Slashdot Mirror
Google and NSA Teaming Up
i_frame writes "The Washington Post reports that 'Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter. The objective is to better defend Google — and its users — from future attack.'"
NSA: We need complete access to your gmail system.
Google: Alright! This is to help us with the recent China break-in, right?
NSA: Um, sure...
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
As part of the agreement a new slogan to be used jointly by both Google and the NSA has been implemented:
"No Such Evil" ...
I can defend myself perfectly well, by using the correct tool for the job:
Self hosted mail server: Business, personal, anarchism.
Gmail: Fwding Lolcats.
The objective is to better defend Google — and its users — from future attack.
The objective is to better defend Google — and its users — from future attack by someone other than NSA and...
If anyone thinks this is the first collaboration between Google and the NSA, I've got a wall in China I want to sell you.
The Chinese people would love to hear about their bribes and mistresses. The NSA must have these if they exist.
The NSA has probably captured additional communications related to the attack, aside from what went through Google's network. I'd imagine they generally have far more extensive resources and experience than Google, when it comes to capturing/analyzing communications.
Here I sit, all broken hearted.
Came to poop, but only farted.
Google probably knows more than NSA when it comes to things like search, but when it comes to breaking into a computer that doesn't belong to you, you're not going to find anyone much more knowledgeable than the NSA.
I've said it before, but if Google's investigation points to Chinese government IPs, they must tread on careful ground because they have employees in China that could go to gulag if Google gets too curious.
Involving the NSA allows them a certain level of deniability/immunity, and let's face it, the NSA probably has been tracking Chinese Gov't IP's a lot longer than anyone, so I think it's not a question of 'better' experts, it more a question of experts experienced in doing what Google wants.
I still believe that Google is still holding cards to their chest. I mean, how many other corporate hacks have occurred where the corporation has publicly requested the assistance of the NSA?? I'm not aware of any (though I'm sure someone will post a link showing how little I know!). So I think Google already has very good evidence that the Chinese Gov't was behind it, but is afraid to make that information public.
Google has always been able to use the things people are looking up for evil: if someone using Apple's IP googles a particular microchip's specs, you might infer from that that they might be thinking of using that chip soon.
How about a Chinese IP googling "openssl 0.9.6 exploit".. especially if that IP was just visiting www.$SOMESITE.gov, where the HTTP-headers mention it's using "openssl-0.9.6". Or a Saudi Arabian IP googling for flight info inside the US, and a few seconds later, a Yemeni IP opening up the same URL (hmm, although without that site's cooperation, the NSA won't be able to see that, or are they..?)
Such powers would be interesting, for the wielder. Not so much for victims of its inevitable abuse.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Do no evil, with a little help from Satan.
"Neither care about you." then the NSA would be looking outward. .. near the bad people.
They are building big time in the fly over states.
Not Japan, Australia, the UK ect.
They care about you a lot.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Funny how this topic breeds anonymous coward trolls, and isn't it strangely coincidental that they're all of the same meme. Google is evil. US Government is a bad guy. China is a victim.
I'm sure it's only a coincidence.
http://www.beanleafpress.com
ATT routes all (yes all) their traffic thru the NSA
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2007/11/ex-att-employee-nsa-snooping-internet-traffic-too.ars
This move from Google is more political the security oriented.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
may i recommend detiny url expander a small add on for firefox https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/13140
which expands the above link to http://web.archive.org/web/20001202200100/http://---www.goatse.cx/ (If you really want to click it you will have to go to the parent post)
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Wait a minute. I'm a manager, and I've been reading a lot of case studies and watching a lot of webcasts about The Cloud. Based on all of this glorious marketing literature, I, as a manager, have absolutely no reason to doubt the safety of any data put in The Cloud.
The case studies all use words like "secure", "MD5", "RSS feeds" and "encryption" to describe the security of The Cloud. I don't know about you, but that sounds damn secure to me! Some Clouds even use SSL and HTTP. That's rock solid in my book.
And don't forget that you have to use Web Services to access The Cloud. Nothing is more secure than SOA and Web Services, with the exception of perhaps SaaS. But I think that Cloud Services 2.0 will combine the tiers into an MVC-compliant stack that uses SaaS to increase the security and partitioning of the data.
My main concern isn't with the security of The Cloud, but rather with getting my Indian team to learn all about it so we can deploy some first-generation The Cloud applications and Web Services to provide the ultimate platform upon which we can layer our business intelligence and reporting, because there are still a few verticals that we need to leverage before we can move to The Cloud 2.0.
Schmidt: "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship..."
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
I recommend ChromeMUSE for us Chrome folk.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
You can also turn on the tinyurl preview feature. http://tinyurl.com/preview.php
They wiretapped US citizens in the US without a warrant. That's illegal and immoral, and goes against their charter and policies.
Some people may think that it is not a big deal, but really it is. First, it means (IMHO) that they think they can do anything they want. Based on the lack of political and legal fallout, apparently they are right. So, they have carte blanche to do whatever they want in terms of wiretapping, email reading, decrypting, etc. and there is nothing you can do about it. Second, even if they say they don't do X any more, you have no reason to believe that they do not do X any more.
Yes, SELinux is great, thanks, we do appreciate it, but the betrayal of the laws of the US and the lack of control on this organization overwhelms it.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
These are the good guys
Sure. As long as your definition of "Good Guys" includes domestic warrantless wiretapping.
These are the good guys (unlike the FBI, who are media-whoring, civil-rights-abusing porno-police).
Dick Gordon: National Security Agency.
Martin Bishop: Ah. You're the guys I hear breathing on the other end of my phone.
Dick Gordon: No, that's the FBI. We're not chartered for domestic surveillance.
Martin Bishop: Oh, I see. You just overthrow governments. Set up friendly dictators.
Dick Gordon: No, that's the CIA. We protect our government's communications, we try to break the other fella's codes. We're the good guys, Marty.
Martin Bishop: Gee, I can't tell you what a relief that is... Dick.
(shamelessly copied/pasted from IMDB...)
Why would you click on an a tinyurl link, especially from an AC?
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law