NSA Broke Into Links Between Google, Yahoo Datacenters

barlevg writes "The Washington Post reports that, according to documents obtained from Edward Snowden, through their so-called 'MUSCULAR' initiative, the National Security Agency has exploited a weakness in the transfers between data centers, which Google and others pay a premium to send over secure fiber optic cables. The leaked documents include a post-it note as part of an internal NSA Powerpoint presentation showing a diagram of Google network traffic, an arrow pointing to the Google front-end server with text reading, 'SSL Added and Removed Here' with a smiley face. When shown the sketch by The Post and asked for comment, two engineers with close ties to Google responded with strings of profanity." The Washington Post report is also summarized at SlashBI. Also in can't-trust-the-government-not-to-spy news, an anonymous reader writes: "According to recent reports, the National Security Agency collects 'one-end foreign' Internet metadata as it passes through the United States. The notion is that purely domestic communications should receive greater protection, and that ordinary Americans won't send much personal information outside the country. A researcher at Stanford put this hypothesis to the test... and found that popular U.S. websites routinely pass browsing activity to international servers. Even the House of Representatives website was sending traffic to London. When the NSA vacuums up international Internet metadata, then, it's also snooping on domestic web browsing by millions of Americans."

Comments

I'm for this

[Anonymous Coward]

No one knows how many terrorist plots that have been adverted due to this. Just think back at the Boston marathon event. We should be grateful that we have not had more of them for the past decade. A lot of people forget this.

Re:I'm for this

[cavreader]

The new a-bomb in today's world is information. Information is the most dangerous weapon today. Information can be shaped and manipulated to achieve specific goals. We have built a globe spanning network piece meal with little or no collaboration between the different countries which has resulted in an unending source of information there for the taking by anyone technologically capable. The WWW is the easiest, most effective, and cheapest way to spread targeted propaganda around the world. The NSA story is neither surprising or unexpected. The people claiming otherwise should get their head out of their ass's now and then and look around a bit more. The hypocrisy being displayed by other countries about US surveillance is simply astounding. Several countries are bleating about the loss of any future collaboration with the US but it should be pointed out that the US really doesn't need cooperation from any country when the stakes are high enough. And those oh so moral Europeans are actually the ones sending data to the NSA on their own citizens and it is about time the US publishes the details of how these countries provide and request data from the NSA. In the name of transparency lets put every thing out on the table. Fuck the consequences. The especially pretentious German leader seems offended that some one would attempt to monitor her but there are some pretty good reasons the NSA should keep tabs on her whenever necessary.The biggest reason to keep tabs on any leader of the German government is because the last time someone took their eye off the ball 50 million people ended up dead. And her claims of being allied with the US is also a matter of opinion. The US helped rebuilt W. Germany after WW2 and provided 40 years of military protection against the USSR. What has Germany ever done for the US to show they are an ally of the US?

Re:Wrong, choice is between who will get noticed

[hondo77]

With the press as we have it being 90+% Democrats, who do you expect stories like the NSA issues to get anything but a passing mention? Just look at the outrage in the media if a Republican does ANYTHING wrong.

Liar.