Google To Encrypt All Keyword Searches

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Danny Sullivan reports that in the past month, Google has quietly made a change aimed at encrypting all search activity to provide 'extra protection' for searchers, and possibly to block NSA spying activity. In October 2011, Google began encrypting searches for anyone who was logged into Google. The reason given was privacy. Now, Google has flipped on encryption for people who aren't even signed-in. In June, Google was accused of cooperating with the NSA to give the agency instant and direct access to its search data through the PRISM spying program, something the company has strongly denied. 'I suspect the increased encryption is related to Google's NSA-pushback,' writes Sullivan. 'It may also help ease pressure Google's feeling from tiny players like Duck Duck Go making a "secure search" growth pitch to the media.'"

Comments

Illusion of privacy

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Encrypting the connection between Google and the users isn't going to accomplish anything when the NSA already has full access to Google's servers.
Too little, too late. Way too late.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[geek]

Encrypting the connection between Google and the users isn't going to accomplish anything when the NSA already has full access to Google's servers.

Too little, too late. Way too late.

Google has been very adamant that the NSA does not have access to their servers. I don't know if I believe them or not but that is the premise Google is working off of.

It also means nothing when they cowtow to the national security letters like they do.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[lasermike026]

Agreed. It's over.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[thetoadwarrior]

Doesn't really matter. If they're encrypting it then they can decrypt it so if the NSA wants it then they'll have it.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[dreamchaser]

Not to mention that the NSA probably has backdoors at most major ISP's and can man-in-the-middle decrypt anything they want. As another poster said, it's more or less over.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[abroadwin]

I consider any machine I don't control unsafe, especially servers run by any corporation. Machines I do control are still suspect. At this point the only guarantee is the one that the government has long known to be the best option... air gap. Even that isn't 100%, as evidenced by ip/thumbdrive as with stuxnet, but it's the only way you can consider something private.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[gagol]

They may not agree with it, or even be aware of it, but it still is a very string possibility.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

I dont think you understand how SSL works. Its entire purpose is to defeat MITM.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Even if Google wanted to tell you that the NSA has access to their servers, knowing full well it would kill their bottom line (assuming it would), they'd be forbidden from telling you the truth anyways.

That's actually the scariest thing.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[dreamchaser]

I understand how it works, and there are plenty of devices that do exactly that with SSL traffic. If they can intercept the traffic and have compromised the certificates, which is certainly possible if not definite, they can decrypt it without the user ever knowing. There are even commercial devices that do exactly that.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[vadim_t]

The important thing isn't Google's servers, but the Certificate Authorities.

All that the NSA has to do is to get some CA to emit certificates for Google's domains. Then they can easily place themselves as a man in the middle, and the user won't notice.

No access to Google's servers necessary, then.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[jafiwam]

I dont think you understand how SSL works. Its entire purpose is to defeat MITM.

And YOU don't understand what would happen if "the man" in the middle has access to the certificates, either the masters or the actual certificates themselves.

Do you really think "mysecretdomain.com" certificate from shitty ass low cost certificate provider doesn't have a duplicate key on file at Comodo, Network Solutions, GoDaddy or TwoCows or whatever?

They don't have to brute force or hack anything if they have an appliance in the middle that automatically grabs the certificate from the certificate issuer and spoofs both sides of the connection.

If you want your traffic encrypted, you need to generate your own certificates using software you compiled after you reviewed the code.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[usuallylost]

Do not put to much confidence in SSL. I have tested several firewall products that allow corporations to decrypt SSL traffic coming into their networks. Basically all they need is the ability put a trusted cert on the machine and force you to use a proxy. On a lot of corporate networks your SSL traffic is being decrypted and scanned. My guess is the NSA can do the same thing to you pretty much anytime they want.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[Seumas]

When your executives are so flippant about privacy issues (hello, Schmidt!), it's hard to take them at their word.

When their actions match their words, I'll take it.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[sexconker]

Encrypting the connection between Google and the users isn't going to accomplish anything when the NSA already has full access to Google's servers.

Too little, too late. Way too late.

Google has been very adamant that the NSA does not have access to their servers. I don't know if I believe them or not but that is the premise Google is working off of.

It also means nothing when they cowtow to the national security letters like they do.

1: The NSA doesn't need access to Google's servers. They can MITM any connection that touches a major telco.

2: Google wouldn't even know if the NSA did have access to their servers. NSA has hardware-level backdoors in CPUs, NICs, etc., and of course they also employ meat-level espionage to get people on the inside.

So even if you took Google's statements as honest, they'd be worthless.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[fustakrakich]

...it still is a very string possibility.

Only in theory...

Re:Illusion of privacy

[X0563511]

The NSA doesn't have to have access to the servers if all network traffic is also sent into the NSA's special rack...

Back when I worked in a hosting center the FBI had a little group of machines that were theirs and we were hands-off. Our network admin would occasionally get requests to have traffic to/from particular IPs routed to their "playpen" and he would comply - while this meant they got everything they wanted, nobody was granted any access to someone's server.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want your traffic encrypted, you need to generate your own certificates using software you compiled on multiple independent compilers to counter "trusting trust" after you reviewed the code.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[icebike]

I dont think you understand how SSL works. Its entire purpose is to defeat MITM.

And YOU don't understand what would happen if "the man" in the middle has access to the certificates, either the masters or the actual certificates themselves.

Do you really think "mysecretdomain.com" certificate from shitty ass low cost certificate provider doesn't have a duplicate key on file at Comodo, Network Solutions, GoDaddy or TwoCows or whatever?

They don't have to brute force or hack anything if they have an appliance in the middle that automatically grabs the certificate from the certificate issuer and spoofs both sides of the connection.

If you want your traffic encrypted, you need to generate your own certificates using software you compiled after you reviewed the code.

Was going to post exactly this!.

But to further the point, it is strongly suspected that SSL is already broken by the NSA, and having certificates is no longer necessary.

Google publishes its own certificate. I don't think its signed by anyone but Google, a sign they have totally given up on corrupt certification companies.
They also have changed it occasionally. I notice this when my more selective operating systems prompt me to accept new certificates for some Google Services, that they were happy to use yesterday. (These are always sort of scary events that warrant close inspection).

Re:Illusion of privacy

[icebike]

These trust levels are forced on you. If you use an iPhone, either you trust what Apple trusts, or you don't use the device. Same with Android unless you cook your own ROM. In fact, you don't even know what CAs are on your phone most likely, nor be able to find out.

In my phone, under
Settings / Security I find an entry called Trusted Credentials

Its divided into two categories, System and User. (There are no user certs, but you can add them).

There are a boat load of certs in there on the system side. Including Microsoft, every Cert company you've (n)ever heard of.

Who knows what might be lurking. (There is one listed as "Government Root Certificate Authority". Apparently something
out of Taiwan, but it has no CN or OU).

Who's to say there aren't a few more hidden from this list.
I can disable any of these that I want. I suppose I could disable all of them.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[swillden]

Even if Google wanted to tell you that the NSA has access to their servers, knowing full well it would kill their bottom line (assuming it would), they'd be forbidden from telling you the truth anyways.

True... but I'm not so certain that they could be compelled to lie. When I look at the pattern of public statements and later revisions from all of the big players (telcos and tech companies), I don't see a single case of anyone actually contradicting an earlier statement. It seems to me that they've all been careful to tell the truth, though they've often been careful about how much truth they've told. Government agencies have been caught lying, but they don't have the same legal requirements to citizens as publicly-traded companies have to shareholders.

Based on that, and on my viewpoint as a Google employee who builds some of the internal security systems that the NSA would have to compromise to snoop, I am completely convinced that Google is telling the truth when it says that it has not given the NSA any sort of direct or indirect access. I'm not certain that the NSA hasn't managed to insert snooping equipment into Google data centers or on Google fiber lines without Google's knowledge. But that's why Google is making a push to get everything encrypted, internally and externally.

Just to quiet the obvious retort: Yes, I know that won't prevent the government from serving Google with warrants and NSLs and obtaining user data that way. But if they have to do it through the front door, with a request that satisfies Google's attorneys with respect to its propriety and narrow scope, then I think we (as a society) have a much more manageable problem. Still a problem, but one that can be addressed with legislation and better oversight. If the NSA is silently devouring the whole Google data stream... that's an entirely different kettle of fish.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[vadim_t]

It's got nothing to do with the private key.

NSA goes to Verisign (for instance). Says "please sign our key for google.com". Verisign signs it. NSA intercepts traffic between google.com and you. Browser deems cert as valid, as Verisign signed it, and you seem to be connecting to google.com.

The CA system is weak because so long the connection is signed by a CA in the browser's list, the browser doesn't care which it is, even if it changes on a daily basis. If you can convince any CA in the list to sign what you need, you have a way to set up a MITM attack the browser won't warn you about.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[icebike]

How many Google Employees can the Federal Prisons hold?

I'd like to see the entire Board of Directors, All corporate officers, and All top and Middle management employees
and Directors from each of their world wide offices come out on the steps of their headquarters and issue a statement
with published facts, naming explicit government employees and the orders they gave.

Just call the Government's bluff. And do the same for China while they are at it.

Then demand jury trials, and watch how fast they get acquitted.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

But to further the point, it is strongly suspected that SSL is already broken by the NSA, and having certificates is no longer necessary.

That is outright false. I challenge you to provide a citation to a reasonably authoritative site saying that - basically anybody who isn't a kook. You can't.

The best you can come up with is that RSA-1024 is easy enough to brute-force with modern equipment. But moving to RSA-2048, as google has already done, still provides very strong protection.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[interval1066]

I guess the point is Google isn't giving them, or anyone else, an open-door to its users activities. It may not mean much, but its going to play well in the press. Which is the whole point, isn't it?

Re:Illusion of privacy

[skribe]

It depends. If Google has managed to implement one of the theoretical crypto magic solutions they may not need to decrypt to return a valid search result.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[headhot]

if the RNG that the RSA encryption is based on is compromised, the encryption is compromised.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Only RSA used that PRNG. It was suspicious in origin and orders of magnitude slower. There was no compelling reason for anyone to use it.

Also something everyone on this seems to be missing is that SSL certificates are generated by the certificate holder on their local machine NOT the Certificate Authority's. The CA never get's the private key half of the certificate, it never leaves the control of the owner.
That being said a CA could generate a new certificate for the domain, but it would not be the same certificate. Software like certificate-patrol for FireFox would explode with a suspicious change alert. If you are paranoid you can do certificate pinning, or just verify the chain yourself by opening the info box in your browser.

The only difference between a self-signed certificate and a CA signed one is who is vouching for it being held by the rightful owner of the domain. In both cases the private part is handled the same way and CA's are never getting anything other than the public part of the certificate (e.g. the same part given out to every client connecting to the server).

Re:Illusion of privacy

[icebike]

That is outright false. I challenge you to provide a citation to a reasonably authoritative site saying that - basically anybody who isn't a kook. You can't.

Clearly you phrased it that way so you could reject any site I offered, based on your own myopic view point.

So here are the rules:
You don't get to reject any source! You have to invalidate every one of these and all of their claims.
After all, extraordinary claims of something being "outright false" require extraordinary proof.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foils-much-internet-encryption.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/03/16/has-https-finally-been-cracked/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/05/government-betrayed-internet-nsa-spying
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/05/nsa_gchq_ssl_reports/
http://www.zdnet.com/has-the-nsa-broken-ssl-tls-aes-7000020312/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/06/20/leaked-nsa-doc-says-it-can-collect-and-keep-your-encrypted-data-as-long-as-it-takes-to-crack-it/

Re:Illusion of privacy

[bertok]

The weak point is not with the mathematics. It's like claiming nobody can break into your house because you have a solid steel door, but at the same time you have glass windows.

The weakness in SSL is the trust you have to place in the CA infrastructure, none of which is really that secure. Your browser will trust any valid certificate rooted in a trusted CA. There's no need to crack the keys of the certificates issued by Google. Keys have leaked, CAs have been hacked, intermediate authority certificates are often very weak (512bits), and the NSA could simply issue an order to a US corporation under national security to provide them with whatever key material they desire. The Stuxnet worm is a great real-world example of this happening: its creators used private keys stolen by intelligence agencies to create fake device driver code signing certificates.

Not to mention that it wouldn't be a difficult for an agency with the resources of the NSA or the CIA to simply infiltrate larger IT organisations such as Google and make copies of their private keys. That way they could man-in-the-middle without having to change the certificate fingerprint.

That's all academic anyway, the rumours are that the NSA doesn't have to bother decrypting anything because they have moles inside all large organisations that provide them with the plain text content directly whenever they want. This wouldn't even require that many people. Just by having someone in the top-5 ISPs, Apple, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and Amazon you'd basically ensure coverage of the core "cloud" services that most computers connect to on a daily basis.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[matthewv789]

The US Government owns root signing keys, so they can sign certificates for any domain they want whenever they want to.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[SolitaryMan]

None of you "sources" present any kind of proof that SSL is hacked or say anything about the technology used for it. Mostly looks like a pile of sensationalist crap to me.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

if the RNG that the RSA encryption is based on is compromised, the encryption is compromised.

If you are referring to Dual EC DRBG only RSA's BSAFE toolkit defaulted to it, because it was really slow. How many SSL implementations use BSAFE? I don't know, but I bet it isn't all that many since BSAFE is closed source and costs money. Certainly OpenSSL doesn't use it.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[icebike]

Exactly as predicted, you toss out the evidence and strut off snorting.

Here it is direct from Snowden:

http://swampland.time.com/2013/09/05/five-revelations-from-snowdens-newest-leak/

The full extent of the NSA’s highly classified encryption cracking program Bullrun is only known by top officials in the NSA and its counterpart agencies in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Bullrun has successfully foiled several of the world’s standard encryption methods, including SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), VPN (virtual private networks), and the encryption on 4G (fourth generation) smartphones.

Care to refute Snowden?

We are going back to my rules:

Prove your point about it being outright false or STFU.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[pathological liar]

You're looking in the wrong place.

The public-key algorithms are only used to auth servers/clients and during the negotiation of a session key for a symmetric algorithm. Thanks to the BEAST and CRIME attacks, and the dismal uptake of TLS 1.2, once you rule out the block ciphers in CBC mode the most secure symmetric cipher that clients/servers can be expected to support is RC4, which now accounts for some huge percentage of HTTPS traffic.

Nobody is suggesting that RSA is broken, but there is speculation that the NSA has broken RC4.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[iiiears]

Always pleased to read an informed opinion on slashdot.

I was fascinated by the news of stuxnet and persistent rootkits. Nearly everything connected to a data bus has firmware. How likely is it that embedded devices would be compromised?

It was surprising to me even the simplest hard disk has three controller CPUs, RAM and ROM.

Thank you again for making slashdot a site about technology.
 

Re:Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

The devices which capture SSL traffic only work because your managed workstation has been made to trust the root CA installed on those devices. If you were to bring an unmanaged laptop into the office network, that SSL sniffer would be unable to capture its traffic.

The security of SSL hinges on trusting the right CAs; but of course the use of CAs (a system of trust) is what allows it to defeat MITMs in the first place.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[icebike]

So, lets set ground rules, then.

You won't take Snowends word, even though he has been 100% right.

Do you require Obama's Testimony, or God's ? What?

Pull you head out of the sand!

Re:Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

Do you really think "mysecretdomain.com" certificate from shitty ass low cost certificate provider doesn't have a duplicate key on file at Comodo, Network Solutions, GoDaddy or TwoCows or whatever?

Yes. TuCows, GoDaddy, and NetSol dont have your private key. All they do is sign your CSR, and provide you with a public key.

I would STRONGLY encourage that people who do not understand SSL, refrain from commenting here. There are attacks on SSL, but it seems like noone here really understands what they are or how to mitigate them.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

The amount of outright ignorance in this thread is staggering-- from faulty assumptions that Dual EC DRBG usage was widespread, to the implication that TuCows somehow has a copy of your private key, to the assumption that SSL can just be "MITM'd".

Re:Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

From the top:

• That NY times article was rubbish, as it makes no clear claim and provides no clear rationale behind whatever it is theyre alleging. As best as I can determine, theyre saying that the NSA "circumvents" SSL traffic by grabbing it post-decryption--despite having no source indicating that. The article even says as much in the page you linked to, 2/3 of the way down.
• The NakedSecurity post refers to issues in specific encryption algorithms, not with SSL itself. Its talking about RC4, which is ancient but notably is immune to many of the recent attacks that hit AES. From the second sentence, its also a remarkably limited attack requiring a significant amount of access to the system you are trying to compromise.
• The third is an article by Schneier talking about how the NSA used NSLs to circumvent encryption (it doesnt matter if your connection is encrypted if you are legally compelled to hand over the data post-decryption).
• The 4th article just quotes the rubbish NYTimes article you linked to.
• The 5th is a content-free speculation piece that grabs a lot of the stuff already addressed here, takes it out of context, fails to understand what it means, and tries to whip up hysteria. For example: The NSA has secretly and successfully worked to break many types of encryption, the widely used technology that is supposed to make it impossible to read intercepted communications.
  Where is the source? WHAT "types of encryption"-- are we talking DES, or what? Is this just referencing the Snowden leak and failing to understand what it meant?
• The 6th article states that the NSA can keep data for as long as it takes to crack. I will happily give them a truecrypted AES-Serpent-Blowfish encrypted drive if they reimburse me, and will bet any amount of money that they will need to keep it for longer than I will be alive.

How is it you pulled up 6 sources, failed to read any of them, and then tried to act like they somehow proved your point (when the first article specifically contradicts your claim)?

Re:Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

Care to refute Snowden?

Sure. VPN isnt an "encryption method", its a networking technology. That right there tells me whoever penned that paragrahp has absolutely no idea what theyre talking about.

SSL isnt really an "encryption method" either, it is, again, a networking techology, and it can use several different encryption methods. I somehow doubt that the NSA has cracked them all.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

Unless I am mistaken, the DoD root certs are optional and not included by default.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[slimjim8094]

Chrome has certificate pinning. Basically it means that if you access a Google property, it's checking for a specific certificate - not just any old cert signed by any old CA. Sure, this doesn't help you if you're not using Chrome, but if the NSA was trying to do a blanket MITM, all Chrome browsers would blow up and you'd definitely hear about it.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[gagol]

No pun intended ;-)

Re:Illusion of privacy

[TheGratefulNet]

I personally interviewed at places that were proud of their MitM ssl cert attacks. this was more than 5 yrs ago, too, when almost no one believed this was happening. (no, I didn't take the job, it sickened me to think of myself helping them out).

if you are using a work-provided computer that had the IT group installed o/s, you can't trust it. if you installed your own o/s and never gave root privs to anyone, you may be able to trust it and it should find a 'fishy' cert being pushed on you when you go thru the corp firewall.

I tell people this: if you use a work-provided system, you should not do anything personal on it (no banking, etc). that little lock icon means nothing anymore and we should all be aware of this.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[gagol]

A theory, as in I have no proof, yes. If I was the head of NSA, hacking Google would be my top priority.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[jhol13]

Well, Lavabit closed down because request to them was "too much". Google did not and will not.
So what is "too much"? I have an opinion on that and therefore I do not believe Google. On neither account ("has access" and "is working").

If Google were working on it, they would make a Javascript (i.e. client) encryption to their cloud (and email, etc). It would be quite easy to do.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[jhol13]

I do not believe all VPN and all SSL are broken. It would be pretty much impossible to break all VPN, after all they use vide variety of encryption systems.

What I believe is that many commercial, perhaps most if not all US made, VPN & SSL implementations are flawed.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[jhol13]

NSA cannot do this in wide scale as the new CERT is far too easy to detect. They might do it for one particular "suspect", e.g. I would not notice it. But there are even Firefox extensions to detect these so if deployed wide scale it would have been noticed.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[0123456]

That's easy to prove. Just show us one fake SSL certificate issued by the NSA.

So far, not a single one has ever surfaced. If it's happening at all, it's certainly very rare.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[russotto]

Verisign's roots are included by default. If you think the NSA doesn't have the private key for all US based certificate authorities, you're not nearly paranoid enough. And there's no way they don't have Verisign's; Verisign is far too cozy with the government.
 

Re:Illusion of privacy

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Here it is direct from Snowden:

What you quoted is NOT direct from Snowden. Hell, the opening line right before the list of those statements is attributed to someone other than Snowden.

I quoted Snowden verbatim on the very specific point that "encryptyion works," all you've done is quote journalists who are speaking in very vague terms.

But, you know what, let's take your citation at face value. The very next statement: "Strong, non-commercial encryption systems still seem to thwart the NSA's efforts." OpenSSL is a strong, non-commercial encryption system. Looks like your own citation contradicts your claim that SSL, not just certain implementations, has been compromised.

We are going back to my rules:

Really? That extraordinary claims don't require extraordinary proof? You are the one who made the claim and so far all of your "proof" amounts to is deliberate misreadings of vague statements. Snort!

Re:Illusion of privacy

[MikeBabcock]

You don't seem to understand the point.

With encrypted connections that aren't in any other way compromised, the NSA has to actually make an overt effort to get data out of Google. Without encrypted sessions, they can covertly glean it from watching the wire at your ISP.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Mods are on conspiracy crack tonight too.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[matthewv789]

Not even that. The US Government has certificate signing power already. They don't need to copy any existing certificates, they can just generate and sign a certificate for whatever domain they want to MITM, and it will be accepted by the major browsers. If they don't have the cooperation of the ISP, they can easily hack a router.

Reference: http://conferences.sigcomm.org/imc/2013/papers/imc257-durumericAemb.pdf

We really need a new system of trust. Some mechanisms are in place to be more trustworthy, but they're not being used. For instance, the US Government COULD be empowered to sign certificates only for .gov or .mil domains. But, like nearly all entities with signing authority, they can sign certificates for ANY domain.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[matthewv789]

SSL can be MITM'd so long as you can sign a certificate in a way trusted by web browsers. And it turns out quite a number of branches of the US Government are among the nearly 2000 entities with the ability to sign certificates for any domain that will be accepted by web browsers as valid and trusted (which I did not know previously). See http://conferences.sigcomm.org/imc/2013/papers/imc257-durumericAemb.pdf

And RSA did recently ask developers to stop using all versions of the BSAFE toolikit (including Crypto-C ME, Micro Edition Suite, Crypto-J, Cert-J, SSL-J, Crypto-C, Cert-C, and SSL-C), which default to using Dual EC DRBG, and for all customers of RSA Data Protection Manager (DPM) server and clients to change the pseudo random number generator in use, since it also defaults to using Dual EC DRBG. See http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/09/rsa-advisory-nsa-algorithm/

Re:Illusion of privacy

[pepty]

I think they're getting a twofer: 1, Good press for supposedly making things harder for the NSA, 2, making it a PITA for ISPs to eavesdrop on/monetize google searches. ISPs can push their own targeted advertising based on search terms the same way that Google does; they can also redirect traffic away from google results and to their own affiliates based on those search terms. Paxfire offered that capability to ISPs in the past; they redirected traffic from Google, Yahoo, and Bing searches to their clients. They stopped after Google sued. I'll guess the overhead on encrypting all searches is less expensive than trying to sue ISPs all around the world.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[matthewv789]

Yes, this.

"We also saw a number of commercial authorities that provided a smaller number of certificates to seemingly unrelated entities. For example, VeriSign, Inc. provided intermediates for Oracle, Symantec, and the U.S. Government"

Source: http://conferences.sigcomm.org/imc/2013/papers/imc257-durumericAemb.pdf

Your browser trusts VeriSign, so your browser trusts the US Government, and not just one signing certificate, a bunch of them:

"All but a handful of the authorities 4 or more intermediates away from a browser-trusted root belonged to agencies within the U.S. Federal Government."

In all, their most recent survey found that 85 government agencies (from around the world, not just US, but quite probably MOSTLY US) had signed 17,865 certificates in active use. In almost all cases, any entity with signing authority is able to sign certificates for ANY domain. And of course such a survey is unlikely to notice any targeted MITMs against a particular suspect.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[matthewv789]

Not even that. The US Government already has the ability to sign certificates themselves (yes, as an intermediate signing certificate courtesy of VeriSign, which your browser trusts...) They don't even have to ask VeriSign, they can do it themselves.

See http://conferences.sigcomm.org/imc/2013/papers/imc257-durumericAemb.pdf

And it's worse than you state, your browser trusts not only the list of CAs it has, but also a whole chain of intermediary signing certificates ultimately signed by one of those root CAs... And there is no registry of those intermediate signing certificate or who they belong to.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[rvw]

That's easy to prove. Just show us one fake SSL certificate issued by the NSA.

So far, not a single one has ever surfaced. If it's happening at all, it's certainly very rare.

They don't issue fake certificates. They copy the real ones.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[Barryke]

Google has been very adamant that the NSA does not have access to their servers.

No, Google did not choose to join a program that would give NSA access.

"we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. "
Source: http://googleblog.blogspot.be/2013/06/what.html

We know nothing about what Google did not choose to do, for all intents and purposes, because the NSA does have this goal i assume they have (or are going to) meet it. Likely in secret.

Furthermore as stated elsewhere encryption is irrelevant, with or without willing cooperation from Google Inc. the NSA is able to decrypt it.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[kbg]

But it doesn't matter because the NSA has all the certificates that Google has.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[Lennie]

Calling NSLs going through the frontdoor is kinda funny.

When you get an NSLs it basically means you have you to lie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT2fQu50sMs

Re:Illusion of privacy

[Lennie]

I think what Google should do is stop collecting data on people, that is the only way to get away from this.

Or anonymized as soon as possible.

If you collect and keep personalized data, you can't guarantee how it will be used in the future.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[Lennie]

Google would be a more complicated target for them, because a lot of their hardware, like servers, switches and routes was self designed.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[Lennie]

That is all pretty useless if they did that, Chrome would start to complain because it enccounters a different public key. Because Chrome has certificate pinning:

https://www.imperialviolet.org/2011/05/04/pinning.html

Re:Illusion of privacy

[AmiMoJo]

That won't work in Chrome and possibly other browsers. Chrome has a feature called "certificate pinning" which means it won't accept just any old cert for google.com, it has to be one signed by Google themselves. Thus the NSA would have to force Google to create certs for them, and while that is obviously quite possible with a NSL or whatever it does mean that compromising a single US based root certificate provider doesn't work.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

What you describe with SSL has been known for YEARS, and the really great thing is, the first time a spoofed Google cert is discovered (trivial because when you inspect the SSL cert it will show a funky root CA), the signing CA can be immediately blacklisted by the major browsers.

You can MITM SSL, sure, and you will immediately lose your ability to do so once discovered.

Dual EC DRBG has been recognized as problematic basically since its inception, as a simple google search reveals, and RSA is basically the only one that jumped on that bandwagon.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[usuallylost]

Thing is the new cert is required if a private company, or individual, wants to do it. In the case of the NSA that really isn't a requirement. The Federal Government has billions of dollars and the full force of their enforcement powers. Recent revelations have shown just how much power these guys have to coerce industry into doing what they want. It is entirely possible that some of the trusted certs that we are already using also work for the NSA. If that is the case, and at this point I would be shocked if it wasn't, then they don't need to install anything since your system was shipped with what they need already installed. The only thing they'd need is a choke point to do the decryption and scanning. Which it sounds like virtually all of the major ISPs have thoughtfully provided them.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[ArsenneLupin]

Do you really think "mysecretdomain.com" certificate from shitty ass low cost certificate provider doesn't have a duplicate key on file at Comodo, Network Solutions, GoDaddy or TwoCows or whatever?

Only if you gave it to them. Which a competent webmaster would not do. But it's still a mystery to my why some certification authorities such as StartSSL attempt to ask for this (but, to their credit, you may skip...)

They don't have to brute force or hack anything if they have an appliance in the middle that automatically grabs the certificate from the certificate issuer and

The certificate alone is worthless to an eavesdropper without a matching private key.

spoofs both sides of the connection.

If an eavesdropper spoofed both sides, the client would notice that it is not speaking to the real server, because the spoofer doesn't have access to the proper public/private key pair. And he cannot just use another public/private pair because then the signature wouldn't match. Unless the CA cooperated by certifying another public key, but then this might become clear evidence of spoofing if the user was paranoid enough to manually compare.

If you want your traffic encrypted, you need to generate your own certificates using software you compiled after you reviewed the code.

The standard operating mode is indeed to generate your own CSR (which will only contains your public key for the certificate, but never you private key). You then give this CSR to your CA, which signs it, which makes it a certificate. The CA never sees your private key.

However, what this thread is about is that a subverted CA may help an eavesdropper by issuing him an extra certificate matching the victim's domain, but the eavesdropper's private key. This would evade standard checks in browsers (who blindly trust their CA's signature), but would still be obvious to a manual check (fingerprints would be different). So, an alert user might spot this, and save the fake certificate as evidence of such tampering. So far, no such certificate has been posted, which leads us to believe that either the NSA don't have done this yet, or only have done it very seldomly, against unsophisticated users.

In events where CAs were compromised by crackers (DigiNotar), such fake certificates did surface pretty quickly, proving that enough users actually do care to do such manual checks.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[sexconker]

Google would be a more complicated target for them, because a lot of their hardware, like servers, switches and routes was self designed.

Google's level of "designing" their own hardware is building a list of desired specs, picking a few parts, laying them out, then having someone in China stuff those parts in a box. Google doesn't design and fabricate the chips. That's where the NSA gets you.

Re: Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

Why would it surface? They do not need to fake anything if they have all the keys incl. private keys.

THEY DONT HAVE the private keys. NOONE has the private keys except for the individual or company who initiated the certificate request. You create a CSR and a private key, you send the CSR to GoDaddy, they provide you with a signed public cert.

The ONLY way for them to intercept SSL is to create their own certificate for google.com and sign it with their own root cert. When they do that, and you go to google, you can EASILY verify who signed the cert, and if its the DoD you can just rip that root CA out of your list. Problem solved, and noone will ever trust DoD root certs again.

People need to stop talking about SSL when they dont understand it-- its seriously annoying that people seem to assume that they understand cryptography better than the folks who set the system up, when they havent even bothered to research how it works.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_signing_request#Procedure
Before creating a CSR, the applicant first generates a key pair, keeping the private key secret.

Noone can copy a certificate without that private key, which is never disclosed to ANYONE-- not even the signing CA.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

And YOU don't understand what would happen if "the man" in the middle has access to the certificates, either the masters or the actual certificates themselves.

Wow what a great idea! One problem, where is "the man" getting the private keys which are required to decrypt any communications using those certificates? Keeping in mind of course that not even Network Solutions or whoever your CA is ever sees that key.

Its almost as if you have no idea how SSL or PKI in general works.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

"RSA encryption" isnt based on ANY particular RNG (thats down to a case-by-case basis), and the RNG in question was used by "RSA-the-company", not "RSA-the-algorithm".

Re:Illusion of privacy

[interval1066]

If you would have included ALL of my post my stance on the matter would have been a little clearer for you. Would some one mind closing the door to the bar behind them so these children won't wander inside?

Re:Illusion of privacy

[fustakrakich]

Oh brother.. If you were any taller, you would have been knocked out cold.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[icebike]

NSA has been asking for Certificates, but I am not aware of anyone actually surrendering them, certainly not Google.
That goes beyond what the law allows.

I don't discount the possibility of the NSA having enough leverage to force the Certification Authority to cough up anyone's cert,
which is probably why Google uses their own.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

Snowden NEVER SAID SSL WAS BROKEN.

You REALLY need to read the sources you quoted, the first one has Snowden basically saying "yes, encryption is a PITA for the NSA".

Do you require Obama's Testimony, or God's ? What?

Lets just focus on actually understanding the facts we have, rather than speculating. That seems enough of a hurdle between reporters who sensationalize things they dont understand, and slashdotters who are just technical enough to know that what the NSA is doing is "bad", but not why.

For the record, the "why" is "90% of unencrypted comms are in their hands". The silver lining is that SSL traffic is very possibly not, and we have nothing ATM to suggest otherwise except for speculation and extrapolation. Its fine to say "they might have found a way", its not fine to say "they have found a way because Snowden said so"-- because he didnt.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

How, exactly, are they getting Google's private keys?

Re:Illusion of privacy

[icebike]

There is no silver lining. People running around insisting that SSL is not compromised are delusional, or the NSA's useful idiots. Or both.

A classification guide for NSA employees and contractors on Bullrun outlines in broad terms its goals.
Project Bullrun deals with NSA's abilities to defeat the encryption used in specific network communication technologies. Bullrun involves multiple sources, all of which are extremely sensitive." The document reveals that the agency has capabilities against widely used online protocols, such as HTTPS, voice-over-IP and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), used to protect online shopping and banking.

Get over it. SSL is gone.

And I have no faith in VPNs either:

Documents show that Edgehill's initial aim was to decode the encrypted traffic certified by three major (unnamed) internet companies and 30 types of Virtual Private Network (VPN) – used by businesses to provide secure remote access to their systems. By 2015, GCHQ hoped to have cracked the codes used by 15 major internet companies, and 300 VPNs.

True it never says explicitly that they have cracked all VPNs, but when their initial target was 30 different types of VPNs and their new target for 2015 is 300, that clearly suggests they have made good progress against those 30.

Get over it. VPNs are gone.

You might not like the Guardian or the NY Times. But they are talking to Snowden, and you are not.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[kbg]

They just ask for the private keys from the secret court and Google has no other option than to comply.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

HTTPS AND SSL? My goodness, and VOIP as well!

Forgive me if I regard something so hysterical, lacking in details, and poorly informed as a reliable source. Show some evidence that its happened, show a crypto expert (Schneier etc) who regards these claims as plausible. Right now, everything is "the media says this", when headlines and journalists are historically the WORST informed on anything more technical than a wheel.

True it never says explicitly that they have cracked all VPNs,

It doesnt even make a specific claim! What VPN type, what encryption? It again gives NO credibility that they claim to have a way of dealing with "VPN" rather than a specific encryption.

Get over it. VPNs are gone.

Such a broad claim must be met only with disbelief. What, has the NSA cracked every form of encryption, symmetric and asymmetric alike? Can they crack OpenVPN running with static 4096-bit keys? I seriously doubt it, and Snowden specifically mentioned encryption being a problem. Rein in your hysteria and focus on the real issues rather than inventing bogeymen to fight.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[icebike]

That's right, keep your head in the sand and argue details out of your ass.

Why do you insist someone provide you with proof. There's a guy sitting in Moscow for a reason.

You sound like an NSA troll, looking for someone else to do your research for you.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[icebike]

By the way, since you mention Schneider, why don't you go read his blog.

He says he's encrypting everything, these days, changing his passwords, and taking all sorts of precautions.

He claims to be working with with some of Snowdens documents. He doesn't trust vpns. He thinks RC4 has been cracked.

He is no where near as complacent as you are.

Re: Illusion of privacy

[dreamchaser]

You really don't get it do you? It is the NSA. They are in the business of stealing information. It is quite possible that they have stolen keys. You also need to stop claiming you are the only person who understands SSL. You are not, and the points people have made about how it could be compromised, including the ones I've made, are perfectly valid. You're either stubborn beyond belief, a troll, or an NSA shill. You pick which.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[Xest]

I'm not necessarily saying the NSA hasn't broken SSL, but to be fair I think Snowden's comment (and that in related articles) is a little ambiguous.

"Bullrun has successfully foiled several of the worldâ(TM)s standard encryption methods, including SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), VPN (virtual private networks), and the encryption on 4G (fourth generation) smartphones."

This doesn't explicitly state that:

1) All SSL is broken
2) They can take a log of arbitrary SSL data and trivially and consistently decrypt it

The lack of specificity means it could equally be read as meaning it's been successful at acquiring plain text data through some man in the middle attacks, but not that SSL in general has been broken.

I had a look for more information on Bullrun but I can't find anything that really changes this fact.

But don't shoot the messenger here, I think if nothing else it's good to assume that SSL has been broken and take precautions based upon that. I'm just playing devil's advocate in pointing out that Snowden's comments are ambiguous and that the impression the NSA has definitely broken SSL stems only from one specific interpretation of those comments when there are in fact other valid interpretations that could suggest otherwise. It's quite possible (wouldn't be the first time) that the media have jumped to an extreme interpretation and made it out to be something it's not.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[pnutjam]

Has anyone done any research on how phone OS apps handle bad certificates? I know browsers will alert you, but while many apps are just web pages, all the usual interfaces are hidden.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[balbus000]

And of course, you'd have to compile that code using a compiler that you wrote in assembly.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[LordLimecat]

He says he's encrypting everything, these days

Precisely, because encryption still works, regardless of what the media has convinced you.

He doesn't trust vpns

Please, please read the articles more carefully; you are missing what is actually being said due to the amount of hysteria that was whipped up. Here is what he actually said:

TAO also hacks into computers to recover long-term keys. So if you're running a VPN that uses a complex shared secret to protect your data and the NSA decides it cares, it might try to steal that secret. .....How do you communicate securely against such an adversary? Snowden said it in an online Q&A soon after he made his first document public: "Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on."....
I have five pieces of advice:...
2) Encrypt your communications. Use TLS. Use IPsec

Schneier is SPECIFICALLY recommending the use of VPN and HTTPS to protect yourself, and this recommendation was made a whopping 3 weeks ago. It would be awfully strange for a crypto expert to recommend the use of a broken technology, especially one as paranoid as Schneier. The "risk" hes identifying is that, as has ALWAYS been the case, adversaries do not attack encryption head on; they look for side-channels or ways of recovering the keys so that they do not have to brute force, and in this case the NSA apparently relies on trying to hack the endpoint and recover the VPN keys (the "shared secret" he references) for high-value targets.

He thinks RC4 has been cracked.

I dont believe he ever said that. This says "dont panic yet, but start to move away from RC4".

He is no where near as complacent as you are.

Im not "complacent", im just not ready to buy some rubbish speculation that "all VPNs" are vulnerable even though the relevant encryption algos havent been cracked yet and schneier is recommending we use IPSEC (probably the most widely used VPN tech out there).

Re:Illusion of privacy

[jhol13]

"Some of the trusted" is not enough. If they want to look like Google they need Googles cert (their private key). Though very possible I do not, yet, think they have it.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[matthewv789]

Precisely... according to the report, it's VeriSign that signed the US Government's intermediate certificates.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[matthewv789]

True, which is why they probably only use it for targeted individuals. I mean they have to intercept the internet traffic for that individual anyway, which doesn't happen every day. (Though frankly, 99.9% of the population never checks and couldn't tell the difference even if they did check.)

But the signing CA is... VeriSign. That's the root of the trust chain, since they're the ones who signed the intermediate certificates given to the US Government (and no, I'm not talking about .mil, I mean certs that can sign for any domain, and also sign for further levels of intermediate certs, going four levels deep that we know of). And good luck with getting the major browsers to blacklist VeriSign's root cert.

As for Dual EC DRBG, I think there is a long list of products from various vendors which implement it. I'm not sure which have it as a default other than those from RSA though.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[matthewv789]

It's not DoD certificates we're talking about, it's intermediate certificates good for ANY domain, which have VeriSign as the root signing CA. So since your browser trusts VeriSign, it will trust the US Government's many certificates. There is no listing or registration of intermediate certificates, they are just discovered "in the wild" by scans of servers.

Re:Illusion of privacy

[Arslan ibn Da'ud]

Government agencies have been caught lying, but they don't have the same legal requirements to citizens as publicly-traded companies have to shareholders.

I think I've found the problem right there!

Re:Illusion of privacy

[xXXxkatyaxXXx]

ahaha like like like (= ^

Any different from https://google.com ?

[Valdrax]

How is this different from just using HTTPS Everywhere or typing https://google.com/ into the URL bar?

Re:Any different from https://google.com ?

[ArcadeMan]

Nobody types "google" in the URL bar these days, the URL bar sends your search requests directly to Google/Yahoo!/Bing/etc.

Re:Any different from https://google.com ?

[John Bokma]

If only I got a dollar each time someone exactly did that.

Re:Any different from https://google.com ?

[Valdrax]

Neither you nor the summary answers my question: Does it do anything different from doing that and provide any extra security?

Re:Any different from https://google.com ?

[odie5533]

Does it implement asymmetric cryptography in JavaScript on the client? No, but it should.

Re:Any different from https://google.com ?

[SpaceLifeForm]

It is a re-direct. And it happens immediately. Bookmarks or links (external to Google) that contain search terms will still give away the search terms.

http://www.google.com/#q=google+enables+more+https
redirects to
https://www.google.com/#q=google+enables+more+https

I like that maps and news are now also https.

So, to answer your question, no, it is not different, there is no extra security or privacy over doing it yourself.

It is just automatic.

Re:Any different from https://google.com ?

[bill_mcgonigle]

It's actually pretty important, due to a design problem with Chromium - the unified search and URL field.

Let's say you want to search. You type 'news for nerds' in the field, and Google auto-completes as it goes. Each keypress you send to Google gives you updated search results. OK, you were going to send it to Google anyway, so you kinda accept that.

Now, instead, you type: s-l-a-s-h-d--o-t-.-o-r-g and those are all sent to Google. Suddenly Google knows about all the *non-Google* websites you're visiting. And if it's not encrypted, NSA's PRISM scoops it up too. They don't have to tap your ISP, they've got it at Google's end. aka, "Dude, you've got Chrome!"

Encrypted is better, but only because the NSA is out of the equation (maybe), but Google isn't. If you're going to visit a website you don't want Google to know about, then you better not use Chrome, or find the knowledgebase article about how to disable it. To their credit, it's called out explicitly in their privacy policy, but in reality hardly anybody reads those (perhaps we need a privacy policy taxonomy).

Firefox's approach is better - there's a box where you can tell your search engine stuff, and there's a box where you can put in website addresses without anybody but your ISP and their ISP knowing about it. Well, unless the NSA has that tapped too.

Re:Any different from https://google.com ?

[MikeBabcock]

I watch people every day type "Google" into the yahoo/bing search bar, then search. I've seen people type "Bing" into the Google search bar to then search with Bing.

When I offer to change their default homepage, they complain their Internet is broken (because the startup page is wrong).

Power Implications

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm highly interested in the power consumption implications of this move. I remember reading somewhere that Facebook faced a nontrivial increase in power usage when they switched to https for everything, and for a website like Google, those extra cycles are definitely going to add up.

Anyone from a data center care to comment on this?

Re:Power Implications

[Anonymous Coward]

According to one of the head Google staffers responsible for their SSL/TLS operations, it's pretty much a non-issue: https://www.imperialviolet.org/2010/06/25/overclocking-ssl.html

It basically ended up adding less than 1% to the CPU overhead for their servers, didn't require special hardware, and didn't involve any new systems.

One down...

[93 Escort Wagon]

Thing about DuckDuckGo is... they promise I'm anonymous to them. There's value in that, at least to me.

Google's move is certainly welcome, but all it means is - going forward - only Google will be collecting my information as opposed to Google + NSA.

Re:One down...

[dcollins]

As others have said, the NSA documents say they have access to Google's servers. Encrypting the connection between the user and Google doesn't change that, right? Very puzzling.

Re:One down...

[ortholattice]

Doesn't DuckDuckGo have US servers? I would trust ixquick.com more.

Re:One down...

[swillden]

As others have said, the NSA documents say they have access to Google's servers.

No, they don't. The PRISM slides were extremely vague about how the data was collected; the idea that they have direct access is speculation which Google has consistently and clearly denied. And it's worth noting that they claimed they started getting data from Google back before Google went SSL for nearly everything.

Re:One down...

[danlock4]

Last time I checked, DuckDuckGo's servers were in Panama...

Re:One down...

[bloodhawk]

this doesn't in anyway protect you from NSA, Google still has access to the information, The NSA has access to google (be it directly or via court order). The only thing this prevent is sniffing external to that which I think most people would consider a far lower risk.

Re:One down...

[FatLittleMonkey]

It's the difference between the police going into a hotel and presenting a warrant requiring them to show the police their guest list, and the police secretly parking an unmarked van just outside the hotel and recording every visitor/car/etc coming in and out of the hotel grounds without any warrant or notification.

In the former, the hotel knows what is being asked for, and when, and can (if they believe the request unlawful) challenge it in court. (Or challenge the gag clause, as some providers have successfully.)

In the latter, the hotel has no knowledge of what is being done, no control of what information is recorded, and no way to make legal challenges.

Perhaps it doesn't make a huge difference to the guests, but I suspect the hotel cares a great deal.

Bullshit PR is Bullshit

[Guppy06]

Google has quietly made a change aimed at encrypting all search activity to provide 'extra protection' for searchers, and possibly to block NSA spying activity.

What would encryption do when the NSA has access to the servers?

'I suspect the increased encryption is related to Google's NSA-pushback,'

Except that pushback itself is also pure political theater. Funny how these court challenges only started happening when stuff started to become public.

Google has made their bed. Let them lie in it.

Re:Bullshit PR is Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

STFU and do your research,

>Funny how these court challenges only started happening when stuff started to become public.

https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-2013

Why don't you read about the companies that were pushing back before this even got announced. There are similar tables for 2012 and 2011. You'll note that Google was up there, but few others were.

The moderators need to be sacked again... Any by sacked, I also mean "kicked in the balls".

Re:Bullshit PR is Bullshit

[Guppy06]

STFU and do your research,

Your source (emphasis mine):

In the category of protecting user privacy in the courts, Google deserves special recognition this year for challenging a National Security Letter.

My source:

No telecommunications company has ever challenged the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court's orders for bulk phone records under the Patriot Act, the court revealed on Tuesday.

Now, do you want to split hairs and argue that "maybe Google isn't a 'telecommunications company'" or "maybe the orders they got weren't for 'bulk phone records'," or do you want to maybe acknowledge that the industry in the US doesn't give a flying fuck if nobody is looking (or is even allowed to look)?

Re:Bullshit PR is Bullshit

[Seumas]

The whole Google/Yahoo/Facebook/Whoever + NSA thing is like this:

You're making out with a chick that is maybe not so hot. You're having a good time and you're both getting your rocks off, but you wouldn't want your friends and family to catch you.

One day, your buddies drop on by early and catch you mac'n on said girl. Startled, you push her away and are very vocally all "eeew yuck! Get off me! what are you doing?!" and telling your friends (who keep teasing you about it for the next month) about how you two totally were not making out and how you totally are not into her and you didn't want to make out with her and would never do so in a million years.

But you go back to making out with her, anyway. You're just way more careful about making sure you don't get caught.

Re:Bullshit PR is Bullshit

[swillden]

Google has quietly made a change aimed at encrypting all search activity to provide 'extra protection' for searchers, and possibly to block NSA spying activity.

What would encryption do when the NSA has access to the servers?

Nothing, if they have access to the servers, which Google denies giving them, and which none of Snowden's documents have claimed. The documents only said that they were getting Google data, not how, and they say the take started back before Google went SSL for nearly everything, which may be a clue as to how they were getting the data. Or maybe the NSA managed to sneak some hardware in to get it on the sly; that possibility is why Google has accelerated their plans to encrypt all internal traffic as well.

Given what I know about the incredibly flexible and dynamic nature of servers in Google's data centers (I work for Google), I think it would be virtually impossible to snoop at the machine level without actual support being built into the system, and given what I know about Google employees, that is virtually impossible. I think any data the NSA is getting (without legal due process) has to be network traffic, and encrypting all of the traffic will shut that off.

Re:Bullshit PR is Bullshit

[kqs]

Now, do you want to split hairs and argue that "maybe Google isn't a 'telecommunications company'" or "maybe the orders they got weren't for 'bulk phone records'," or do you want to maybe acknowledge that the industry in the US doesn't give a flying fuck if nobody is looking (or is even allowed to look)?

So you don't even know what a telecommunications company is, but that's okay, you'll spew your "facts" anyways. The best defense against the government is an informed populace. Sadly, we've mostly got people like you who refuse to educate yourself. Be proud, you're part of the reason the NSA got this far and hasn't had to back down.

As far as I can tell, the internet companies have done more that any others is trying to hold back the NSA. They're not perfect, but they've tried, and deserve recognition for that. The telecommunications companies, on the other hand, seem to have been happy to help their government. Well, except for Qwest, and we know how that turned out.

(The funny thing is that, with Google Voice and Google Fiber, Google is a better telecommunications company than the actual telecommunications companies.)

Re:Bullshit PR is Bullshit

[slimjim8094]

I likewise work for Google (though the opinion here presented is my own), and I know a lot of people (some of whom are very high up) would be quitting if Google was kowtowing to government requests (excepting lawful warrants). There are *tons* of people who spend their days trying to protect all this information from any external entity, and if it came out that they were just wasting their time because there was some back door, they'd feel betrayed.

Re:Bullshit PR is Bullshit

[Seumas]

Yeah, Google -- man up!.... Google...

Re:Bullshit PR is Bullshit

[Guppy06]

As far as I can tell, the internet companies have done more that any others is trying to hold back the NSA.

Meh.

Concerns over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), as well as attempts by intelligence agencies to collect user information from email and social networking sites, appeared on the second-quarter lobbying disclosure reports of several tech firms.

The topic wasn't mentioned in any first quarter 2013 reports, before public revelations that the National Security Agency was collecting data on American citizens from email and social networking sites.

While it's not clear from lobbying reports how much money or time each of the companies, or trade associations that represent them, have spent on the specific subject of FISA, the resources each one (of Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Twitter) has available are substantially larger than any of the watchdog or civil liberties groups. In fact, each one of these five groups lobby substantially more than the other eight organizations that disclosed lobbying on FISA -- combined.

In the first three months of 2013, (Google) spent $4.1 million, which put it on track to spend less than 2012, but still a substantial amount. In the second quarter of 2013, however, spending contracted, coming to about $3.6 million.

Why, it's almost like nobody cared until, by shear coincidence, something happened in the second quarter of this year.

Re:Bullshit PR is Bullshit

[kqs]

You mean that you expected tech companies to lobby congresscritters about something which they were not allowed to talk about and which neither the public nor the congresscritters knew about (or particularly cared about)? Gee whiz, that does seem likely to help. Were you writing letters to your representative during Jan-April about the warrantless wiretapping that Bush started and Obama continues, known publicly for years now? But you're happy to whine "Oh why won't Google protect my rights when I can't be bothered, boo hoo".

Those who like facts over rhetoric and "being right" might consider the various transparency reports, including the fact that Google started reporting NSLs (as much as they legally could) long before all this came to light. But for most people, thinking is too hard, so they'll keep on complaining and not thinking.

Fixing our problems is hard, but if you demonize the few folks trying to help, you're doing the NSAs work for them. Blame those who deserve blame, not the easy targets.

Different reason cited in TFA

[dkleinsc]

Google may be doing this not for privacy reasons at all, but because they intend to sell the exclusive organic click information and don't want third parties having access to the same information they have about those clicks.

Re:Different reason cited in TFA

[zakkie]

Mod parent up please. This is the play, not anything else.

Better than nothing, I suppose.

[gallondr00nk]

Still, half of the reason to use Duck Duck Go or some other privacy oriented search engine is not just HTTPS but the fact they don't feed everything you search for into an enormous data mining effort.

Anyway, doesn't the alleged NSA backdoor into Google as part of the PRISM program make any supposed "anti-NSA" stance a completely empty gesture?

The intense backtracking that the PRISM providers have done since the revelations seems very disingenuous.

Re:Better than nothing, I suppose.

[PRMan]

Google claims they have only responded to warrants and NSLs and would be really happy to show you the numbers, but NSA won't let them. Based on their continued statements to this effect, I think I believe them.

Too little too late

[intermodal]

I've switched to https/ssl DDG, and am much more comfortable searching there because I know that my Google account - which has tentacles everywhere - is not going to magically forget my "don't track my browsing history" setting. The idea that Google could still store the search and connect it to my account is a problem.

Re:Too little too late

[ubrgeek]

With one of the earlier stories this week there was talk that NSA had gotten "involved" with the standards-setting working groups. I'm confused how any encryption Google's using wouldn't/couldn't be affected by that. Is there any "guarantee" that they haven't been able to insert something into the technology behind PFS?

Re:Too little too late

[intermodal]

it's crazy to me that I'm left thinking how much better off we were when we had pre-Microsoft hotmail and geocities, all from public terminals. I was basically untraceable, as I didn't even have Internet at home. At best, they could have come up with a city...if the hosts even had enough storage devoted to logs for that data to even exist.

Re:Dumb question ...

[Agent ME]

NSA would need a CA under their control, and MITM requires a bit more hardware than their mass-eavesdropping setups. It's a lot of effort to go through when they already "ask" Google for access to their servers.

Keyword$ on AdWords

[michaelmalak]

The cynical amongst web analytics professionals accuse Google of hiding organic keyword searches from website operators in order to force them into paying for AdWords with its paid keywords.

Re:Keyword$ on AdWords

[mackil]

The cynical amongst web analytics professionals accuse Google of hiding organic keyword searches from website operators in order to force them into paying for AdWords with its paid keywords.

I was wondering this myself, as someone who is very annoyed with the "(not provided)" entry in my Keywords list in Analytics. I know, hardly a big deal in the grand scheme. Call me selfish.

Will they hide search info from 3d party sites?

[RGRistroph]

Will they make it so that if you arrive on a web page via a google search, the operator of that web page cannot see the search terms that lead you there ? I think that would be an improvement.

Re:Will they hide search info from 3d party sites?

[jafiwam]

You can do that manually by copying the URL or (in some cases) selecting the URL in the description below and right clicking "go to this address"

Lots and lots of small time "web site operators" would absolutely hate it if they stripped those search terms off, a whole industry of SEO scammers would disappear overnight.

THEY SHOULD DO IT!

Re:Will they hide search info from 3d party sites?

[dcollins]

Yes, that's what they say, and actually it's the only functional change I can really see from this. Follow the 2nd link in the OP.

"When you search from https://www.google.com, websites you visit from our organic search listings will still know that you came from Google, but won't receive information about each individual query. They can also receive an aggregated list of the top 1,000 search queries that drove traffic to their site for each of the past 30 days through Google Webmaster Tools."

Re:Will they hide search info from 3d party sites?

[RGRistroph]

Or that could be done with a plugin . . . it would also deprive google of the data of what links were clicked in searches.

Re:Will they hide search info from 3d party sites?

[sayno2quat]

When you go from a secure (https) site to a different domain (whether secure or not), the browser automatically removes the referer tag. So by searching via https, none of the sites will see your search term page.

Re:DuckDuckGo but even then

[WillAffleckUW]

Good question. We only have their word for it that they don't have the backdoors that we know that Google does, but in reality the letter they are presented with does not allow them to admit or even talk about what the NSA or other agency forced them to do.

You'd still be insecure on the client end, of course, and all the hops, since the keys have backdoors.

Market signals are only as strong as the investors noting shifts of users think they are.

Actually...

[fahrbot-bot]

...what it does is prevent my proxy/filter (Proxomitron) from altering queries and result pages, like stripping out the link redirects, disabling the Toolbar, Suggestions, Instant, etc...

They do provide a work-around if you define www.google.com as a CNAME for nosslsearch.google.com (for schools, etc, that need to filter things). I implemented this w/o updating DNS or my hosts file by adding a proxy rule that alters the "Host" field in outgoing headers to nosslsearch.google.com to be "www.google.com". It's not perfect, but along with disabling Javascript for Google, it helps a lot.

FWIW, I'm switching to use Startpage and DuckDuckGo - not because of extra privacy, but because they let me customize my results to remove all the crap that Google adds.

Not going to help

[davydagger]

So long as google creates profiles based on those searches, they are still accessable to the Feds, either by purchasing them, even through a strawman if needbe, or by force via subopenea, or other legal sanctions.

Re:The real story...

[xtronics]

Mod this up.

I figured this out - I was doing Google searches and a little while later I would have related SPAM. So I changed to using https - this stopped - so the spam was not from Google - traceroute and the only provider between me and Google was ATT - but they may be renting capacity and the traffic may be in others hands.

This isn't just about the NSA

[Monsuco]

SSL is there to keep common snoopers (ISPs, potential identity thieves, punks on the corporate network with wireshark, etc.) from eavesdropping on you. Yeah, the vast resources NSA may very well have the ability to break it, but they're hardly the only threat out there. I'm far more worried about the potential for an identity thief to read my traffic than for the NSA to do so.

The NSA is hardly the biggest threat to your privacy and they're probably not the most dangerous.

Re:This isn't just about the NSA

[AlphaWoIf_HK]

The NSA is hardly the biggest threat to your privacy and they're probably not the most dangerous.

The government having access to all this information is very dangerous, and I think people would do well to stop downplaying this threat.

Dead Man's Switch

[Mr. Underbridge]

Based on that, and on my viewpoint as a Google employee who builds some of the internal security systems that the NSA would have to compromise to snoop, I am completely convinced that Google is telling the truth when it says that it has not given the NSA any sort of direct or indirect access.

I don't know if they are intentionally being this clever - but if the execs were to claim daily that they aren't bending over for the NSA, the day they stop claiming it is the day you know they are bent over by the NSA. In effect, their denials become a "dead man's switch" of sorts that circumvents the inability to tell the world that you have to comply with the NSA's tentacles.

This is foolproof unless the NSA can either 1) forbid the entire populace to cease speaking about the entire topic of surveillance, or 2) compel people to lie.

but, logging...

[Anonymous Coward]

But even though they've switched on encryption, they still log my IP and my searches, don't they? No, thanks.

Nice try

[GodfatherofSoul]

I don't trust you anymore

Is the search still sent in the clear?

[democrates]

If I search for "cipher revelation" I get this in the url bar -
https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&tab=ww#hl=en&q=cipher+revelation

Does all of this travel in the clear or are the http request args seperated from the dns query and encrypted?

Good for them

[ThatsNotPudding]

I still can't trust them anymore.

VPN isn't an encryption method

[phorm]

Except that VPN is *not* an encryption method. VPN's use various forms of encryption, but the types/algorithms themselves depend on the VPN itself and/or sometimes user choice.

Saying that the NSA has cracked - say - IPSEC encryption makes sense. Saying that they've cracked "VPN" doesn't make so much sense, unless one specifies the type of VPN.

Re:VPN isn't an encryption method

[LordLimecat]

Saying that the NSA has cracked - say - IPSEC encryption makes sense.

It makes grammatical sense, but not technical sense. Theres no way Im buying that theyve cracked all IPSEC without some fairly good evidence.

Re:Dumb question ...

[You're All Wrong]

> NSA would need a CA under their control

What makes you think they don't have a dozen already?