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.'"

Comments

Conversation between Google and NSA

[elrous0]

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...

Re:Conversation between Google and NSA

[JWSmythe]

    They running Windows on their desktops, the NSA already had access.

Re:Conversation between Google and NSA

[elrous0]

Are those the same sources that used to say the NSA doesn't tap domestic phone calls--before a whistleblower outed them for doing exactly that?

joint-venture

[muckracer]

As part of the agreement a new slogan to be used jointly by both Google and the NSA has been implemented:

"No Such Evil" ...

Re:Really it means...

[horza]

It makes sense. I am having a professional burglar come around tomorrow to check my locks. I told him not to come around tonight as I won't be in.

Phillip.

Different Experts , but also deniability

[gnieboer]

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.

Security is NOT an issue with The Cloud.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.