wouldn't let, say, a city inspector in until s/he signs NDA/etc... I guess the bistro owner is just not aware about such an idea :)

Allowing inspectors into the restaurant is a requirement of the license to operate it.

The same is true of newly constructed buildings and, I would imagine, commercial barges.

> On a second thought, it must be common practice for various inspectors to sign NDA's since they see private corporate stuff.

WTF? AFAIK it is common practice that you're not allowed to talk about stuff you see in line of duty, as cop, or any other kind of government empowered inspector?

To me this sounds completely redundant -- either the coast guard employee in question is already under much more powerful obligation to keep quiet than some corporate civil law NDA -- or this is completely outside the law, and just a show of force by private corporate interest...

There is nothing precluding separate NDAs for individual instances that enforce different terms than a duty-required blanket non-disclosure policy enforces.

I can't think of a situation where it would(should) be legal for a government agent to accept any kind of NDA in order to perform his or her job. Either there are secrets that you come in contact with in line of duty that you shouldn't share -- or there aren't. In the first instance, your employer should be able to make sure you don't talk about it; in the latter talking about it would probably be in the public interest.

I see no reason for government agents to be treated differently legally than private individuals when business secrets are requested to be exposed. Coast Guardsmen have no special right to the inner workings to a private company's data center, for example.

If their duty is to board a boat and insure there is no contraband or whatever, I cannot imagine they're also given a blanket right to learn trade secrets and then be at their own discretion to disclose those.

It's absolutely plausible to require an NDA before exposing such information.

> If their duty is to board a boat and insure there is no contraband or whatever, I cannot imagine they're also given a blanket right to learn trade secrets and then be at their own discretion to disclose those.

No, exactly. If you're entering any private property and learn information that you wouldn't have been aware of, as a result of preforming your duty, you are not allowed to disclose it. That's my point. Any NDA should be entirely irrelevant.

If you you're cop and bust someone for possession of drugs, you're not allowed to, as a private citizen, go to that persons employer and recommend they fire the guy, either.

The only possible value I could see of an "NDA" is not as an NDA at all, but as a brief education on what things might be considered private -- that might not be obvious to someone not already familiar with data centres. In other words, an explanation and expansion on what might constitute privileged information, and so fall under the provisions for secrecy and privacy that the government employee is already subject to.

I've been googling, and I haven't found the regulation or policy for the Coast Guard that forbids the disclosure of business intelligence. If one does not explicitly exist, then it doesn't practically exist, either. If you know of one though please provide a link, it would definitely settle the debate for me.

Otherwise, there is fiduciary imperative on the part of the business to insist on non-disclosures, and I see nothing where it should be illegal to insist up until a court orders the disclosure of that information (and even then, can be argued that the court must seal the discoveries).

I was thinking there had to be something like:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1905

I'd be surprised if there isn't something equivalent for most state legislations as well (for state employees).

From the same article:

> Ensign Connan Ingham said that no non-disclosure agreements had been signed but that some local agency officials "have been asked by the owner not to talk about it."

Which is it? :/

I'd expect some degree of confidentiality to be standard when government agencies inspect private stuff. The NDA shouldn't be necessary.

See https://www.google.com/patents/US7525207 and https://www.google.com/patents/US20090295167 ("Water-based data center"). Assigned to google employees.

>>This document describes systems and methods that may be employed to provide data center (e.g., computing, telecommunications, or other similar services) support in an area quickly and flexibly. In general, computing centers are located on a ship or ships, which are then anchored in a water body from which energy from natural motion of the water may be captured, and turned into electricity and/or pumping power for cooling pumps to carry heat away from computers in the data center.<<

I bet the NSA knows.

Google could just troll everyone by floating the barges away and nothing comes of this.

Maybe it's a dedicated data center for floating point operations.

Yeah, and this will be noticed as "floating point operations are used in military planning, aircraft development and studies of nuclear devices"

I have this sinking feeling about a wave of nautical metaphors starting here on HN.

It will be a real deluge.

one could always hope they are a precursor to offshore data centers, in particular residing in international waters.

And the Somali pirates have new business model :-)

I do not care about google's hype machine oriented around these :mysterious: ships.

Google: put up or shut up. This is stupid.

If what they're doing isn't shutting up, what is?

I think the parent is insinuating that Google is not only not shutting up, but in fact, these activities are part of the lead-up to some PR event.

ATTENTION TINFOIL-HAT WEARING HN READERS: You may now start worrying that these barges are in fact floating versions of the NSA's Utah data center, built to accompany the USS Jimmy Carter as it roams around tapping undersea cables [1]

The sub has very limited data storage capacity, these floating 'privacy destroyers' do not.

[1]http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ielx5/6/21038/975021/975021.html

Might as well attach Google boilerplate to the bottom of this "article" and link to http://www.google.com/press/.

Summary: We know nothing and can't say.

So I've been thinking about this and I am getting a bit upset that a corporate entity can stop a government policing and enforcement entity and make them sign a NDA. Coast Guard has the right to board any nautical vessel for inspection, no?

Can you imagine the police hearing screams and cries for help from inside a building and the corporate owners of the building stop them and say, well you cannot come in unless you sign this NDA first.

Coast Guard has the right to board any nautical vessel for inspection, no?

Is it actually a nautical vessel, or just a floating anchored data center? If the latter, it may still be a vessel technically but there won't be much "nautical" about it.

I would imagine the "unreasonable search & seizure" protection would protect people until the ship was actually moving. Maybe even until there is good reason to search it.

You mean like how that protects you at the airport?

Perhaps they will float it out to international waters to avoid the NSA.

(And host monkey knife fighting)

Are they visible from populated areas? My first instinct was some form of advertising/viral promotion.

coming up in 2014: Google shipping. With data mined from youtube and the google crawler our new service can generate slash / shipping storys for any couple you want! (For legal /copyright reasons all shipping is done in international waters).

Is it a SuperPower building?

It's for porn.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com