Larry Page addresses PRISM • Hacker News Board

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#301

Post by brymaster » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 10:12 PM UTC

aniket_ray wrote: post #227

brymaster wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt, I know you really love Google but you need to do a bit more research: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/google-nsa-secrecy-...

I'm sorry but that article talks about how Google and NSA worked together when the accounts of Chinese activist were being hacked. How is that related to helping the US government spy on its citizens?

Cutts said:

> push back on overly broad governmental requests

> publish our transparency report on governmental requests

and also mentioned Google 'fighting back' at National Security Letters.

The fact that courts have upheld secrecy between NSA and Google before (just the one we know about) is quite relevant.

There are bad things at play here and just because Google has a cute, colorful logo and hires nerds doesn't make them innocent either.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#302

Post by ttrreeww » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 10:14 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #189

ttrreeww wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are cases in which you can't even confirm the existence of a gag order. I can not believe it's constitutional... but they do it.

What about the strategy you hear about of getting around this? Where they say "we're not under a gag order" (or whatever) each day until they are, until they go under a gag order, at which point it reveals they are. Now, I'm not so naive to think that if someone tried this, the government and courts would just say "Herp, derp, you sure outfoxed us there!" But has that strategy ever been tested in court?

I'd imaging it'd get you a free one way ticket to Cuba, not charged.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#303

Post by dllthomas » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 10:14 PM UTC

reedlaw wrote: post #259

dllthomas wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They'd have to MITM SSL traffic largely." To be fair, if anyone can do this it's precisely these people. ... still not likely, though, I agree.

Is that even possible if Google's SSL certs have Extended Validation? They'd have to have cooperation all the way down to the browser vendors and I can't see Mozilla caving that easily.

I was referring to cryptographic attacks. Unlikely that they have such, but if anyone does, it's pretty likely to be them.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#304

Post by cdash » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 10:15 PM UTC

defen wrote: post #216

blibble wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one person, maybe not, but if you're a intelligence agency with a multi-million dollar budget to tap Google, you'd probe the organisation and bribe those with access, and anyone in the chain those employees could credibly report to. this isn't difficult or particularity far-fetched!

Don't you think China/Russia/Israel/etc would have attempted/done the same thing, too?

The biggest reason is, what is the downside? Working with US spy agencies as an american on american soil you don't risk getting thrown into jail for the rest of your life and the biggest downside is getting caught and fired but you are being compensated with money anyways so why would you care. Working with foreign governments is much more risky but I am sure they have tried and do have agents working in large companies such as google.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#305

Post by solnyshok » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 10:15 PM UTC

ynniv wrote: post #280

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? You don't see any difference between the denial posted by Google's CEO vs. the way that (say) Verizon responded? Here's Verizon's response: http://www.businessinsider.com/verizons-memo-to-workers-abou...

A better carefully worded response is still a carefully worded response. Google is in a difficult place because we all expected this to be happening, there are now documents suggesting that it has been happening, and no one takes at face value anything that sounds like a lawyer wrote it. EDIT: I mean: (a) No one cares if they have heard about a program called "PRISM" when the point of that program is to aggregate dat…

"direct access to servers" looks suspicios to me as well. However, maybe several dozen lawyers had no clue how to react today, and they just copied one another's text?

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#306

Post by danso » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 10:16 PM UTC

white_devil wrote: post #289

danso wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you'd feel more comfortable if the company threw in some rhetoric about morals and freedom that are, as assertions, impossible to verify, but would make people feel more warm and fuzzy? So, basically, what politicians put into their speeches? Read over your statement again. There's very little of substance in there. For example, what does "this" in "We would never do 'this'" mean? And I'm not being pedantic, beca…

> So, you'd feel more comfortable if the company threw in some rhetoric about morals and freedom that are, as assertions, impossible to verify, but would make people feel more warm and fuzzy? But when their impossible-to-verify assertion is that they've done nothing wrong, you'll accept that just fine?

No. I'm not saying that Page's assertion is true, but I am saying that it is a concrete assertion.

There's a difference between these two things:

1. Issuing a vague non-denial so that when the truth is revealed, you can claim that you didn't technically lie ("Hey, I never said I didn't molested him, I just said I never slept with him")

2. Issuing a denial that is proven later to be false.

I'm not arguing with the GP that Page is telling the truth, but that, as much as we can tell, Page has issued a statement that can satisfiably be shown to be true or false.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#307

Post by DougWebb » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 10:17 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #282

Nelson69 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Careful parsing of the constitution, careful parsing of various laws, very very careful interpretation of the words on the page. There is no "careful parsing" of the Constitution going on. Just people who never read the document very carefully other than what they thought the teacher said in 8th grade. This is the entirety of the 4th amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,…

How is a document that you never even had in your possession somehow your private information?

Have you been to a doctor? Have you seen that folder full of your medical information? Have you ever possessed it? Most likely not, but that is your private information and there are very strict rules about how it is handled and who can access its contents.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#308

Post by greyman » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 10:18 PM UTC

aiiane wrote: post #224

pbreit wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Of course it's hedged with a limitation of scale. Obviously Google, like any other company, is going to provide information on much smaller scales (e.g. a user or a handful of users) for investigation based on specific court-issued warrants. It would be lying to state that Google never provides information about any user activity at all. What would you prefer Google to say?

In this sentence, I would prefer Google to say: "First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government— OR ANY OTHER ENTITY - direct OR INDIRECT OR ANY OTHER TYPE OF access to our servers. [capitalized words are mine]

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#309

Post by kalkin » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 10:19 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #282

Nelson69 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Careful parsing of the constitution, careful parsing of various laws, very very careful interpretation of the words on the page. There is no "careful parsing" of the Constitution going on. Just people who never read the document very carefully other than what they thought the teacher said in 8th grade. This is the entirety of the 4th amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,…

Really? You don't think of information in your Gmail or Google Drive as personal "papers or effects"? Would you be fine with a Google employee reading through your email or your spreadsheets in order to figure out whether you were working on a product that might compete with one of Google's, or maybe because they ran across your profile on a dating site and wanted to check up on you? If so, I think you're unusual.

In a world where important documents are increasingly electronic, and electronic stuff is increasingly routinely backed up, transmitted through, or just stored on remote servers, people's personal papers will be increasingly in the possession of others.

I won't argue that it's impossible to read the Constitution so that it becomes a set of meaningless restrictions on outdated technologies--legal text is never deterministic and always subject to multiple interpretations--but it's certainly not unreasonable for somebody to have "read the document very carefully" and found it more robust and relevant than you do.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#310

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 10:20 PM UTC

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?

1) They didn't, and 2) Even if they had, unclear, inaccurate, or misleading information regarding Google's degree of cooperation or the mechanics of acquiring tha data in a document prepared for consumers of the data for which information on the details of collection was not essential actually makes quite a lot of sense in a highly classified program (whether its classified for appropriate, security related reasons, or for political reasons.)

Consumers of the data need to know where it comes from and its scope, they don't necessarily need to know whether its acquired through cooperation or coercion or infiltration of the providers.