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Larry Page addresses PRISM

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Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#401

Post by A1kmm »

Dove wrote: post #284
rsingel wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's 2 different things going on, under different legal authorities and Google is confusing them. Verizon was given a Patriot Act order for business records, metadata; no names; no content, but all citizens or foreigner. Google and other tech companies are said to have gotten orders under section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. That allows the government to compel communications companies to furnish lots o…

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…

I think there are a lot of possibilities that could be consistent with Page's statement that also involve the NSA spying on Google users. For example, perhaps the NSA asked Google to disclose their SSL private keys; then, if they are willing to do an active attack with their own infrastructure, they could transparently perform a MITM attack on all requests to gmail, and it would be virtually undetectable.

Another possibility is that the NSA could have served orders on Google employees directly, and they are compelled not to tell their managers about what they did for the NSA.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#402

Post by zobzu »

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…

Thats because they do give access through court orders, etc, ie "indirect access". Then again if they're "lying" then it means indirect access as in "they had to authenticate first!!"

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#403

Post by RWeaver »

sullivandanny wrote: post #374
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.

No, it's not. What little we've had about super-secret legal requests isn't that companies have to lie about them. It's that they can't acknowledge them at all. So the answer they give when asked, and they do get asked, is "no comment." If they were voluntarily part of PRISM, and legally required to keep that quiet, I'd expect them to say "no comment." Doing the opposite make so little sense. It means they're having…

The thing is "no comment" would basically confirm that 'something' is happening that's secret. Everyone would go conspiracy wild and pull everything they have away from Google.

They probably want to confirm it, but in a completely open and transparent way that assures people there's nothing they should fear here, which they can't do because it's all cloaked in secrecy.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#405

Post by adventured »

tomkarlo wrote: post #384
gibsonf1 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The Feds have direct taps into every major telecom carrier in the US. You can't fire off a search query to Google without the Feds technically being able to pick it up.

Access is trivial, volume is a much more interesting problem.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#406

Post by adventured »

silenteh wrote: post #324
rsingel wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's 2 different things going on, under different legal authorities and Google is confusing them. Verizon was given a Patriot Act order for business records, metadata; no names; no content, but all citizens or foreigner. Google and other tech companies are said to have gotten orders under section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. That allows the government to compel communications companies to furnish lots o…

Unless I am mistaken US and most European countries are based on Democracy. Wikipedia defines Democracy as a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Granted, wikipedia is not the oracle but it gives a good definition in my opinion. Does, the gathering of my personal data, affect my life ? Well in my personal opinion it does, therefore I should be i…

The US was based on the ideas of a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#408

Post by adventured »

white_devil wrote: post #287
Dove wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Page is clearly and unambiguously denying that Google supplies any information to the government on a millions-of-users scale. Kind of like Mariano Rajoy insisted that Spain didn't need a bailout?

And the Federal Reserve said there was no real estate bubble to worry about. And the banks were well capitalized.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#409

Post by adventured »

davros wrote: post #358
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 problem is that Obama himself has acknowledged the program both exists and is very active, the only limitation being 'Internet monitoring is only for those outside United States'- no comfort for Google users like myself outside the US[1]. I don't mind targeted surveillance against genuine suspected terrorists. What frightens me is broader intelligence collection especially commercial intelligence. Over time progr…

I find it fascinating that Matt Cutts didn't bother to address any of this in his defense of Google. Obama and James Clapper have both admitted to what is obviously Prism, a large scale spying program targeting Internet users and their data.

It rather makes it clear that Google is participating in espionage programs for the NSA. Supposedly, maybe, it isn't directed at Americans (har har).

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#410

Post by declan »

davros wrote: post #358
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 problem is that Obama himself has acknowledged the program both exists and is very active, the only limitation being 'Internet monitoring is only for those outside United States'- no comfort for Google users like myself outside the US[1]. I don't mind targeted surveillance against genuine suspected terrorists. What frightens me is broader intelligence collection especially commercial intelligence. Over time progr…

Obama has acknowledged that federal law allows FedGov to obtain emails of non-citizens without a search warrant but through a court-overseen process. This is part of a 2008 law that we all know (if you've been paying attention) does this.

The president has not, however, confirmed that the news reports about "PRISM" are accurate. All he's done is summarized the law.

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