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

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.'"

Comments

Safe just from prying eyes?

[CRCulver]

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?

Re:Safe just from prying eyes?

[Frobnicator]

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?

Re:Safe just from prying eyes?

[louarnkoz]

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/....

Re:Liar

[houstonbofh]

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

I thought they were synonyms...

Re:"Pretty sure"? Why should we believe this?

[93 Escort Wagon]

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.

Re:Liar

[jd2112]

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.