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

Asking the U.S. to allow Google to publish more national security request data

googleblog.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 189 posts

Re: Asking the U.S. to allow Google to publish more national security request data

#11

Post by tptacek »

mtgx wrote: post #8

I'm only upvoting this not because I have much loyalty or trust left for Google, but because I want many other companies to follow their lead and flood the Administration with such requests. I still feel this does very little, though. They need to be asking them for much more. They need to ask them to end the spying. Until then I'm still hoping Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others will suffer greatly for this abroa…

So you'll be happy when the US ends all foreign signals intelligence? Or makes the Internet a safe haven from signals intelligence?

Also: by offering PGP in GMail, Google would harm online security. If you want PGP, install it on your computer. Google won't do anything to stop you.

Re: Asking the U.S. to allow Google to publish more national security request data

#12

Post by rasterizer »

jka wrote: post #5

Aggregate number of requests is one thing, but perhaps some indication of how much content is provided with the average request would be required to really indicate what is going on here? An API may serve millions of requests per day and return single-integer responses, or it might serve one batch query per day and provide a nested document with many sub-sections.

"millions of requests per day"?! the number of FISA requests since 1979 is just short of 34,000: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/06/fisa-court-nsa-spyin...

Let's try and keep the speculation to a minimum.

Re: Asking the U.S. to allow Google to publish more national security request data

#13

Post by tptacek »

In expressing his view that Google is being harmed by USG's lack of transparency (combined with the godawful operational security of the contractor-run intelligence agencies), is Google's chief counsel here starting to build the standing to sue the government?

If this whole debacle sets up an epic confrontation between Google and the DoJ, I may have to reevaluate how irritated I am at how "Prism" has been reported. More Greenwald agita! Let's see if we can pick a fight!

Re: Asking the U.S. to allow Google to publish more national security request data

#14

Post by RobAtticus »

rasterizer wrote: post #12
jka wrote: post #5

Aggregate number of requests is one thing, but perhaps some indication of how much content is provided with the average request would be required to really indicate what is going on here? An API may serve millions of requests per day and return single-integer responses, or it might serve one batch query per day and provide a nested document with many sub-sections.

"millions of requests per day"?! the number of FISA requests since 1979 is just short of 34,000: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/06/fisa-court-nsa-spyin... Let's try and keep the speculation to a minimum.

Pretty sure he was just giving a generic example rather than specifically talking about this case.

Re: Asking the U.S. to allow Google to publish more national security request data

#15

Post by masterzora »

rasterizer wrote: post #12
jka wrote: post #5

Aggregate number of requests is one thing, but perhaps some indication of how much content is provided with the average request would be required to really indicate what is going on here? An API may serve millions of requests per day and return single-integer responses, or it might serve one batch query per day and provide a nested document with many sub-sections.

"millions of requests per day"?! the number of FISA requests since 1979 is just short of 34,000: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/06/fisa-court-nsa-spyin... Let's try and keep the speculation to a minimum.

It seems less like speculation and more an example of how raw number of requests doesn't mean a whole lot in and of itself.

Re: Asking the U.S. to allow Google to publish more national security request data

#16

Post by WestCoastJustin »

You have to think, that with the limited data they are allowed to release, this must be extremely frustrating! A true rock and a hard place. The general public are led to believe, that they are willing to conspire secretly together with the government, to spy on their customers, must not only be infuriating, but brand damaging! Then you are required by law not to defend yourself ;)

p.s. I'm taking google at their word -- that they are not giving 'direct access' to the NSA. I am assuming they know, that the truth could leak out at some point, where they to lie about it.

Re: Asking the U.S. to allow Google to publish more national security request data

#17

Post by jlgreco »

youngerdryas wrote: post #4

>Assertions in the press that our compliance with these requests gives the U.S. government unfettered access to our users’ data are simply untrue. However, government nondisclosure obligations regarding the number of FISA national security requests that Google receives, as well as the number of accounts covered by those requests, fuel that speculation. Sounds suspiciously like they are going to ruin everyone's nerd r…

You really love that phrase, don't you? I'm sure in other communities it is a great way to marginalize those with interests that you do not share.

Re: Asking the U.S. to allow Google to publish more national security request data

#18

Post by lignuist »

I'm more interested in the international numbers, as US politics seems to differentiate between US citizens and non-US citizens when it comes to human rights.

Edit: Or is this also including requests for users in other countries? Sorry, English is not my mother tongue, so I might got it wrong.

Re: Asking the U.S. to allow Google to publish more national security request data

#19

Post by rdl »

tptacek wrote: post #11
mtgx wrote: post #8

I'm only upvoting this not because I have much loyalty or trust left for Google, but because I want many other companies to follow their lead and flood the Administration with such requests. I still feel this does very little, though. They need to be asking them for much more. They need to ask them to end the spying. Until then I'm still hoping Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others will suffer greatly for this abroa…

So you'll be happy when the US ends all foreign signals intelligence? Or makes the Internet a safe haven from signals intelligence? Also: by offering PGP in GMail, Google would harm online security. If you want PGP, install it on your computer. Google won't do anything to stop you.

1. Google probably should offer passive S/MIME on mail. START TLS goes a long way, but providing the same signals about message authenticity to people who IMAP from gmail as who use the web UI would be nice.

A non-google-trusting way to do PGP with a better UI/UX would also be a nice feature for gmail. Just indicating "encrypted" at the message-list view or something. I have PGP working quite nicely in mutt, but a lot of people seem to prefer webmail.

2. I'd actually prefer a world where signals intelligence, outside extremely tactical intelligence, were impossible through technical means. I think we'll be there at some point, just because the cost of protection is dropping.

(confidentiality and message integrity should be feasible for any reasonable government defender at this point. traffic analysis/direction finding/etc. burns bandwidth and latency budgets, so that might be harder, but you can do arbitrarily well.)

The US (government and citizens/private industry) probably has more to gain from universally strong COMSEC vs. effective USG SIGINT.

Re: Asking the U.S. to allow Google to publish more national security request data

#20

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #11
mtgx wrote: post #8

I'm only upvoting this not because I have much loyalty or trust left for Google, but because I want many other companies to follow their lead and flood the Administration with such requests. I still feel this does very little, though. They need to be asking them for much more. They need to ask them to end the spying. Until then I'm still hoping Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others will suffer greatly for this abroa…

So you'll be happy when the US ends all foreign signals intelligence? Or makes the Internet a safe haven from signals intelligence? Also: by offering PGP in GMail, Google would harm online security. If you want PGP, install it on your computer. Google won't do anything to stop you.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN