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

Google encrypts data amid backlash against NSA spying

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 153 posts

Re: Google encrypts data amid backlash against NSA spying

#21

Post by cloudwalking »

adrianlmm wrote: post #12
myko wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What US company doesn't cooperate with the NSA? Google responds to lawful requests by the US government as appropriate. It's up to US citizens to change the law if they don't like it.

If Google really wants to help then it should stop tracking their users, stop spying on me and stop trying to force me to sing up to G+, they cannot give data to the NSA if they stop getting it as simple as that, but, all the NSA has to do is buy the information from Google, after all, they sell it.

If you don't want to be tracked and you don't want to use Google+, stop using Google products.

Google does not sell data to anybody. They sell advertising slots.

Re: Google encrypts data amid backlash against NSA spying

#23

Post by ams6110 »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #6

Meh. My most importance source of data in Google's control is my email. They aren't doing much to help me protect myself there. My only wish is that they provide a stable hook for tools like Firegpg [1] to encrypt the email's plaintext. Their constant tweaking of the textbox led FireGPG's developers to throw in the towel. I understand that Google wants to read your emails to power their ads. I doubt the fraction of p…

There are limits to what Google can do to protect your email. If you email someone outside of the gmail service, your message will leave their data centers and travel over the public internet, possibly unencrypted at various points (unless you GPG it yourself) depending on what the various SMTP relays along the way do.

Re: Google encrypts data amid backlash against NSA spying

#24

Post by zmmmmm »

My main reaction to this was, ummm, wait - google isn't already encrypting its data internally?!

-- off topic rant --

Such a weird discontinuity in all this ... Google was prosecuted and paid a fine, despite self-disclosing, falling on its own sword and issuing an abject apology, for accidentally sniffing some unencrypted data as they drove past. This was condemned at every level by government.

Now the government is openly sniffing and capturing everything, including our encrypted traffic and deliberately trying to crack the encryption, ... and they don't think it is the slightest bit unreasonable?

How can there be moral outrage about Google's offense and not about what the government is doing that is ten times worse?

Re: Google encrypts data amid backlash against NSA spying

#25

Post by smutt »

sjbach wrote: post #4

A salient bit: [Eric] Grosse echoed comments from other Google officials, saying that the company resists government surveillance and has never weakened its encryption systems to make snooping easier — as some companies reportedly have, according to the Snowden documents detailed by the Times and the Guardian on Thursday. “This is a just a point of personal honor,” Grosse said. “It will not happen here.” Some folks a…

It's not really Google's call. If they're issued an NSL the opinions of any employees are irrelevant. Either they comply or someone goes to jail.

I, and many others, would appreciate it if they fought such things. And if they would fight the good fight on the policy fronts. But ultimately Google does not make or interpret the law.

Re: Google encrypts data amid backlash against NSA spying

#26

Post by brown9-2 »

Zigurd wrote: post #5

> Encrypting information flowing among data centers will not make it impossible for intelligence agencies to snoop on individual users of Google services, nor will it have any effect on legal requirements that the company comply with court orders or valid national security requests for data. How does this do anything about pervasive NSA spying? The NSA has broken SSL and VPNs by corrupting the CAs and the VPN vendors…

How is ssl broken when many different ciphers can be used?

Re: Google encrypts data amid backlash against NSA spying

#27

Post by tlrobinson »

Are they suggesting the NSA is tapping intra-data center communications? I hadn't seen that suggested before.

That's interesting. I hadn't considered that could be how Prism works, but it would make sense if these companies weren't encrypting those connections previously. Somehow I assumed they were.

Re: Google encrypts data amid backlash against NSA spying

#29

Post by anxiousest »

adrianlmm wrote: post #12
myko wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What US company doesn't cooperate with the NSA? Google responds to lawful requests by the US government as appropriate. It's up to US citizens to change the law if they don't like it.

If Google really wants to help then it should stop tracking their users, stop spying on me and stop trying to force me to sing up to G+, they cannot give data to the NSA if they stop getting it as simple as that, but, all the NSA has to do is buy the information from Google, after all, they sell it.

Their business - like that of most tech companies - is built on data (so is every business to some degree) they can't forgo data, that is stupid. If the NSA is your main concern then it's government policy you want to be changed, not the engineering decisions of private companies. Also worth mentioning that unless you're speaking of telecom companies there is no profit motive to cooperating with government but mainly legal obligations.

Re: Google encrypts data amid backlash against NSA spying

#30

Post by drcode »

sjbach wrote: post #4

A salient bit: [Eric] Grosse echoed comments from other Google officials, saying that the company resists government surveillance and has never weakened its encryption systems to make snooping easier — as some companies reportedly have, according to the Snowden documents detailed by the Times and the Guardian on Thursday. “This is a just a point of personal honor,” Grosse said. “It will not happen here.” Some folks a…

Since Google is able (and willing, when asked by the government) to decrypt everybody's email at will, and continues to build software that maintains their absolute power to do this, I really don't give a f@#k whether they promise to use 256 bit encryption, 512 bit encryption or 23439287239 bit encryption.
Post reply on HN