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NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

washingtonpost.com

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Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#91

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

bradleyjg wrote: post #41
tptacek wrote: post #2

It's hard not to come to the conclusion that these activities were essentially criminal. I don't see how the administration can fail to disavow them, investigate them fully, and hold their instigators accountable. It feels like Special Prosecutor time. That aside, let me re-make a point I keep making: Google had no knowledge of NSA's physical compromise of their data centers. But still, they pushed harder than anyone…

> It's hard not to come to the conclusion that these activities were essentially criminal. I don't see how the administration can fail to disavow them, investigate them fully, and hold their instigators accountable. It feels like Special Prosecutor time. The government takes the position that their agents are almost completely unconstrained by law when it comes to actions taken abroad aimed at non-US persons. Even we…

> actions taken abroad aimed at non-US persons.

And there is an interesting counterpoint to that, e.g.

> "If the Americans eavesdropped on cellphones in Germany, they broke German law on German soil, and those responsible must be held accountable."

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/10/28/world/obama-unaw...

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#92

Post by ori_b »

mapgrep wrote: post #77
tptacek wrote: post #2

It's hard not to come to the conclusion that these activities were essentially criminal. I don't see how the administration can fail to disavow them, investigate them fully, and hold their instigators accountable. It feels like Special Prosecutor time. That aside, let me re-make a point I keep making: Google had no knowledge of NSA's physical compromise of their data centers. But still, they pushed harder than anyone…

Google was letting information flow between its data centers completely unencrypted until last month . http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-enc... Last month! Think about that for a second. Most people on HN wouldn't send a single file to their own backup provider in the clear. Google was sending gushing torrents of data, presumably including email, IMs, etc, over long distances that way. That's v…

> Google was letting information flow between its data center completely unencrypted until last month. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-enc.... Last month!

Over their own private WAN. The analogy would be sending things in the clear over your LAN. [Citation: http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~rcs/research/google-onrc-slide...]

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#93

Post by gknoy »

dragonwriter wrote: post #59
robterrell wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing he said actually responds to the allegations.

Specifically, he denies direct NSA access to the systems, and says that NSA would need to use a court process to gain such access, but the report is that the UK's GCHQ is actually tapping the systems and the GCHQ is sharing the captured data with NSA.

More importantly, he was never asked if they had access to the information passing _between_ datacenters, and so his reply was technically correct. "We don't collect that under this program", "We don't have access to those _servers_", etc (emphasis added).

Politicians are often adept at replying very carefully to questioning by congress or courts so that they can be entirely truthful when answering your questions, all while avoiding telling you what you really needed to know because you never asked the right question.

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#94

Post by acqq »

mladenkovacevic wrote: post #71

So does this suggest that Google's SSL encryption can be removed just as easily as that smiley face implies? If this is true my next question would be does NSA have access to the keys or are they removing encryption in some other more technically involved way?

The spies tap the side where there's no encryption. SSL encryption is by Google's design removed by Google at the point marked with the smiley face.

The trick is that Google has to move a lot of data between their own servers on the different locations (even different continents) and that traffic is not encrypted. That's why "Two engineers with close ties to Google exploded in profanity when they saw the drawing." It was that easy.

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#95

Post by gfodor »

cromwellian wrote: post #86

Why didn't they release these documents a long time ago when everyone was racing to judgement that Google, Yahoo, et al were secretly in cahoots with the NSA helping to build drag-net surveillance extranet stuff for them? These are very important revelations! I mean, when Greenwald/Snowden/Guardian released the original PRISM accusations, these slides would have provided a much much more important set of evidence, in…

We're still talking about Snowden. This is the reason.

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#96

Post by BillyMaize »

bo1024 wrote: post #65
gohrt wrote: post #7

I hope that this finally convinces everyone that it doesn't matter whether Google is "Evil" or Yahoo is more evil or whatever. What matters is that large cloud systems are fundamentally incapable of protecting data. Even the most goodhearted and the most talented teams can't reliably defend against a massively funded adversary. Secrets are for keeping, not sharing.

> What matters is that large cloud systems are fundamentally incapable of protecting data. I don't believe that's true. 1. Google (and others?) is already aggressively increasing the amount of encryption it does on traffic between its datacenters. So they have been addressing this problem before it was even brought to light. 2. We easily have the encryption abilities to do many more things than we do with secure clou…

>In theory, fully homomorphic encryption could allow the best of both worlds above. I completely encrypt my data on my machine --- nobody else has the key --- then send it into the cloud where cloud companies can do operations for me like searching, sorting, filtering, etc, all without ever decrypting the data or learning what it is.

Can you explain this to me? I don't understand how you can search encrypted data.

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#97

Post by eck »

kamjam wrote: post #75
hackula1 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine anyone with a line on their resume that says "NSA - Software Developer - 2009:Present" is going to have a hard time finding a new job at many companies (although certainly not all).

On the flip side of that, maybe you do want ex-NSA staff with the inside knowledge so you can protect yourself against their tactics. Isn't that the same reasoning for hiring ex-black hat hackers?

If someone is willing to divulge inside knowledge of his last employer you have to assume that in the future he will be willing to divulge your inside knowledge.

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#98

Post by jakewalker »

cromwellian wrote: post #86

Why didn't they release these documents a long time ago when everyone was racing to judgement that Google, Yahoo, et al were secretly in cahoots with the NSA helping to build drag-net surveillance extranet stuff for them? These are very important revelations! I mean, when Greenwald/Snowden/Guardian released the original PRISM accusations, these slides would have provided a much much more important set of evidence, in…

Who knows how many thousands of pages they need to read and understand? Also, don't underestimate the difficulty of a reporter understanding these thousands of documents sufficiently to recognize when one is really important.

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#99

Post by bhousel »

dlinder wrote: post #26
tptacek wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google appears to have been so on the ball with this stuff that the NSA literally had to send bag men to their cages in order to retain access.

When your opponent uses Navy submarines to tap undersea cables right under the Soviets' noses, you probably shouldn't trust your leased fiber with unencrypted data. This interception could occur where undersea cables make landfall without any datacenter antics.

Why would NSA agents go through all the trouble of tapping cables when they could probably just gain employment at Google and do whatever they want. I don't think encryption would make a difference here.

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#100

Post by tiziano88 »

mapgrep wrote: post #77
tptacek wrote: post #2

It's hard not to come to the conclusion that these activities were essentially criminal. I don't see how the administration can fail to disavow them, investigate them fully, and hold their instigators accountable. It feels like Special Prosecutor time. That aside, let me re-make a point I keep making: Google had no knowledge of NSA's physical compromise of their data centers. But still, they pushed harder than anyone…

Google was letting information flow between its data centers completely unencrypted until last month . http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-enc... Last month! Think about that for a second. Most people on HN wouldn't send a single file to their own backup provider in the clear. Google was sending gushing torrents of data, presumably including email, IMs, etc, over long distances that way. That's v…

inter-datacentre communication most likely happens on dedicated networks "outside" the internet
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