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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter
China reading your mail: Big red flag.
USA reading your mail: Business as usual.
What kind of productive, actionable result can this notification lead to for a regular user? "Oh, my government may-or-may-not be attacking me, I'm not even sure because it doesn't say, in any case I better just push this magic fix-it-all-up button I have right here." I can't see how this can be differentiated from simple underhanded FUD-driven political activism.
Why the emphasis on state sponsored attacks? (I am aware of stuxnet/flame/sanger's book) If google knows I am being targeted by a non-state actor are they choosing not to notify me? Are we going back to a cold war mentality where the only credible attacks are state sponsored?
Too bad they are legally prohibited from doing this when the state-sponsored attack is a PATRIOT NSL from the US government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter China reading your mail: Big red flag. USA reading your mail: Business as usual.
If someone has a keylogger on your computer it is game over anyways. (Since they can "read" the mail you send just by recording the keystrokes)
What kind of productive, actionable result can this notification lead to for a regular user? "Oh, my government may-or-may-not be attacking me, I'm not even sure because it doesn't say, in any case I better just push this magic fix-it-all-up button I have right here." I can't see how this can be differentiated from simple underhanded FUD-driven political activism.
How about the steps noted in the post? Make sure you have a good password, use two-factor authentication, and be careful about clicking on any login links? It could also be incentive to change accounts, or change to a different communication mechanism. As long as this warning is triggered by actual data, I am not sure how you could categorize it as "FUD" or even political activism. Hacking into accounts should not be…
How does any of this differ from regular user advice? And note the last sentence, they are explicitly admitting the warning relates to nothing in reality beyond the normal environment. Do we suppose that people in China aren't aware their government spies on them? Do you suppose your own government does not?
I don't understand why this banner isn't shown to all users - China or otherwise, or why show it at all. Do something actionable and meaningful - introduce password complexity requirements, mandatory 2 factor authentication, require use of a signed browser with pinned SSL certificates - anything but non-specific nonsense that does little but promote unactionable fear in the hearts of thousands of users.
Too bad they are legally prohibited from doing this when the state-sponsored attack is a PATRIOT NSL from the US government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter China reading your mail: Big red flag. USA reading your mail: Business as usual.
Gmail has state mandated backdoors. No combination of increased password complexity or multi-factor authentication will prevent these backdoors from being used (or abused) to access your account. Have a nice day.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US doesn't need to attack, they can just use their legal backdoor.
Wouldn't that count as an attack vector?
Too bad they are legally prohibited from doing this when the state-sponsored attack is a PATRIOT NSL from the US government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter China reading your mail: Big red flag. USA reading your mail: Business as usual.
Well, Google doesn't really have a choice but to follow the laws of the country it's based in. Do they at least explicitly explain this caveat somewhere?
Unfortunately the US is trying to deny that, with less and less success, but that's where we're at today.
I just think it's shitty of them to make such a noise about non-US state-sponsored surveillance, but remain relatively silent on the thousands and thousands unconstitutional USA PATRIOT wiretaps they get every single month.