Slashdot Mirror
Aurora Attackers Were Looking For Google's Surveillance Database
An anonymous reader writes "When in early 2010 Google shared with the public that they had been breached in what became known as the Aurora attacks, they said that the attackers got their hands on some source code and were looking to access Gmail accounts of Tibetan activists. What they didn't make public is that the hackers have also accessed a database containing information about court-issued surveillance orders that enabled law enforcement agencies to monitor email accounts belonging to diplomats, suspected spies and terrorists. Whether this was the primary goal of the attacks as well as how much information was exfiltrated is unknown. current and former U.S. government officials interviewed by the Washington Post say that the database in question was possibly accessed in order to discover which Chinese intelligence operatives located in the U.S. were under surveillance."
Sorry to cut your wanking session short, but Google is not your friend. As any business, their primary objective is to line their own and their investor's coffers. It is true that some of their PR campaigns and interests align with the political ideals of the average Slashdot user, but to think they spend time and millions of lawyer money fighting the government for the grater good is rather disingenuous.
As we've seen time and again, any project or effort which does not make enough money will be cut. If they did not benefit from a stance against government surveillance, they simply would not bother. Look no further than their silent nodding towards the CISPA as an example.