Larry Page addresses PRISM • Hacker News Board

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#121

Post by akiselev » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 8:30 PM UTC

minwcnt5 wrote: post #70

adamdavis wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is relevant to what?

I think his point is it would be extremely expensive. The leaked presentation claimed the cost of PRISM was only $20M.

PRISM is clearly not the whole picture. The Utah Data Center alone is much more than $20M a year and PRISM's specified purpose was using US IT infrastructure to intercept foreign communications, which would presumably be filtered from a large data set.

The bulk of the data transmission and storage costs are probably under another budget

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#122

Post by bitwize » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 8:30 PM UTC

necubi wrote: post #48

For all those complaining about the language of this and other denials, what could possibly satisfy you? This seems as blanket as possible. "Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process." "We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exi…

Larry Page wants to live. And he wants Google to keep functioning as a company, and not e.g., to have sudden tax issues crop up with the IRS. He has plenty of incentive to tell an out-and-out lie in this case.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#123

Post by Matt_Cutts » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 8:30 PM UTC

Personally, I'm really glad that Google published such a clear, plain-spoken post to tackle this issue head on.

This whole issue makes me want to donate a bunch of money to the EFF. If anyone else feels the same way, you can donate to the EFF here: https://supporters.eff.org/donate and I believe a lot of employers will match contributions.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#124

Post by cheald » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 8:30 PM UTC

unreal37 wrote: post #31

chrisacky wrote: post #4

I can't understand the repeated use of "direct access". It's the kind of language a lawyer would use to qualify a patent clause. - We do not provide direct access to our servers. - We do not provide direct access nor is there a backdoor. - O, but we do still pipe all of your data to external NSA servers. Every company named (I'm not just picking on Google here) has come out with the same overarching statement. "We do…

I believe Google on this. The language is clear and non-weasel-y. Google does not hand over user data to the government unless specifically requested. There is no open-ended access. But I also believe the government works with ISP's (all major ISPs) so that they can intercept traffic. Which would be a type of MITM attack allowing them to get data from all major web sites.

Unless you can MITM SSL, having ISP access isn't enough. Remember, Google's the company that discovered that Turktrust had issued rogue CA certificates through Chrome's cert pinning.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#125

Post by jonknee » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 8:31 PM UTC

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #89

rosser wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NSA's Utah data center was designed to host more storage than existed on the entire planet at the time. Sheer volume of data is among the least of their concerns.

OK, so you can read wikipedia, but does it make any sense? A single 65MW datacenter with only 100ksqft of machine room space can hold all of the data in the world? That's not even as much power as one of Facebook's facilities in Oregon. Remember when IBM announced they'd built the largest filesystem in history? That was only 120PB. A YB is 10 million times bigger than that. Consider also that a YB is 1000x the entire…

Facebook's servers spend most of their time finding, sorting and then transmitting bits to the billion people who use Facebook. Storing a bunch of data and storing a bunch of data that needs to be dynamically assembled in real time for a billion users are two very different things.

Regardless, no one has theorized that the NSA storing yottabytes of data. The (still probably crazy) rumors are zettabytes.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#126

Post by mullingitover » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 8:32 PM UTC

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #89

rosser wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NSA's Utah data center was designed to host more storage than existed on the entire planet at the time. Sheer volume of data is among the least of their concerns.

OK, so you can read wikipedia, but does it make any sense? A single 65MW datacenter with only 100ksqft of machine room space can hold all of the data in the world? That's not even as much power as one of Facebook's facilities in Oregon. Remember when IBM announced they'd built the largest filesystem in history? That was only 120PB. A YB is 10 million times bigger than that. Consider also that a YB is 1000x the entire…

>" A single 65MW datacenter with only 100ksqft of machine room space can hold all of the data in the world? That's not even as much power as one of Facebook's facilities in Oregon."

You're off by a factor of 10-15 on the square footage. Per the wiki page, "The planned structure is 1 million or 1.5 million square feet."

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#127

Post by joering2 » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 8:32 PM UTC

This was a TOP SECRET document that leaked out. Page may be well in position not only to deny any knowledge of PRISM, but even further publicly deny Google worked or works with PRISM/NSA.

The way the government bends the law for some years now just to punish everyone they feel like, either through imprisonment, scrutiny or simply by wasting years of their lives, savings of their lives and leaving them with a huge lawyer's bill, I wouldn't be surprised if Page had no choice than to lie on the record. And guess what; if, arguendo, he did, he will be pardoned later on. What would you choose? Admit to a secret program ran by secret agency and face brutal consequences (fines, imprisonment, charge with espionage or maybe capital punishment? (why not? why wouldn't government go after Page "proving" that by admitting US sees everything everyone types to Google, it tipped over some terrorist somewhere that stopped using Google and because of that government lost a track of him until he blew himself up in the middle of crowded street. You get the drift)), or perhaps come up as a good patriot and tell the truth. We already have one that told the truth. He spent 3 years in solitary confinement and may be facing life sentence or capital punishment.

People need to understand. This is too big of a secret even for someone like Page to come up and admit.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#128

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 8:32 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#129

Post by VikingCoder » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 8:33 PM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #115

danso wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, in an alternate reality, what would a clear, flat-out denial look like? I mean, how could we tell such a thing differently than what was in the OP? First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of…

"We would never do this, not because the government hasn't asked us to, but because it's morally abhorrent. It goes against everything we personally believe in and stand for. Even if we were legally required to cooperate, we would resist and suffer incarceration if necessary. We believe in freedom more strongly than we fear the consequences of not cooperating with an oppressive government." That kind of thing.

Google used to cooperate with China.

Google is ACTIVELY forgoing revenue in China, because it wouldn't play by their rules. [1]

It's a start.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#Ending_of_self-ce...

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#130

Post by mindcrime » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 8:34 PM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #115

danso wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, in an alternate reality, what would a clear, flat-out denial look like? I mean, how could we tell such a thing differently than what was in the OP? First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of…

"We would never do this, not because the government hasn't asked us to, but because it's morally abhorrent. It goes against everything we personally believe in and stand for. Even if we were legally required to cooperate, we would resist and suffer incarceration if necessary. We believe in freedom more strongly than we fear the consequences of not cooperating with an oppressive government." That kind of thing.

That would be a lot stronger a statement, but at the end of the day... we'll never know. Anything he says could have been written with a govt. agent holding a gun to his head. I know, I know, total conspiracy theory territory. And I'm not saying that is the case, just pointing out that - at the end of the day - there's very little we can actually know for sure about their involvement or lack thereof.

Therefore, IMO, the best thing to do is assume that every single bit that hits a Google server, and every bit stored by Google, is available to the NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, MI6, Mossad, etc., etc... which means using strong crypto to protect your stuff if you really care about keeping it private.