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Eric Schmidt: To Avoid NSA Spying, Keep Your Data In Google's Services
jfruh writes Google Chairman Eric Schmidt told a conference on surveillance at the Cato Institute that Edward Snowden's revelations on NSA spying shocked the company's engineers — who then immediately started working on making the company's servers and services more secure. Now, after a year and a half of work, Schmidt says that Google's services are the safest place to store your sensitive data.
Just keep everything on your hard drive on a computer that is *not* connected to the Internet.
They will be immediately forced to hand over everything and be silent about it.
Until US laws are fixed AND respected, data going to a US Corporation can by definition not be safe.
Why not keep the data in the police station? I am sure it would work better than at googles. Is this article a freaking joke? It is not the 1st of April yet last time I checked.
That just shows how evil google is. Eric Schmidt is lying throught his teeth when he is saying sensitive data is safe with him.
It should be obvious, but in order to protect your data from the US government agencies, you have to keep it from companies that have business presence in the USA.
It is a no-brainer actually.
Or you can keep your data on your servers (At home or w/e) using SyncThing (open source, decentralized, syncing)
... encrypted phones that self-destruct in the wrong hands, near realtime incremental cloud backups to anonymous sites, anonymous Facebooking, etc.
There's a new market for privacy on the Internet.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
To quote Bender:
HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Oh wait! You're serious. Then let me laugh even harder!
HAAAHAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
...about control.
Them moment you put ANYTHING in the cloud, you are relinquishing control of your data. PERIOD.
Who gives a shit if they are reading your stuff....if you are that concerned about it, it does not take much to make it unreadable via encryption....
The real issue is you are basically giving the keys of your kingdom to somebody else.....Encrypted or not, they can block your access to it and shut you down. Any time they want. PERIOD. And if/when it happens THERE WILL BE NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. Sure you can sue and spend years in court, but I do not know any company that can survive years and years without producing/selling anything until this mess is sorted out.
Offline copies you say? Then you basically got suckered into paying for services for a cloud provider AND keep your own infrastructure.....
Pay 2 cloud providers? At that point I think it is cheaper to simply not pay anybody and build your own infrastructure.....
The cloud is an interesting idea, hardly new concept though: we are essentially transitioning back to the days of big powerful central mainframes that companies such as IBM had a stranglehold on and had their clients paying "protection" money that would make the mafia green with envy....
Here is my problem: Google has a long history of cooperating with NSA.
Don't believe me? Fine: read these links instead... Yahoo News article about cooperation between Google and NSA, Guardian article, Tom's Guide article.
Even if Google does not/did not/will not cooperate with NSA, Eric Schmidt himself has been cooperating with the US Government, which cast serious doubts about his desire to protect the private information of Google clients.
Again, don't believe me? Fine, read this instead: Julian Assange on Eric Schmidt. Or (even better) this transcript.
Even if Eric Schmidt does not cooperate with the US Government, he has said himself, repeatedly, that privacy is dead and that it's something for hackers.
Don't believe me? Fine, read this instead: EFF article, Gawker article.
In other words, a company that cooperated with the NSA, led by a man who does not care about your privacy (but cares very much about his) is telling you that there is nothing to see here, sure we are protecting your privacy, please buy our products, we are safe and professionals and there is nothing to be afraid of.
Seriously? How come this gasbag is a freaking CEO, paid millions of dollars a year?
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
No, if you want to avoid NSA spying then keep your data out of the cloud and off the web. Keep your data at home. It's that easy.
Reminds me of this statement from 2009 (http://www.pcworld.com/article/184446/googles_schmidt_roasted_for_privacy_comments.html):
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place, but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it's important, for example that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities." -- Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google
Bottom line is the only real privacy is privacy that protects both criminals and innocents equally. If you can't protect both you aren't really protecting either. Everyone is a criminal if the government wants your data badly enough.
can discredit anything and everything you have ever said before publicly. then again, i wonder if it's reached the point of kabuki theatre such that he's trying to deliberately be ridiculous to communicate in the only way he can. kind of like when a hostage deliberately oversells his 'newfound devotion' to his captors' cause to try and communicate that there's a gun pointed at his head.
As anyone knows, Google receives several federal subpoenas, and it attempts to cooperate with as many as possible. It has to as a public, U.S. based entity. It seems ludicrous that Schmidt would make this claim, but unless someone has gone through this system like I have (read my story here The Market is not Random), I guess they wouldn't know everything the governments are capable of doing.
Careful, Mr. Schmidt.
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artlu.net
the more i think that maybe eric shmidt is trying to do the right thing, and so making such an outrageous statement to communicate the OPPOSITE. in other words, 'to avoid NSA spying, NEVER store ANYTHING in google services.' this might be the only way he can 'say' it with a gun at his head.
All things considered, I trust the NSA more with my data. At least they're not in the business of selling it.
Reminds me of this statement from 2009 (http://www.pcworld.com/article/184446/googles_schmidt_roasted_for_privacy_comments.html):
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place, but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it's important, for example that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities." -- Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google
If you can't protect both criminals and innocents equally you can't really protect anyone. US laws make it impossible for Google to provide the level of privacy people need, and as such is a horrible place to store actual sensitive data. If a government entity wants your data badly enough, they can force Google to grant them access.
"Ah, this is obviously some strange use of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of.” - Arthur Dent
From the original article:
Back doors are a bad idea, Schmidt said. “It’d be great, if you’re the government, to have a trap door, but how do we at Google know that the other governments are not taking over the trap door from you?” he said.
He is not saying the government (presumably the US government) shouldn't have a backdoor. He is only expressing a concern that other governments might find ways to exploit it.
Bottom line ... it still seems like Google will hand over any data the US government wants.
The CIA and NSA are bosom buddies who only withhold information from each other when there's an actual threat. But if it's just an ordinary citizen, they'll be more than happy to double-team you.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I was wondering what I could do to keep the NSA from spying on me. I'm glad that Google has it figured out. Time to upload all of the documents I have stored locally on my desktop to the Google servers so that they can keep a watchful eye on them. I was worried that this was going to be hard and require a lot of dilligence.
I'm going to tell my boss that we need to move away from all of these Microsoft products to and only use Google cloud services for security.
Fast forward to the year 2017.
Headline: NSA outsourced to Google
In a cost cutting move, the US Government has outsource all NSA activity to Google. In a statement from President Hillary, she gives the reasoning that "[they] recognized a duplication of data collection efforts between the NSA and Google and decided to take advantage of those synergies."
It's worse than most people seem to realise. Schmidt isn't just lying, he's willingly getting Google in deeper with the NSA because, you know, the bottom line: It's very, very profitable (tax payers dollars are always the most profitable source) and the market insists that corporations go where the money is. Google appear to be doing everything they can to get into the international espionage business via their departments like "Google Ideas", which is effectively a department within the US State Department. They consult with governments and corporations to help them with their commercial and political "issues." You know, the kinds of issues that some governments and corporations don't like, such as popular protest movements, environmental campaigning, human rights protection and enforcement, exposing political corruption, etc. Google can provide such governments and corporations with very helpful data on who these "trouble makers" are, where they've been, who they've talked to, and what they may be planning to do next.
Perhaps we should be more insistent when interviewing Schmidt about our data: Is it safe? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... I mean, it's the kind of thing that he's endorsing, enabling, and promoting by getting into bed with the current NSA, CIA, DoJ, and State Department. It's only fair that he should be treated equally.
And then they are one court order away from being unlocked.
Seeing that it turns out that nobody's tinfoil hat was big enough, I am going to make a prediction. It will turn out that Google was sharing data with the NSA as part of a deal where the NSA would share software patent data from potential foreign competitors with google so that google could keep the market on just about anything it wanted.
I wonder how many foreign companies went to file a patent only to find that an American company that was friends with the NSA had filed the patent days before? Siemens filing patents only find that GE had done so the day before?
The NSA would only have had to monitor a very few IP lawyers' offices to vacuum up a huge number of patents. This would then give the NSA something that they could afford with which to trade and it would "Protect" US commercial interests; as it would be a complete disaster for the next facebook or Google to be in a country that isn't friendly with the NSA.
Even within the US I suspect that it would be easier to not have to negotiate a new data access deal with even domestic companies so why not hand their patents over as well.
Think of it this way. If a company were to come up with a better search algorithm (one that didn't always bring up yellow page directories for every damn search, or spammy product sales sites) and I said you should try boobla.com (I made that up) as a search engine and you tried it and it was so much better, would you ever use google search again? How fast would you tell all your friends about boobla? Thus how long before google was seeing 40% month on month drops in search traffic? Unlike companies like Ford where a better car coming along doesn't get you to dump your ford and immediately buy the better car google can see the rug swept out from under them. If they lost search then all their other services combined would not be able to prop up the company. Plus there is no reason that boobla.com can't be Chinese, Korean, Icelandic, German, or Tanzanian?
I don't think it means what Google thinks it means.
Actually safe doesn't mean what you think Google thinks it means. S.A.F.E. is a new acronym at Google that stands for"Send After Federal Exaction" Or "Send After Federal Enquiry" if you are in the UK.
... well almost anyway. This was the funniest thing I read this morning and that includes my daily romp through the funnies.
"you either die a hero, or live long enough to turn into one of the bad guys"
yet another Dent quote that is quite fitting for this subject.
google is not going to die a hero.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Seriously?
I trust google with my data even less than I trust the government. It's why I no longer use any of their services. This article is not for anyone with a functional brain, it's for the masses that believe what they're told to believe. I'd also suspect this wasn't something Schmidt said without some "guidance" or "suggestions" from some of his high powered friends in the government.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Google's services are the safest place to store your sensitive data.
-Eric Schmidt
God himself could not sink this ship!
-Unknown Titanic crew member
When asked during an interview for CNBC's recent "Inside the Mind of Google" special about whether users should be sharing information with Google as if it were a "trusted friend," Schmidt responded,
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
The attitude, people here should do their due diligence and look at who Mr Schmidt hangs out with, that will answer all your questions.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Eric Schmidt has close and deeply political connectinons with the very
regime that he is claiming that Google will protect you against.
This is someone who has deep personal associations with the Washington
estabilishment, and a very similar imperialistic neo-liberal worldview
to the ruling junta in Washington.
Google needs to move out of the United States, and change its senior
management to regain any credibility.
The Brookings Institute is funded by Soros and other proper leftist billion and million aires. So, what's your point?
http://www.discoverthenetworks...
What a fucking asshole.
So it takes a year an a half to get something done at one of the biggest tech companies there is and in all that time bugger all said about that company's failures before that? It is really a tacit admission of failure and collusion and should not be construed by any means of any change in the status quo. Schmidt is a bullshitting rich asshole who will at this point say anything that sounds like his shit doesn't stink. But it does and we know it.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Can someone design me a distributed raid app that encrypts and splits the data between all the major cloud options? It would be pretty hard to decrypt if they only have a fifth of it.
Oh Crap, I'm an optimist.....
Mod up please!
Now the USA government can start selling NSA-proof certification for foreign data centers!
They will fight any NSA letter tooth and claw to resist handing over your data.
After all, they still want to sell it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If the service is free, that means that someone else is the customer.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!.... breathe..... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
They will be immediately forced to hand over everything and be silent about it. Until US laws are fixed AND respected, data going to a US Corporation can by definition not be safe.
Yes, but I think you mean until US laws EXPIRE on June 1, 2015. The most egregious parts of the Patriot Act are still set to expire on June 1, 2015. After that it appears that demanding ALL the records from a business or institution (or person?).... including phone records, email logs, text message logs, web site visitor logs, library records etc etc... will again require an actual constitutionally valid warrant naming the cause, the person and the things to be seized.
I know I'll get s**t for this but ... Google and you-and-your-own-PC are not so different, a single court order and both have to give up any and all information requested; but in Google's case they have more lawyers than you do.
I remember a quote from a security whitepaper which basically says something to the effect of "Unless your security method is being utilized by the worst of the worst criminals, say pedophiles, human traffickers and terrorists...then assume it is compromised."
Now, how one would find out what those sorts of people use for data security, you got me...but it seems like a good assumption.
Mwahhhahaahaaahaaaa!
-- Eric Schmidt
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
LOL... yes, lets put my data on Google's storage... because you know; Google and the NSA do not work together... (sarc)
People forget that the NSA is now a huge government bureaucracy. Sure they sniff a lot of data, but I'd bet pennies to pounds that the software that they use to analyze it is as broken as most other large government systems.
Google, on the other hand, has yet to become an unworkable bureaucracy (I give it another 5 years). They do have tools and expertise, so your data on Google is not only available to the NSA, it is actually *accessible*, which makes it far more potent.
What if Google is who you are trying to keep your information safe from ?
Nobody commented on PRISM? It is nice to have inter-datacenter encryption, but if the NSA can directly tap the data from the datacenter, the privacy claim is overstated.
What better way to avoid NSA spying on you than by willing giving all your data to one of their most trustied proxies?
What kind of STOOP-PID does Eric Schmidt THINK WE ARE?!
Where the biggest honeypot is.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Fun listen anyhow.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Find out what Project Prism is. This article is Full of Shit.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
Yeah - working with Schmidt's company is really going to keep your stuff away from the US government... http://www.newsweek.com/assang...