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Larry Page addresses PRISM

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Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#381

Post by adventured »

necubi wrote: post #146
revelation wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? This is the direct result of the governments toxic conduct. They issue orders that forbid you from talking about having received any such order, they classify everything (to the point where a parallel society to the tune of 1M people exist that have access to (e.g.) cables, as became apparent during the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables row), they institute secret courts, laws with secret interpretations.. They have p…

At this point, it pretty much is a conspiracy theory. The only evidence we have of these companies' involvement is the leaked slides, which could have been the result of over-promising from a contractor or a misunderstanding from a non-technical manager. We have a lot of evidence to the contrary, particular that nearly every company allegedly involved has issued strong denials, which, again, they cannot be compelled…

No, it's not a conspiracy theory.

1) James Clapper admitted Prism is real

2) Of course such a program would involve the top Internet companies, who in the world else would it involve (the smallest Internet companies?)

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#382

Post by Matt_Cutts »

teawithcarl wrote: post #356
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...

Matt - Many of us believe that many of the people at Google are doing their best, however in this instance you're not doing the right thing.

Hey teawithcarl, I appreciate that. I'd be interested in hearing what you think the right thing is. I suspect that we're actually in agreement on most points. If there's something you think we should be doing differently (and I agree with you :), I'm more than happy to lobby for that within Google.

I do think Google is working hard to protect our users from unwarranted government requests. Just speaking for me personally, I really dislike provisions in the PATRIOT Act and FISA that compel secrecy. One thing I did like in Google's blog post was that we spoke out against the "level of secrecy around the current legal procedures." I was encouraged that Facebook later said something similar. In my opinion, a lot of the frustration about the current situation would be best applied to changing some laws in the United States.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#383

Post by adventured »

andreyf wrote: post #209
themgt wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama confirmed in a press conference that PRISM exists, so concluding the program is imaginary would seem to require a fair lack of critical thinking.

Could you quote/link to Obama's confirmation that Prism exists, and also the claim that it is imaginary?

How about someone with even better knowledge on it than Obama?

"The top intelligence official in the United States condemned as “reprehensible” leaks revealing a secret program to collect information from leading Internet companies"

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/us/intelligence-chief-call...

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#384

Post by tomkarlo »

gibsonf1 wrote: post #329
Dove wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy it. What I quoted above doesn't say anything about US persons or non-US persons, about content or metadata, about this law or that one. It just says, Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false. Now, Page may well be lying , but he definitely isn't weaseling. I'm pretty sure that denial covers both of the possibilities you're…

The key issue here is that Google and the other companies may have no idea this is going on. My read is that the NSA has managed to gain access to the data centers either through inside help, spy craft, hardware/router back doors, or some other means we have no idea about.

Consider the sheer volume of data we're talking about here. Unless you think these companies would miss a fiber optic trunk running out the back door of their data centers, does that make any sense?

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#385

Post by bigiain »

Avenger42 wrote: post #274
mullingitover wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also possible that Larry is concerned about his share price, and what would happen to it if Google was revealed to be completely in bed with the NSA (My guess is it would fall quite a bit). He has real money at stake in limiting the damage that comes from this revelation.

The fallout in such a case has to be smaller than it would be if it comes out later that, not only were they in bed with the NSA, they (and the other companies in this situation) blatantly lied about it with their statements today.

I guess keeping an eye out for Larry (et al) cashing out shares over the next few weeks/months might be a good indicator of the likelyhood of exactly that "coming out later".

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#386

Post by [deleted] »

solnyshok wrote: post #305
ynniv wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[deleted]

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#387

Post by adventured »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #167
bitwize wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh come on. Google is willing and able to push back on overly broad governmental requests. When the Department of Justice sent subpoenas to 34 companies in 2005 asking for months of user queries, Google was the only company I know of that fought back in court and won. I know because I wrote a declaration for that case. See http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/doj-sent-subpoenas-to-34-compa... ; and http://www.mattcutts.com/…

Google just recently got out from under anti-trust scrutiny. It would be trivial for the Feds to bust Google's chops using that at any time. They've got Google's number any day of the week now. Step out of line, suddenly a new anti-trust inquiry begins.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#388

Post by tomkarlo »

GoodIntentions wrote: post #350
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...

The last couple lines of his blog post seemed to convey, at least to me, that he was posting truth but perhaps not as much as he'd like. "We post this information on our Transparency Report whenever possible... ...we understand that the U.S. and other governments need to take action to protect their citizens’ safety—including sometimes by using surveillance. But the level of secrecy around the current legal procedure…

It's well-known that there are restrictions on how much companies can legally disclose about some of these government requests.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#389

Post by amatix »

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.

There are several governments (Spain, France, Netherlands, Japan) who publicly have Root CAs in the trusted browser list[1]. It seems pretty likely (cf say, Prism) that the NSA has a CA cert where they can generate whatever certificates they want in order to MITM browser SSL communications...

[1] http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/certs/

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#390

Post by rayiner »

lifeguard wrote: post #369
rayiner wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying otherwise. But flaming the government for acting Unconstitutionally for activity that is not contrary to the text of the document is lame and misleading. If you think there should be a right to privacy of electronic communications, then convince people of it. Get an amendment passe. Don't twist the Constitution to say what you wish it said.

I disagree with your definition of papers. And that is why we have Judges.

Your disagreement isn't with my definition of "papers" (we both probably agree that "papers" can easily be read to encompass both physical and digital documents). Your disagreement is with my assertion that handing your "papers" over to a third party robs you of any 4th amendment interest you might have had in those documents.
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