Larry Page addresses PRISM • Hacker News Board

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#231

Post by magicalist » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 9:28 PM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #134

magicalist wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the Wired story on it, it's four 25,000 square foot data center buildings[1]. That's smaller than one of Apple's smaller data centers. Apple's Oregon one is going to be 500,000 square feet. It's not going to be able to hold more than an average size datacenter, and there are a lot of data centers out there, each holding more data that would have to be copied. The NSA has huge capabilities, but they're no…

> It's not going to be able to hold more than an average size datacenter, and there are a lot of data centers out there. T Why not? Most data centers aren't designed to store a bunch of stuff, but instead are designed to serve a lot of users. Facebook has at least one storage forward data center and it packs an exabyte into a 60k sqft footprint: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/01/18/faceb... ; I don'…

I was replying to the fantastical claim that the datacenter "was designed to host more storage than existed on the entire planet at the time". Of course 100,000 square feet is a medium sized data center and can hold quite a bit of data. If you're happy to go even slower, you could fit even more in with a tape archive that big. You're still so very very far away from a data center sucking up all human-produced data (even accounting for duplication) and storing it for later retrieval and analysis as many here apparently believe.

So yes, the NSA does have a new datacenter. But no, it's not the new Area 51 nor is it host to magic computers.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#232

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 9:28 PM UTC

cheald wrote: post #170

sjs382 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We obviously stil have a lot to learn about PRISM... But with that said, I have some conflicting instincts & feelings about all of this and the company responses. On one hand, I would think a very-visible CEO of a major corp would keep their name off of a press release, if the press release was a lie that they were compelled to tell by the government. On the other hand, I feel like each company's response and their u…

I completely agree, and I don't know how to reconcile the two. If I was going to go completely conspiracy-nutter, I'd say that Page has been kept out of the loop intentionally for plausible deniability, and the actual incursion happens at a much lower level, where the people involved are coerced into keeping their mouths shut. That way, the bigwigs get to tell what they think is the truth, the NSA gets their data, an…

[deleted]

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#233

Post by akjetma » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 9:28 PM UTC

necubi wrote: post #48

For all those complaining about the language of this and other denials, what could possibly satisfy you? This seems as blanket as possible. "Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process." "We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exi…

In order to consider the possibility that this is clever language avoiding the truth of the issue, can someone explain how a system might work where google maintains plausible deniability while allowing access to the information it collects?

I have a naive understanding of how the internet works at the physical layer, but it seems like it would be trivial to create a system that allows for this statement to be true and for the data to actually be captured.

For an oversimplified, spherical-cow-in-a-vacuum example: if the user is the source in a passive optical network[1] and both the nsa and google are targets, google has not provided access to their data to the nsa, the user has.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_optical_network

edit: And what would a statement of denial that is inclusive of all possible arrangements sound like? I think that any statement that asserts a one-to-one correspondence between you and google would be unrealistic.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#234

Post by abraham » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 9:29 PM UTC

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #191

chime wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EFF is certainly doing a great job right now, so donations are definitely going to help. Let me ask you this - do you feel 100% comfortable that nobody outside of Google can read your personal gmail?

Me personally? I do. I still want Google to up the number of key bits on our SSL connections, plus explore how to make the connection even more secure though. But yes, I'm quite confident.

It looks like the security team is currently working on upping the SSL bits.

http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2013/05/changes-to-...

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#235

Post by brown9-2 » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 9:29 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #36

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…

There is another explanation: https://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001431.html

This is incredibly far fetched. None of the audit controls at these companies notice that these employees are constantly accessing user's private data? And these double-agent employees manage to do all this secret work while still maintaining a cover as a regular employee who does well enough of a job to get good perf reviews and stick around?

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#236

Post by andreyf » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 9:30 PM UTC

brymaster wrote: post #184

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come on. Google is willing and able to push back on overly broad governmental requests. When the Department of Justice sent subpoenas to 34 companies in 2005 asking for months of user queries, Google was the only company I know of that fought back in court and won. I know because I wrote a declaration for that case. See http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/doj-sent-subpoenas-to-34-compa... ; and http://www.mattcutts.com/…

Matt, I know you really love Google but you need to do a bit more research: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/google-nsa-secrecy-...

Equating the allegations denied in this post to the response to an attack by a nation state against Google is kind of like comparing reporting a robbery to the police to criminally conspiring with them.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#237

Post by necubi » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 9:31 PM UTC

drsintoma wrote: post #226

andreyf wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you quote/link to Obama's confirmation that Prism exists, and also the claim that it is imaginary?

> Could you quote/link to Obama's confirmation that Prism exists I'll give you gizmodo because it has specifically the quotes http://gizmodo.com/president-obamas-prism-response-wont-make...

None of those seem to have anything to do with PRISM. This is a confusing situation, because two secret surveillance programs were leaked on subsequent days. These seem to be related to the first leaked program, which involves collection of Verizon's call metadata. That seems pretty clear-cut. Verizon has issued a non-denial, it's in line with what we've known about the NSA's conduct since 9/11, and various members of congress and the executive branch have commented on it.

PRISM is a completely separate issue and one I'm much more skeptical about. I also haven't seen anybody specifically admit to PRISM's existence, so I'd be interested if you can find a better source.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#238

Post by Nelson69 » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 9:31 PM UTC

Dove wrote: post #34

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…

Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false. I'm not sure how much more strongly you'd like t…

What's become very clear is that there is a lot of careful parsing going on. Careful parsing of the constitution, careful parsing of various laws, very very careful interpretation of the words on the page.

Does Google give anyone, any company, any entity, anyone at all direct access to their data? They've specifically excluded NSA. Does NSA subcontract that to Booz Allen Hamilton? Google claims that no government has this access, what about one of the 1200+ Top Secret cleared contracting companies?

Can these companies officially comment on this stuff yet? Or are they violating court orders if they talk about it? I like Google, I really want to trust them and I think they've moved the needle in our industry in some very positive ways. Honestly though, I think they could make much much stronger statements about this stuff. I expect them to say stuff like this to keep up with appearances.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#239

Post by blibble » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 9:31 PM UTC

defen wrote: post #216

blibble wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one person, maybe not, but if you're a intelligence agency with a multi-million dollar budget to tap Google, you'd probe the organisation and bribe those with access, and anyone in the chain those employees could credibly report to. this isn't difficult or particularity far-fetched!

Don't you think China/Russia/Israel/etc would have attempted/done the same thing, too?

who says they haven't? maybe not completely (it's way easier for the US, as most of Google resides on US soil), but you can bet they have people in a position to extract at least some data on demand.

this has previously happened: stuxnet (a product of several intelligence agencies) was digitally signed by a large semiconductor company!

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#240

Post by cromwellian » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 9:31 PM UTC

There's a new kind of Birther or Truther, let's call them PRISMers. No amount of denials or evidence to the contrary, no matter how they are worded or exposed, will satisfy PRISMers that Google is not uploading all user activity to the NSA. It's just impossible to repair the harm that's been done to the brand by the government.

For some people, I doubt trust can ever be regained. Companies affected by this PRISM program should sue the US Government for damages, or at least sue them until it is completely declassified.