Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Larry Page addresses PRISM

googleblog.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 482 posts

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#241

Post by DannyBee »

defen wrote: post #199
DannyBee wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't say "we don't provide access", because depending on the law, they are forced to. They say "we do not provide direct access", because as explained, any access goes through proper legal channels. I'm not sure what you'd call it? Remember language matters, and these are actionable public communications.

Sure, but the statement as worded does not rule out the possibility that a third party contractor (Palantir) has access, and feeds it to the government. So Google has the motive (some theoretical secret law they need to abide) and they haven't denied a potential means (third party mediation). That's enough for people to convict in this situation.

Sure. The statement does not rule out the possibility that aliens are using advanced technology to watch the bits on optical lines without affecting the photos either.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#242

Post by [deleted] »

Dove wrote: post #211
mullingitover wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's exactly the kind of denial you'd expect them to issue if they were legally required to deny any involvement.

That's moving the goalposts, though. The initial assertion -- that this is a cleverly-worded non-denial -- doesn't hold up with the text. Page is clearly and unambiguously denying that Google supplies any information to the government on a millions-of-users scale. Saying that denial is a lie . . . is a completely different charge.

[deleted]

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#243

Post by declan »

mullingitover wrote: post #98
Dove wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false. I'm not sure how much more strongly you'd like t…

It's exactly the kind of denial you'd expect them to issue if they were legally required to deny any involvement.

This is a false assumption. AT&T did not deny opening its networks to the NSA during the EFF litigation. It simply declined to comment, and offered suggestions (which I wrote about at the time) about how the law allowed it to comply with such a secret court order.

It's the opposite of what Larry Page is doing.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#244

Post by [deleted] »

aniket_ray wrote: post #110

Disclaimer: I don't know the truth about anything that's going on. First, I'm not a US citizen. So, it seems I just have to assume that NSA is certainly tracking me. Now to the topic of spying on US citizens, considering how no one seems to have ever heard about PRISM, the breaking of this story based on flimsy evidence seems to me like an attempt to side track from the real and confirmed story of NSA accessing Call…

[deleted]

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#245

Post by brown9-2 »

aniket_ray wrote: post #110

Disclaimer: I don't know the truth about anything that's going on. First, I'm not a US citizen. So, it seems I just have to assume that NSA is certainly tracking me. Now to the topic of spying on US citizens, considering how no one seems to have ever heard about PRISM, the breaking of this story based on flimsy evidence seems to me like an attempt to side track from the real and confirmed story of NSA accessing Call…

To cover from the Verizon story, the government planted a story that makes the practice look even grander in scope?

The idea that they want to cover up the Verizon story is negated by the fact that many Congressional leaders came out immediately afterwards and said basically "yes this has been going on for years, they continually renew the 3-month orders, it's all telcos, we are pleased with it".

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#246

Post by khuey »

axelf wrote: post #222
cheald wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

unless you assume the NSA has the root SSL certs.

Does anyone seriously believe that they don't?

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#247

Post by downandout »

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…

Unfortunately for Google, the Director of National Intelligence himself has confirmed the program and publicly called its disclosure "reprehensible". However, Google and the rest of these companies are in an awkward position. This program is still technically Top Secret, even though everyone now knows about it. Because of the obligation to secrecy that comes with having received classified information through the proper channels, they are essentially the only people in the world that are required by law not to acknowledge the existence of the program.

That said, the canned "direct access" line - the exact terminology curiously arrived at by no less than 5 separate corporate PR departments within hours of each other - is a poor facade. They should have considered how using identical terminology would make these denials so transparent.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#248

Post by ralfd »

Nelson69 wrote: post #238
Dove wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false. I'm not sure how much more strongly you'd like t…

What's become very clear is that there is a lot of careful parsing going on. Careful parsing of the constitution, careful parsing of various laws, very very careful interpretation of the words on the page. Does Google give anyone, any company, any entity, anyone at all direct access to their data? They've specifically excluded NSA. Does NSA subcontract that to Booz Allen Hamilton? Google claims that no government has…

Did you read Larry's blog post? He didn't rule out the NSA, he did rule out the USgovernment period. Quote:

> Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#249

Post by cube13 »

pbreit wrote: post #139
jmillikin wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period." "Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false." Those sentences seems straightforward and unambiguous.

I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist but those statements are hardly unambiguous. It's the "press reports" that are called false. Close-ended could pretty much be just as broad. The second sentence is hedged with "on such a scale". What is "information about our users' Internet activity"? Does that preclude sharing the actual internet activity? Also, Page keeps referring to "orders" but the press reports suggest som…

The fundamental problem here is that we have allegations that the US Government ordered all these companies to do something bad(tm) and not talk about it. So, if we assume that the allegations are correct, then the companies denying it are in on it, and the denial is false. But if the allegations are not true(either wholly or just for Google), then their denial may be entirely true. That's why it's problematic, because if you believe that the reports are true, then Google's actions are perfectly in-line with that belief. If you believe they're false(or even not as extensive as reported), then Google's actions are perfectly in-line with that belief.

So realistically, the best approach is just to wait and see.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#250

Post by declan »

ariwilson wrote: post #205
riotingpscifis wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the NSA having MITM capabilities before the data reaches google: 1) This is exactly what you would need to do, to consider it realtime 2) None of the denials cover this

Would the NSA list Google as a "partner" that it needs to keep protected in these leaked slides if this were the case?

This is false. The NSA did not list Google as a partner. Reporters may have, which is different from what the leaked slides actually say.
Post reply on HN