Slashdot Mirror
Google Handed To FBI 3 Wikileaks Staffers' Emails, Digital Data
Ariastis writes Google took almost three years to disclose to the open information group WikiLeaks that it had handed over emails and other digital data belonging to three of its staffers to the FBI under a secret search warrant issued by a federal judge. WikiLeaks were told last month of warrants which were served in March 2012. The subjects of the warrants were the investigations editor of WikiLeaks, the British citizen Sarah Harrison; the spokesperson for the organisation, Kristinn Hrafnsson; and Joseph Farrell, one of its senior editors. When it notified the WikiLeaks employees last month, Google said it had been unable to say anything about the warrants earlier as a gag order had been imposed.
Everything Google touches is either shit or turns to shit.
If I worked for Wikileaks, I think I'd be encrypting everything especially if it involved using a Google server.
"We have a 'secret' warrant. Give us what we want or YOU goto jail."
Damm google for not protecting users... It's all their fault!
Google had no choice under US law. If you want to bash something, bash the US govt. Out of all the big names in tech, Google is still the least evil.
See that Android phone in front of you, the one you say 'OK Google' to? the one with the camera and the face-unlock feature? Google owns your life, and if secret warrants can get Google to turn over data it has on you, then that device in front of you is nothing but a surveillance device.
How many cameras and microphones do you have in the room right now?
"Give us what we want or we fine you and send you to jail."
They should be happy to goto jail to protect their users.
They pretend it's about the Swedish "rape" case, by which I mean consenting sex without a condom, for the Wikileaks founder. They hound him for YEARS on such silly charges, pretending that no, it's all very serious and no, they're not interested in extraditing him to the US to be tortured and broken.
And then the other shoe drops. And who is surprised.
At last check it is Microsoft who is fighting these sorts of things... even when significant penalties could be involved if they fail: http://www.zdnet.com/article/m...
Where is Google's backbone?
....by the 'do no evil' slogan?
Come on, Google is just as evil as the rest of the pact.
...too bad it's missing the word "ordered" in it... but hey lets not let that stop a good google bashing story.
You can't fix bad government policy with better tech...
There are ways... though it's best not to advertise them as "NSA-proof".
Even with bad government policy... when the dust settles do you want to be on the side of the collaborators... or the resistance?
I have a hard time believing that Sarah Harrison and Kristinn Hrafnsson were US residents. Which means that we are looking at an example of a US datacenter handing over data stored on servers outside the US to US authorities.
But you can use better tech to evade bad laws, like all the NSA bullshit, the DMCA, and everlasting copyright as desired by the RIAA and MPAA. A form of civil disobedience that hopefully will knock some sense ibto the government and make them listen to the people again.
Heard of any case where MS has refused to hand over data held in the US? No? Think there hasn't been any such order?
There are ways... though it's best not to advertise them as "NSA-proof".
Even with bad government policy... when the dust settles do you want to be on the side of the collaborators... or the resistance?
In order to be able to stand among the latter, you might be forced to do a bit of, unwilling, collaboration. Sure, you can choose to go out in a blaze of glory - but you won't be around, and whatever is around to replace you is likely to be much more willing to cooperate, having witnessed your demise
. Was Schindler a collaborator or hero?
Can you tell the difference between foreign data and data stored in the US?
The software giant has been battling U.S. prosecutors for data held in its Dublin, Ireland datacenter, which it says cannot be accessed or retrieved by a U.S. search warrant.
If the data is held in the US the Us warrant has jurisdiction and the Microsoft battle does not apply.
...it had handed over emails and other digital data belonging to three of its staffers to the FBI under a secret search warrant...
So, a US company receives a search warrant and complies with it... what's the news here?
Mod up as Funny as hell and Insightful!
There's an ad on the front page asking if slashdoters are infected by some non-computer virus?
The web looks different when browsing without adblock!
Where is Google's backbone?
I dunno, like 2013... http://www.wired.com/2013/01/google-says-get-a-warrant/
I mean, when Yahoo started demanding warrants everyone noted that it was "what Google was already doing" http://www.wired.com/2013/01/yahoo-demands-warrants/
So, Google has already been demanding search warrants for a very long time, and that's exactly what the FBI had!
Sure you can. It's called PGP, or GPG if you want the name of the best implementation rather than the protocol, and Wikileaks was incompetent if it wasn't using it in 2012.
"Well they can outlaw PGP"...maybe, but they haven't, and US courts may very well look unkindly on such laws and find them unconstitutional.
Better tech is often an integral part of fixing bad government policy in an imperfect world.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
Google had no choice under US law
Fuck man, stop giving us this shitty excuse!
Under US laws Google has to pay *A SHITLOAD OF TAXES* and what Google did?
Google shifted its money, via accounting, around the world, to Ireland, to Luxembourg, to many other tax havens, so that it doesn't need to pay those taxes
If Google can find ways to skirt around the US laws regarding taxes, don't you fucking tell us Google has no motherfucking choice but to comply to the motherfucking US laws and hand over whatever them fucking goons told it to
So Google hands over the data of a brit, an icelander and (maybe?) a german. Was the data stored on servers local to their countries? That seems like a reasonable assumption given that each of those countries have their own domestic version of google.
Remember this? Judge may hold Microsoft in contempt after refusal to hand over foreign data.
Google is now officially more evil than microsoft. Not that I think MS has a chance of winning, and the only reason they are fighting back is because of the potential to lose business. But it is still better to have the megalocorp's interests aligned with good than with evil.
I suppose it is possible that there was some real evidence that some Wikipedia officials might be involved in some sort of genuinely illegal activity.
But it is probably safe to assume that that is not the case. Probably they were trying to track down somebody that was revealing information that embarrasses the government.
Incidentally, I am surprised that it is not actually a crime to "use of computer equipment to disclose sensitive information that would embarrass the government". Would save a lot of bother pursuing other trivial charges with huge penalties.
Does cherry picking old war stories usually work out well for you?
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
You mean like http://www.techrepublic.com/article/googles-end-to-end-gmail-encryption-an-excellent-development-for-the-enterprise/
In Soviet Amerika, government hacks you
Sure you can if that tech is meant to spread awareness when it comes to things like encryption. Such things makes bad policy pointless.
You mean they were just following orders?
ixquick.com
yandex.com
torproject.org
Isn't the most smartest thing to do to setup your own mail server especially for an organization such as this one?
Same could be said for cloud storage and anything else in-between. Why store any of your stuff with any of these people when they easily fork over your data to the government.
The subjects of the warrants were the investigations editor of WikiLeaks, the British citizen Sarah Harrison; the spokesperson for the organisation, Kristinn Hrafnsson; and Joseph Farrell, one of its senior editors
It's obvious they also stole some vowels from the poor spokesperson.
#DeleteChrome
Was Schindler a collaborator or hero?
Do you have any proof of Google protecting data that FBI asked for?
Without that part it looks a lot more like Himmler rather than Schindler.
...use Google Mail.
Bad one. You are a fucking idiot.
... consenting sex without a condom ...
Actually, the consent was conditional upon the use of a condom. You see a girl is sort of like the GPL, you abide by the rules of the girl/fsf or you lose your license to continue.
You are basically claiming that when a girl says no you don't have to stop if you think her objection is frivolous.
You can't fix bad government policy with better tech...
But Microsoft is using the opposite tactic and fighting this with bad tech. If the government are spending all their money on licenses and all their efforts trying to integrate proprietary systems then they have less time and resources to snoop on citizens
Do you have any proof that FBI have asked to have data that is stored in servers in other countries like the ms-case and google then provided it to the FBI?, seems more like you are just grasping for straws to bash google
seems more like you are just grasping for straws to bash google
Not really, I gladly bash Microsoft too. I just got triggered by the way previous AC was reasoning.
The argument was more or less "Look, they are gathering up Jews, has to be a good guy like Schindler!" without pointing at where to good part actually was supposed to be.
After argumentation like that there is no real point in having further discussions, better to just derail it so no-one takes it seriously.
And this got me thinking, how can they outlaw strong encryption anyway?
If I send you a file which contains random garbage, how is that different from a file/text encrypted? I don't think there is a way for them to prove that you were using encryption beyond reasonable doubt.
All of this trying to outlaw strong encryption completely pointless.
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
Google had no choice under US law. If you want to bash something, bash the US govt. Out of all the big names in tech, Google is still the least evil.
How ironic you still want to make this claim as we hear of the "least evil" company out there being forced to cooperate under gag order.
My entire point here is, how the hell do you know they're the least evil when even they can't tell you the evil shit they've done?
Remember it really doesn't matter who is the least evil when companies are pulled like puppets on strings by the government.
Well there is clearly a conspiracy against Wikileaks, because these 3 staffers had their emails spied on, or are you suggesting they also had sex with this woman while she was asleep? She seems to be a really heavy sleeper!
The 'sheer effort' claim is also bogus. He WAS IN SWEDEN, he even asked if it was OK to go to the UK. No extradition warrant was needed, they could simply have laid charges before he left or after his return.
The only reason to wait for issue the warrant appears to be for the "fugitive" claim it bestows.
Triggered...triggered? Dont use that bullshit social justice lingo. You weren't triggered you dont have PTSD. At best you were annoyed
Yes, but did Google have to wait until Christmas Eve to declare what happened?
This company is very adept at playing the PR game; no surprise they tried to hide / bury their actions by announcing it during the festive season.
Then you will have admitted to trying to DDoS(never mind the first D is out of place they just use it as a label) your friend on a major corporation's webmail and tried to destroy the economy. And your a terrorist.
Fellow users, i found a very interesting site where i can buy virtual credit cards to verify paypal, ebay, amazon and others!
www.getvcc.net
they have acoupn running for 1st time customers: newcust10
Use this when checking out to receive 10% discount on any of their products
PGP or GPG is not a full solution. It's currently difficult enough to setup and annoying enough to use that only a tiny portion of the population will ever bother. The NSA can't watch everyone. But as long as GPG is in use by less than 0.1% of the population and of course PGP doesn't obscure senders, recipients, or even message size (though you can pad message size if you choose), the NSA can watch people who use it.
Likewise Tor isn't a solution it's integral to the HTTP 3.0 protocol.
We need to create better tools.
Dammit, I meant "Likewise Tor isn't a solution until it's integral to the HTTP 3.0 protocol."
You mean they were just following orders?
They responded to a search warrant. The only thing that makes this search warrant different from other search warrants is that for some reason you think that emails of the accused person shouldn't be searched in this case. Your justification seems to be purely political. I don't think Google should fight specific search warrants on purely political reasons, Google itself might not have your political views and might not want to fight these search warrants at all, and last Google doesn't actually have any standing to fight these warrants. If there is something wrong with the search warrants, someone's lawyers will bring it up in court.
Do no evil clause comes to mind.. But who decides whats evil?
Ahh yes a classic internet toughguy. When was the last time you were served a US federal warrant by a US judge to hand over data stored by a US company in the US about a customer who doesn't pay you anything at all, and then decide to "fight it".
I'm guessing never since we don't get many brave slashdot ACs posting from prison.
I don't understand why Google is still in the US. Why not move all US activities to a country that has somewhat saner laws and agencies?
Gmail? Seriously? Run your own mail server in your own location. Wikileaks claims to have the technical moxie to keep secrets. Yes, your lines may/will be tapped, but any PGP mail they suck up will be encrypted. And you'll know when they bust your door down (unless the FBI succeeds in planting a mole in your operation).
They were using PGP for internal emails, but couldn't when interacting with people outside the organization who didn't use it. There is also the metadata, which is at least as valuable as the content.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
PGP/GPG is much easier to use these days than it was in the 90's. Plugins exist for many mail clients that do the heavy lifting in the background.
Friends and family are surely tired of my tinfoil hat, they just do not seem to care about their privacy. Many say the "I have nothing to hide" line.
Trolling is a art,
Did I miss something? Did they skip FBI 2 just like Windows 9? That headline could be written in a less confusing manner: "Google Handed Three Wikileaks Staffers' Data to FBI"
This is a perfect example of why cloud computing is a baaaaad idea...
At least when you have it in-house, the gov usually needs a warrant to come through your door and seize stuff....At the very least you are aware you are being targeted and can start mounting a legal defense.
When it's housed on a 3rd party provider, you need not even be aware they have seized your stuff.....
Not to mention corporate espionage going on and you have exactly 0 ways of detecting it.
Yes yes you can encrypt. But encryption does not work for EVERYTHING in every situation. You can encrypt documents easy enough, but what if those documents are only available via a web interface (something like good docs). Or how do you encrypt say virtual servers so the host (who has root access to the hardware) cannot see them or what is inside them but their hypervisor can execute it....
Funny enough phone service suffers from the same problems. Your service provider knows who you are calling, when, from where and can listen in to your convo at will without you knowing any better. But this is why, pre-911, you needed a warrant to do that and there where legal protections in place to prevent that from occurring.
I thought the Supreme Court ruled a long time ago Americans had a right to encrypt by way of free speech.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
It's funny how when its a question of profits, giant corporations dig in their heels, spend millions and millions on lawyers, fight in court, and drag things out for years and years. But when it comes to selling their customers out, it's "oh, we didn't have any choice - its the law".
Fuck Google. Fuck the Feds.
Friends and family are surely tired of my tinfoil hat, they just do not seem to care about their privacy. Many say the "I have nothing to hide" line.
Many are idiots. And the tin-foil hat line seems passe now that it's been proven that quite likely even the most paranoid tin-foil hat wearer underestimated the true scope of the surveillance operations.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
The "I have nothing to hide" line frustrates me too.
The twitter-friendly response is, "Just because I have nothing to hide, it doesn't mean I'm happy with a webcam on my toilet."
The longer response is that the NSA is asking Google to record all of my searches, Comcast to record every website I visit at home, Verizon to record every place my cell phone goes and every cell phone call I make, and Voipo (my home phone service, similar to Vonage) to record the phone number on every home call I make. Even if I was comfortable with the government possessing that information without probable cause, it means a crooked law enforcement official, a disgruntled employee, or a criminal hacker can get a scary amount of private data about me from any one of those five sources and use it to stalk me or commit identity theft. If I am the only person with all of that data then the stalkers, the identity thieves, and the government have to hack my personal machines to get it.
So you do mean that they were just following orders.
Google = Government. Have you not read "When Google Met Wikileaks" by Assange?
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
Last time?
Lets see, never as that 'judge' would then have been hauled in front of a privacy tribiunal and stripped of all possessions, assets, titles and what not for signing a order violating privacy laws without any due dilligence. (Failure of an 'intelligence' service of keeping their secrets secret is none to blame but themselfs)
Contempt of a court works both ways, never forget that and do not forget the long arm of the law.
So, you must know so much more about the federal warrant that Google was legally obliged to respond to. Where is all that pesky evidence that the judge did something wrong?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
How much security do you have on your personal machines? I mean access control which stops a key-logger being installed; authentication control on encrypted volumes to stop them stealing your identity; VPN anonymizer servers to prevent tracking and behaviour profiling; secure-room protocols to keep all on-line communiques and off-line records encrypted.
And, any activity done on a phone doesn't count; we all know phone security is equal to a "keep out" sign.
I encrypt my off-line records onto a portable volume and that takes a surprising amount of time. Making myself more safe from cyber-cracking is exhausting so I don't. There's a need for encryption services built-in to the operating system and network protocols that many vendors are avoiding.
Facts: https://medium.com/@NafeezAhmed/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e
Funny how everyone doesn't realize that Google = CIA = US Government. And yet people think they are a just a private corporation hahahaaha.
Essentially none of my friends and family have GPG enabled, and most don't know what it is. I can't communicate securely unless the person at the other end cooperates.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Triggered...triggered? Dont use that bullshit social justice lingo. You weren't triggered you dont have PTSD. At best you were annoyed
Ran out of mod points, or I'd give you some :) Posting instead:
Always call people on this kind of shit. So many people trying to avoid responsibility for what they say or do these days.... and he was already posting as AC to begin with.....
"lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.
How much security he has on his personal machine is secondary.
Hackers/government/whoever will target the big databases with everyone's information in them. That is worth their time. If your information is in there, you suffer also.
Hackers/government/whoever are far far far less likely to be hacking your personal computer, unless you've managed to get flagged already, and become a target through some other means, which sure can happen, but the point is, you don't need to be targeted to have your identity stolen if your identity information is being logged and stored by multiple other systems.
Simply not having/being in those big databases is better than any personal firewall imho.
"lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.
They were complying with the request from their local government that was legally reasonable, and that they had no place to interfere with, which they are required (just like every other person/entity/company) to do in order to operate within their locality.....
"lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.
Good It serves them right Wikia and Wikileaks are plagariazers anyways having a bunch of thugs bully kids for their Idea's. Then we have the fraud Jimmy Whales and Tracy Segal. The Baby Killers.
No...... That's not Google's evil, that's the government's evil. When men in suits with the the power of the government behind them come to you legally requiring you to hand over a customers information, doing so doesn't make you evil. It makes you a law abiding citizen. And if they also legally prevent you from letting that customer know, that's their evil, not yours.
"lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.
I have read it. Google rep showed up with a (probably unwelcome) government shadow. Doesn't mean that Google == Government. If they did, we'd never hear about any of these goings on. Google (and many other companies, and individuals) are often required to comply with governmental directives, on a daily basis.
It seems like half the people posting here today believe that Google is giggling and sending private data to the government willy nilly, when the case is they were legally required to, have constantly pushed back where possible against this kind of request, actively help campaign for better consumer protection, and, as soon as they legally are allowed to, inform the public of what teh government is making or trying to make them do.
And as noted, it's not just Google, Microsoft also, in a big way, and many other companies of all sizes.
The common thread here isn't Google and it being evil. The common thread is the government.
btw, I'm not a Google fanboy, or an any company fanboy. I own machines running windows, osx and linux and android. I use chrome firefox and... well I only use others when I have to actually, but if you want to be calling out evil companies, there's some real actual targets like big pharma, tobacco, etc. Google is a veritable choirboy compared to them imho. As is MS and Apple too. They make profits by making life better for us, big tobacco, on the other hand....... All the evil that seems to come out of these big tech companies is pulled out legally by the government, almost always against the companies desires.
"lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.
In the US of A, it is 'pay to play' in government matters. Google out donated the military-industrialites for campaign financing. Google also provides computer infrastructure to the US military. Just because Microsoft plays too, does not make Google less culpable. The two sides (Google and Gov't) are in deep, 'synchronicity'.Just like the Bush, Cheney, Rice oil exec junta--Google is moving in as being part of that dark influence. Just like Microsoft, Google helps drones kill. Google may do some good things, but the bad cannot be ignored. We need not support Google, rather let us look to alternatives. I am not against government, but their policies need a deep re-examination and the people need to hold them accountable for their actions.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
Your justification seems to be purely political
The trouble is, the justification of the warrant seems to be purely political as well...
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
Nope nope nope, investigating a pretty serious crime, please stop being so dumb.
Thank you. I agree with you.
If you start a company that is at the forefront of an industry, constantly pushing the envelope, and world recognised (and supported by userbase) and funded enough, you'll might find yourself dumping some money into politics as you're in a position to know how things should be shaped... That's not 'evil'. That's 'doing business and improving society (or attempting to).
You note that google provides infrastructure to the military. The military buy lots of stuff from IT infrastructure to weapons to vehicles to clothing to food to
And...
Google helps drones kill
OK. That's a fantastic one. let's cover a couple of quick things first: :)
Drones killing people == evil
Sure, it can be, but it might not be also. Unless you are of the belief that every killing is evil, in which case, you're gonna have to go down the rabbithole of lesser evils, because sometimes there's a person who is going to kill several other people, and killing them has to be considered as an alternative to killing x others. That's kind of the whole job of the military, making those kinds of decisions. You know, wars and stuff.
someone providing something that is used by someone else for killing
Well I kinda covered that earlier, but it should be pretty obvious who is responsible for the evil. Not like Google's going "Yeah, you can use our stuff in your drones, but only if you make sure and kill a bunch of innocent people with it"......
Oh I could go on, but who's going to bother reading this far
"lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.
1) Campaign financing reform. There MUST be a campaign contribution limit. The current system stymies democracy. A corporation should not have more power than a citizen. Once you have (reasonable--the kind an average person can afford) caps, things will start getting fair. 2) Drones. Sure, if your family is targetted (and some killed) by these very drones and you STILL hold that position, then I will side with you.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
Oh, I'm all for more transparency, but I'm not politically minded enough to be sure my ideas are that great, however:
Just using the USA and Google for this example, the amount of money Google should be allowed to invest should be directly proportional to it's number of US Citizen employees.
I figure it'd be a good way to have the amount of sway a company can pull tied directly to their involvement (via employment) to the US economy in the political scene.
Yeah, no doubt it's flawed, however I wouldn't like to see a situation where no matter how much a company is giving to it's government, etc, it has an artificial capped limit.
As for if a drone kills someone I know, I'm going to be blaming the person who instigated it/directed it/pulled the (remote) trigger.
And if it wasn't any person, but some sort of accident, then I'll treat it like I would any other accident.
It's exactly the same as if a car killed someone I know. I'd blame the driver, not the guy who wrote the program that allowed the engine to fire efficiently enough to achieve the speed to achieve killing impact.
"lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.
The thought that always comes to me is "I have nothing to fear, so I have nothing to hide. If I have nothing to hide, why do you need to look?"
You are under estimating the literal tin-foil hat wearer, after all they believe government is reading thoughts right out of your brain.
Part A, so basically what you are saying is that you are not for democracy, but all for corporatocracy. Part B, Read this book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... Google knows full well that their systems are being used to kill off men, women, and children without due process. I will not support a company that knowingly assists crimes against humanity.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE