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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

#321

Post by PavlovsCat »

allochthon wrote: post #311
PavlovsCat wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every single country out there that has a foreign policy and interests abroad behaves in this way to one extent or another. I'm German, and I can't remember ever having heard such a distinction - that some things are okay when done to foreigners, but not when done to Germans - apart from neo-nazis. Sure, who knows what the BND is up to. But "behaving this way" also includes rhetoric that is not just considered acce…

Sorry, I wasn't as clear as I wanted to be -- by "behaving this way," I had in mind the existence of government programs for surveillance and spying; not one-sided complaints on the part of citizens about such programs.

Well sure, people in positions of power pretty much equally suck everywhere, I think we can consider this as baseline. But I do find it disturbing that "American exceptionalism" seems to be rather widely accepted the US population, and that they're not even ashamed to express it, and that state officials implicitly or openly do the same. I have no doubt that some people in Germany harbour similar sentiments, but they're really at the fringes and in the dumps in comparison.

Also, scale still matters. Killing a person or slapping them in the face are both violence, but there is still a difference, otherwise we could just reduce all to "physical and chemical processess going on" and completely stop thinking. I don't believe for a second that Germany, or even France, Italy or Russia (which I consider rather right wing) have programs to scoop up traffic from Google's internal network in place. Maybe they would like to, but they can't pull it off. And while I wouldn't bet on it, I wouldn't be surprised if China doesn't either.

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

#322

Post by jganetsk »

danbruc wrote: post #156
bradleyjg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I am at a loss for words. Arrogant, self-righteous, disrespectful, ignorant, mendacious...nothing cuts it. It is illegal in the US but who cares about the rest of the world? I can not remember when something similar made me that angry as the current conduct of the US does. If I would not know better that this would negatively affect the whole world and innocent US citizens and that emotional reactions are usually not…

But, by denying movement, you are suggesting to treat US citizens as second class humans. To what purpose? in order to punish them? To educate them about your importance?

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

#323

Post by alan_cx »

adventured wrote: post #200

Google will never do it, but they should drown the NSA in bullshit data. So much so it literally chokes the NSA's ability to spy on Google's services. Google is one of the few companies that could pull it off. They have $56 billion in cash and nothing to do with it apparently. They generate $12 billion in profit annually and growing. They have more financial resources, computing power, and brain power than the NSA do…

A better use of all that money would be to play the lobbying game the enemies of freedom so effectively play.

This is the the thing I completely fail to understand. If all these huge tech firms with all this cash really care about privacy, people, US reputation, etc, then why are they not pouring their money in to politics like, say, the weapons manufacturers do? Why aren't they "buying" politicians?

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

#324

Post by cromwellian »

selmnoo wrote: post #284
cromwellian wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security is based on threat model. The spooks have capabilities that far exceed the threat models most companies assume from private blackhats. You think it is obvious to assume in hindsight that the government would dig up and tap your dark fiber, but you don't think it obvious the government would plant spies to do in-side-the-data-center taps. Now what? Encrypt all data between switches? The Soviets didn't think t…

I'm not getting through to you. At the end of the day, Google lost. To a considerable extent, cloud lost. People who were trusting Google with their data lost. What is ostensibly true at this point at is that Google could have done something to have prevented this. All else is immaterial. Just like I would expect to lose business if I made a mistake and had data compromised (because doing X and Y was too difficult or…

Well, it would help if you would write in a way that is not insulting and condescending.

There's no "if" about it. All security is based on threat model, the lock on your front door is based on the threat of the average criminal, and not Watergate burglars. Are you guilty of bad security? Is it your fault if your front door lock gets picked because you made assumptions about the sophistication of your attacker?

You originally said "I'll never trust them again", but that beg's the question, just who will you trust? Unless you are using end-to-end encryption with everyone, there is no way to secure against NSA interception, and pretty much all of Google's cloud competitors are actually worse in terms of deployed security. And assuming end-to-end is secure is basically just assuming a threat model where the NSA or Chinese government can't plant infected firmware or hardware in your devices.

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

#325

Post by DannyBee »

zachrose wrote: post #121
ori_b wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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... ]

Google doesn't actually own the underwater cables though. So isn't the analogy more like sending things through a LAN in a building that you're renting?

http://gigaom.com/2008/02/25/googlenet-update-google-buys-a-...

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

#326

Post by sneak »

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 had no knowledge of NSA's physical compromise of their data centers.

You speak of Google as if it were a single person and not 46,000 people, or as if the threat of a long-term federal prison sentence isn't enough to make most members of society keep absolutely quiet.

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

#327

Post by acqq »

jlgreco wrote: post #309
icelancer wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>not all US citizens The vast majority of citizens support these initiatives. Given the winner-take-all approach we employ, it is not a stretch to say that yes, we all share blame.

Part of Obama's campaign was an end to warrentless wiretaps. Now, if people were paying closer attention, then maybe they would have known better than to trust him (or indeed, any American politician), but I think it is quite a stretch to say that the people are to blame when a politician is less than honest. Furthermore, the people who are to blame for our current political system are long dead. Everyone alive today…

Exactly, Obama in 2007:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAQlsS9diBs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fnfVJzZT4

"This Administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand." (...) "That means no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. That is not who we are. And it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists."

This should be quoted much more often.

Regarding "work within the framework to modify the framework" Snowden decided not to work within it and we still don't know what will happen to him.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130726/01200123954/obama-...

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

#328

Post by MichaelGG »

CoryG89 wrote: post #288

As a software engineer just about to graduate from college. When I see drawings like that I just can't believe that people who know enough to draw something like that can actually do it without feeling like they are the definition of evil.

Why is it so hard to understand that there are intelligent people that honestly believe they're doing something that will ultimately benefit their country? People have done far worse in the name of a country or ideal.

For people outraged over the apparent happiness of the people that tapped Google, I imagine they've never broken a system. A breakthrough on a project is extremely enjoyable. Finding that Google removed SSL is like testing an app and finding it doesn't sanitize inputs it passes to a shell script as root.

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

#329

Post by PavlovsCat »

jganetsk wrote: post #320
devx wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, not only do a lot of US citizens still support such practices (I think around 40 percent - as long as they mention "to protect you from terrorists"), but most of the rest who don't agree with the practices, can't be bothered to do much about it, like even calling their representative, let alone going out and protesting. I do believe this is very true: > All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for…

People are not going to start hating Americans. They have already been hating Americans for hundreds of years. It started with the "degeneracy thesis" in the 18th century, where it had been suggested by European intellectuals that the American climate led to physically inferior animals and humans. The reasons for hating Americans change everyday. Hating a group of people is a completely irrational, unconstructive app…

Respect, sure. But "asking nicely"? How has that not been done already, over and over and over?

"Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people that were oppressing them." -- Assata Shakur

Even though we could argue about wether this stuff consititutes "oppression", I think the point still applies, sadly.

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

#330

Post by chubot »

ck2 wrote: post #242
outworlder wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fiber optic links are not so easily compromised. Not without service interruption, which will raise quite a few eyebrows.

The US has submarines which are entirely designed to splice fiber optics without interruption. They literally bring part of the cable into the sub and work on it from there.

Citation for that? Seems plausible but I'm interested in any details.
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