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Eric Schmidt, Jared Cohen Say Google Data Now Protected From Gov't Spying

Posted by timothy on from the now-how-to-effectively-test? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Google's Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen were [part of a] wide-ranging session at SXSW today and they revealed that Google's data is now safely protected from the prying eyes of government organizations. In the last few days Google upgraded its security measure following revelations that Britain's GCHQ had intercepted data being transmitted between Google datacenters, Schmidt said that his company's upgrades following the incident left him 'pretty sure that information within Google is now safe from any government's prying eyes.'"

27 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Safe just from prying eyes? by CRCulver · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sure, the data might be safe from a government's prying eyes, but will it be safe from a government who kindly asks for the data, with the company acquiescing between it wants to maintain its lucrative business links with the authorities?

    1. Re:Safe just from prying eyes? by thaylin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Sure, the data might be safe from a government's prying eyes, but will it be safe from a government who kindly pays for the data, with the company acquiescing between it wants to maintain its lucrative business links with the authorities?

      FTFY

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      When you cant win, ad hominem.
    2. Re:Safe just from prying eyes? by Frobnicator · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sure, the data might be safe from a government's prying eyes, but will it be safe from a government who kindly pays for the data, with the company acquiescing between it wants to maintain its lucrative business links with the authorities?

      FTFY

      ...that also has the power to jail anyone, including corporate executives, for undisclosed national security reasons and undisclosed duration if they fail to cooperate?

      --
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    3. Re:Safe just from prying eyes? by louarnkoz · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Governments can indeed ask for some data, using subpoena or in the case of the US "National Security Network." But for that, they have to actually ask, and the request has to be targeted, naming for example a specific individual. The NSA and the GCHQ were not content with that, they wanted to grab "everything," so instead of the legal channels they used a hack. The hack was to spy on the internal network of Google, and of other services as well, because these internal exchanges were not encrypted.

      According to Eric Schmidt, now they are. This is absolutely good news. It is also exactly what the Electronic Frontier Foundation is asking web services to do. You can check the relative state of Google and other services according to the EFF at: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/....

    4. Re:Safe just from prying eyes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, and plenty of direct evidence that they're doing things illegally and then faking up a legal investigation based on that evidence. Which is, itself, illegal.

    5. Re:Safe just from prying eyes? by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      They don't play preferences with governments.

      They sell your data to everyone willing to pay.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    6. Re:Safe just from prying eyes? by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      They don't need perfect security. All they need is security that's more expensive to penetrate than to pay them to hand over the data.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    7. Re:Safe just from prying eyes? by cnkurzke · · Score: 2

      The former CEO of QWest kindly disagrees. His life was ruined (including 10yrs in jail) for not following orders from the NSA. http://www.atlassociety.org/br...

    8. Re:Safe just from prying eyes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think this is a less biased account
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

    9. Re:Safe just from prying eyes? by AnonymousCoward1998 · · Score: 2

      As long as they want to keep paying near zilch in taxes, they will comply. Besides, they don't need prying eyes when they have direct access.

    10. Re:Safe just from prying eyes? by swillden · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Sure, the data might be safe from a government's prying eyes, but will it be safe from a government who kindly asks for the data, with the company acquiescing between it wants to maintain its lucrative business links with the authorities?

      Governments can ask, and Google will say "No, please come back with an order."

      Governments can order, and Google will comply, as long as the order was issued by proper authority, isn't excessively broad, etc. And then Google will add the order, and the number of accounts it affects, to the next transparency report.

      That's not perfect, but it's much, much better than the government being able to snarf all the data with no accountability at all.

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    11. Re:Safe just from prying eyes? by swillden · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Governments can ask, and Google will say "No, please come back with an order."

      How do you know Google will say, "No, please come back with an order?" What if Google only tells the public that it insists on the government presenting a lawfully issued court order, but in fact it secretly gives the government whatever information wants? Speculation that Google is deeply implicated with the US government has been going around for over a decade now.

      How do I know? Well, (a) Google's leadership says so and AFAICT there is no law that allows the government to compel them to lie, publicly or internally and in fact there are laws that make it a crime for executives of publicly-traded companies to lie about issues which could affect the stock price (which this definitely does!); (b) as a Google employee who manages sensitive user data I have some visibility into how requests for that data are handled; and (c) as someone who is familiar with Google culture I find it inconceivable that such a thing could be happening on any kind of significant scale without being outed -- like most of silicon valley, and like geeks in general, Googlers tend to be pretty iconoclastic and anti-authoritarian.

      Speculation that Google is deeply implicated with the US government has been going around for over a decade now.

      If the speculation has been floating around that long, without a shred of evidence to support it in spite of the large-scale conspiracy that would be required to keep all such evidence suppressed, I think that's pretty compelling evidence that it's not true. You can never completely prove a negative, of course, but you can asymptotically approach certainty.

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    12. Re:Safe just from prying eyes? by the+grace+of+R'hllor · · Score: 2

      "They wouldn't dare" is not a long term argument with a government that is increasingly using the methods of totalitarian states.

  2. Yeah right by Ubi_NL · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seriously is there anyone that would actually believe such a statement?

    --

    If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
    1. Re:Yeah right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      the NSA employees working for google wont...

    2. Re:Yeah right by swillden · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Seriously is there anyone that would actually believe such a statement?

      I do, but as a Google engineer involved in security and privacy infrastructure I'm in a position with much greater than normal visibility into exactly what is done and how.

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  3. Re:Liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's being a little harsh.

    He says what the letters from Obama tell him to say.

  4. Nonsense by markdavis · · Score: 3, Insightful

    >"they revealed that Google's data is now safely protected from the prying eyes of government organizations. "

    That is nonsense. The NSA could probably STILL access the information if they want to (and likely will) or Google can be compelled to reveal it with a super secret demand order, or even a regular warrant.

    No information that is ever collected is ever "safe" from prying eyes. And even Google having the information is certainly nothing to be comfortable about. They have ENOUGH information about consumers already... certainly enough to be creepy.

    1. Re:Nonsense by swillden · · Score: 2

      The NSA could probably STILL access the information if they want to

      Sure, they could resort to rubber-hose cryptanalysis, targeting key Google employees. If it were to come out, though, it would make the Snowden leaks look very, very mild. As one of said key Google employees (I work on security infrastructure), I've been given to understand that if I am ever approached in any way by the government, I am to immediately consult with Google legal counsel, and that any request that I not talk to counsel would be illegal (I think it would violate the constitutional guarantee of due process).

      or Google can be compelled to reveal it with a super secret demand order, or even a regular warrant.

      Certainly, as long as the order or warrant is issued by the appropriate court, is not excessively broad, etc., and then Google will add it to the statistics for the transparency report.

      No information that is ever collected is ever "safe" from prying eyes.

      In an information-theoretic sense that is undoubtedly true. In that sense, though, I'd argue that nothing that touches a networked computer is safe.

      And even Google having the information is certainly nothing to be comfortable about.

      YMMV, of course, but I actually am pretty comfortable with it. Of course, I have visibility into how Google manages user data, which helps. There is the possibility that a future version of Google may behave differently, but I think that possibility is at least a decade or two away, because I think it would take that long for the company's culture to change enough to make it possible.

      They have ENOUGH information about consumers already... certainly enough to be creepy.

      Perhaps. I think the general belief about what data Google has overstates the reality by a wide margin, and further even where it's accurate it overstates Google's (current) ability to actually make use of the data.

      In any case, if you're concerned with it, Google provides you with the tools to opt out. I encourage you to use them. Personally, I turned on web history, location history, route all of my email through gmail, use Hangouts for SMS, etc., etc. I find the value I get from the services to outweigh the risk I perceive. If you see that balance differently, you should act accordingly.

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  5. "Pretty sure"? Why should we believe this? by sjbe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    and they revealed that Google's data is now safely protected from the prying eyes of government organizations.

    Does anyone actually believe this? First off we know that all the government has to do is issue a National Security Letter and Google will fold like a dish cloth. Eric Schmidt isn't about to go to jail to protect you. Second, he has every reason to publicly proclaim our data is "safely protected" in order to protect his business regardless of whether it is true. Third, he cannot possibly promise that even if he genuinely believes it because he can't prove it. Fourth, even if he could somehow be sure he's keeping the government snoops out, he won't provide anyone the access necessary to verify it.

    There are things they could say that I would believe but him being "pretty sure" that our data is safe just isn't really credible.

  6. Re:Liar by houstonbofh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is a very broken, hazy line between marketing and lying.

    I thought they were synonyms...

  7. Re:"Pretty sure"? Why should we believe this? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not a fan of Google's, but I'm not sure why people are unwilling to recognize this is a significant step in the right direction.

    Before Google took the steps necessary to ensure communications between data centers was secured, the government could (and apparently did) just slurp up everything and troll for information. Now, at least they'll need some sort of court order, which means they'll need at least a modicum of an idea what they are targeting.

    The entire government system is still deeply - maybe even fatally - flawed. Even if Obama's reforms actually take place, there's still far too much power left in the hands of the secret courts and the spy agencies. But fixing this horrible, unconstitutional mess will take time and effort. Correcting (or, in this case, interfering with) even one aspect of it is welcome news.

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  8. Re:"Pretty sure"? Why should we believe this? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

    They say they need a court order. How do we know they havn't just issued some secret National Security Letter or FISA warrant that says 'let us sift through everything, and we'll throw you in jail if you ever tell anyone this request was made?' This assurance is better than nothing, yes - but it doesn't change the fact that if you want to be secure from prying government eyes human or automated, you just can't trust any service provider any more. The only way to be sure is to verify security at both endpoints of any conversation, and encrypt on the assumption that all intermediary hosts and routers are compromised or monitored.

  9. Re:Liar by jd2112 · · Score: 4, Funny

    There is a very broken, hazy line between marketing and lying.

    I thought they were synonyms...

    If you are trying to sell something it's marketing. Otherwise it's lying.

    --
    Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
  10. Eric "you shouldn't be doing that" Schmidt by hazeii · · Score: 2

    This would be the same Eric Schmidt who said "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."?

    And now we're expected to believe him, when he says he's keeping us safe from letting anyone know what we're doing?

    He killed a lot of trust with the original comment.

    He just killed a whole lot more.

    --
    All your ghosts are just false positives.
    1. Re: Eric "you shouldn't be doing that" Schmidt by hazeii · · Score: 2

      I thought the point was clear, but to attempt to make it more so:

      Eric Schmidt stated if there was stuff we didn't want people to know, we shouldn't be doing it. (this was way before the Snowden leaks).

      He made it a clear position - don't do anything you don't want to be made public (search back for the old discussion on here about it, as I recall he didn't come out of it well).

      So now he's saying the opposite - that we can trust him with stuff we don't people to know (i.e. everything Google knows about us).

      Our opinions in how much trust to him are clearly divergent.

      --
      All your ghosts are just false positives.
  11. Safe? by jargonburn · · Score: 2

    Now, if only my data was safe from Google's eyes...