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DOJ Vs. Google: How Google Fights On Behalf of Its Users

Posted by samzenpus on from the who-has-your-back? dept.

Lauren Weinstein writes: While some companies have long had a "nod and wink" relationship with law enforcement and other parts of government -- willingly turning over user data at mere requests without even attempting to require warrants or subpoenas, it's widely known that Google has long pushed back -- sometimes though multiple layers of courts and legal processes -- against data requests from government that are not accompanied by valid court orders or that Google views as being overly broad, intrusive, or otherwise inappropriate. Over the last few days the public has gained an unusually detailed insight into how hard Google will fight to protect its users against government overreaching, even when this involves only a single user's data. One case reaches back to the beginning of 2011, when the U.S. Department of Justice tried to force Google to turn over more than a year's worth of metadata for a user affiliated with WikiLeaks. While these demands did not include the content of emails, they did include records of this party's email correspondents, and IP addresses he had used to login to his Gmail account. Notably, DOJ didn't even seek a search warrant. They wanted Google to turn over the data based on the lesser "reasonable grounds" standard rather than the "probable cause" standard of a search warrant itself. And most ominously, DOJ wanted a gag order to prevent Google from informing this party that any of this was going on, which would make it impossible for him to muster any kind of legal defense.

78 comments

  1. dice.com sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    seriously.

  2. FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    DOJ Vs. Google: How Google Fights On Behalf of Its Property

    1. Re: FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      At least someone is fighting not to share my data

    2. Re: FTFY by homey+of+my+owney · · Score: 2

      Absolutely! They won't share it with anyone! ... Unless of course they're paid for it. And most people seem to be OK with that.

    3. Re: FTFY by fraxinus-tree · · Score: 1

      "Those who pay" are still much less than "everyone". And the worst of them, the government, is a known bad payer. So even I am not OK with that I still prefer that.

    4. Re:FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's funny parent is modded down, but Google offers no way for Android users to stop apps from collecting very intrusive data about them. That doesn't sound like "fighting on behalf of its users".

      A Google link or script is present in almost every webpage of the WWW whether as Google ads, analytics or something else.

    5. Re: FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Please cite your source that Google allows "anyone" to pay to get customer data. I've been an AdWords advertiser for 11 years and I've never seen information (except in large aggregates) on who sees my ads or who clicks on my ads.

    6. Re: FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      No one works harder to track everything you do as a user as Google, because this is their business model, selling as much information about you as possible.

      Apple said it best, when you buy our products, you are our customer, when you buy/use Google, you are their product. I'm much less worried about the government than Google.

    7. Re: FTFY by VirginMary · · Score: 5, Interesting

      because this is their business model, selling as much information about you as possible.

      Utterly wrong. This is not their business model. Their model is it to, via algorithms, identify people who are most likely to respond positively to a given ad and then to show them the ad. Nowhere does this involve selling any information about even a single individual to a third party. You are simply ill informed. Also, whatever Apple does or does not claim is entirely irrelevant. After all they're a competitor. Finally, to my knowledge, there is not a single documented case of Google ever selling personal data about anybody they're tracking.

      --
      When 1person suffers from a delusion,it is called insanity.When many people suffer from a delusion,it is called religion
    8. Re: FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you are a bottom tier customer, not a "business partner" or "preferred client". How much money have you paid for AdWords? Did AdWords ever offer customer data to you as a service?

      If you want to buy google's data on people you are going to need a large pocket book

    9. Re: FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there is not a single documented case of Google ever selling personal data about anybody they're tracking.

      of course not. anyone who might use that information is competing with google.

      google's business model is intermediation. they want to be between you and the physical world.
      you and and corpus of human knowledge. you and medical care. you and the marketplace.

      they want nothing less than for all of us to live in googleland.

      forget the government, who is going to fight google on my behalf?

    10. Re: FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      tl:dr: Apple does the exact same thing that they point fingers at Google about. Then they also charge you 2x the market price for an underperforming product because it's Apple.

    11. Re:FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes they do, much better than Apple does (and there are many, many apps in the App Store that collect just as much, if not more, data than any Google app). With Android I can quite easily supply dummy data to any app, and it will still run (assuming it doesn't NEED that data to do it's function of course, like location for GPS). With Apple their top concern is ensuring no iOS user CAN do that. Google doesn't really care, because most people don't care, and won't take the 20-30 minutes to root their phone and set it up that way.

      The fact is, Android is the only system that allows for actual privacy, but you have to want it. It is literally impossible with Apple and Microsoft.

    12. Re: FTFY by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      That's not their business model.

      Their business model is selling targeted advertising using your data, not selling the raw data.

    13. Re: FTFY by KGIII · · Score: 1

      So you have no evidence to support your claim but will double-down and go for broke in hopes that somebody will believe you. Excellent! Shine on.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    14. Re: FTFY by KGIII · · Score: 1

      You... You do not have to use them and they are trivial to block. There, any other silly questions?

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  3. Less suspect than the others by SpaghettiPattern · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IMHO Google remains less suspect than other corporations, when it comes to defending privacy. I would never trust MS or Apple with my data. Not that they would gladly hand over data. But the corners they cut in order to achieve their own goals and the negligible contributions to OSS show that they're only in it for the money. I know, purely subjective but we as commoners will only be able to judge through indirect perception. Much like you can judge by lack of code quality that software is unlikely to be well developed.

    --

    I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
    1. Re:Less suspect than the others by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      To be fair, Apple's contributions to open source have been significant. Also in the interests of fairness, their locked down walled garden approach is one of the worst and most open-source hostile.

      As TFA points out, a lot of this comes from confusion of the leaked NSA slide showing that Apple, MS, Google and others had been infiltrated. Doubtless they do have some illegal hooks into those companies, but actually the slide was saying that they were monitoring traffic between data centres belonging to their victims. Google was one of the quickest to respond to this by encrypting traffic between data centres and ensuring that there were no effective MITM attacks.

      That alone we should be eternally thankful to Snowden for. That encryption vastly cut down the amount of data that the NSA was able to steal from Google users. Unfortunately MS and Apple have not been nearly as transparent about how their networks were monitored and what they did to fix the problem, so props to Google.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Less suspect than the others by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      Google is all unicorns and rainbows because "omg! OSS!". And people accuse Apple of having a reality distortion field.
      Btw, care to name any corners Apple cut in order to achieve that malignant goal of making money?

    3. Re:Less suspect than the others by gnasher719 · · Score: 2

      IMHO Google remains less suspect than other corporations, when it comes to defending privacy. I would never trust MS or Apple with my data.

      And in my own not so humble opinion it's exactly the opposite.

      You say that Apple is in it for the money - guess what Google is after? The difference is that Apple produces and sells hardware. Apple's customers are the people buying the hardware. And Apple keeps its customers happy by doing what's good for them, and not what's good for the government.

      Google, on the other hand, makes most of its money from advertisements. How you can think that Google wants to defend your privacy, when their biggest source of money is selling out your privacy so that advertisers get adverts directed at you, that is beyond me.

      And let's just say that the browser on your Android device is most likely running lots of code developed by Apple.

    4. Re:Less suspect than the others by moronoxyd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Apple does not only sell hardware but also digital goods and ads. And to target said goods and ads they need what? A good profile of the user.

      Apple does pretty much the same Google does. But Tim Cook dares to go on stage and pretend they don't. That makes him a liar in my book.

      Over the years there were enough cases where we could see that apple does in fact collect data from their users without telling them (and without protecting said data properly).
      Apple is neither better or worse than Google in that respect.

      And neither of them is very interested in giving the information about their users to third parties. Their advantage in the ad/targeting business is that THEY have the profile of their users and the third parties do not.

    5. Re:Less suspect than the others by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...show that they're only in it for the money.

      Since you're obviously not competent concerning Capitalism, I'll let you in on something. MS and Apple making money on behalf of their shareholders is a good thing.

    6. Re:Less suspect than the others by moronoxyd · · Score: 1

      Insufficiently protecting the data of their users (iCloud).
      Collecting wifi data without consent.
      Just two examples that come to mind immediately.

      Google and Apple are pretty much the same.
      But Apple pretends not to be like Google way to much, when is clear they do the same stuff.

    7. Re:Less suspect than the others by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 2

      > Google was one of the quickest to respond to this by encrypting traffic between data centres and ensuring that there were no effective MITM attacks.

      Those are two distinct statements: one does not automatically mean the other. The cost and difficulty of man-in-the-middle attacks rises considerably with ubiquitous encryption, it's true. But one of the vulnerabilities I've pointed out recently to proxy maintainers is that it's become quite commonplace to host SSL based traffic on an external router or load balancer, and carry it entirely unencrypted between that load balancer and the local server. It often eases maintenance of SSL keys and allows far less expensive, small servers to handle the actual traffic and allows the cost of robust SSL services to be shared more effectively.

      The notable security difficulty is that, unless you accept an _extra_ SSL transaction on every request, the local traffic behind the load balancer is kept unencrypted for performance reasons. So any "man-in-the-middle" who can gain access to the internal side of the load balancer effectively owns all the traffic: it's no longer "end-to-end" encryption.

    8. Re: Less suspect than the others by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's like a massive psyops campaign, and its working. Google is basically the NSA!

    9. Re:Less suspect than the others by swillden · · Score: 5, Interesting

      But one of the vulnerabilities I've pointed out recently to proxy maintainers is that it's become quite commonplace to host SSL based traffic on an external router or load balancer, and carry it entirely unencrypted between that load balancer and the local server. It often eases maintenance of SSL keys and allows far less expensive, small servers to handle the actual traffic and allows the cost of robust SSL services to be shared more effectively.

      Google's encryption is end-to-end. It's also not SSL-based, but instead much simpler and more robust (and more efficient), though there's nothing proprietary or custom about the encryption ciphers or protocols used (Google employs lots of cryptographers who would quickly stomp on any questionable designs). I work for Google and used to do stuff related to internal network encryption though I worked on a different aspect of it, focused on securing payments data (credit card numbers, etc.).

      I think it would be awesome if Google were to publish the details of its security infrastructure, which is dramatically better than anything I saw in my 15 years as a security consultant, but AFAIK that hasn't been done so I have to keep my comments vague and high-level.

      I'll also point out, since I know it has been mentioned publicly, that Google didn't actually start doing all of the link encryption in response to Snowden's revelations. It was a project that was already well under way. Snowden's information did cause the project to be accelerated, though.

      From what I saw, the main effect was that the tolerance for exceptions to the encryption requirement dropped basically to zero. In an enormous and complex infrastructure like Google's there are always dozens of corner cases where anything you'd like to do is really hard for one reason or another, and so big infrastructure changes tend to take years to fully deploy, to avoid requiring project teams to drop all their productive work in order to avoid breakage from the change. Snowden's data changed the encryption mandate from "You need to get this done as soon as you can" to "Encryption will be on 100% by date X, no exceptions. If you can't see how to make it work, come talk to us and we'll help." (X was single-digit weeks away).

      I know one team who had to deploy a spit-and-baling-wire construction to enable their protocol to be encrypted, and then had to fight with serious performance degradation until they got a well-designed and tested replacement in place. They begged for permission to turn off encryption for a while so they could focus on building the solid replacement rather than spending their time fighting production fires caused by the interim solution... and they were denied. This was for an important production service related to financial systems, too, which gives you a good idea of how serious Google was about the encryption mandate.

      Thank you, Edward Snowden!

      (I want to be sure no one thinks that last line is sarcastic. It's not. At all. I think Edward Snowden is one of the great American heroes, and I think that history will eventually give him his considerable due. I don't know anyone on the team I mentioned who would disagree, either, even though it caused them some weeks of long hours and stress.)

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    10. Re:Less suspect than the others by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple does not only sell hardware but also digital goods and ads. And to target said goods and ads they need what? A good profile of the user.

      Not that it completly invalidates your arguments, but Apple does only get about 10% of its revenue from "software and services", which could make a different analysis.

      https://bgr.com/2014/02/06/apple-google-microsoft-revenue-sources/

    11. Re:Less suspect than the others by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're joking, right? Google's primary business model is to scrape information from where ever they can and monetize it by using/selling it to advertisers. Google is constantly trying to get a hold of personal data for just that reason.

      As for OSS, I have to say "huh?". Google only pushes code to open source that they don't care about because they are not making money from it (Google is not a software/technology company - they are an internet TV company that makes 90+% of its revenue via advertising). Code that they feel is even vague valuable, such as Android, is in fact closed source or moving in that direction.

      As for a company "only being in it for the money" - well, duh. Companies that are not in it for the money don't survive very long. Perhaps you are living off a trust fund, but the rest of us have to actually earn a living.

      Google only "fights for your rights" because it serves their financial interests. I guarentee you that they are not spending a single penny on legal proceedings without having first gone through the math to determine that spending that $1 on legal issues will allow them to make $2 of profit. Google wants people to run around using "free" Google services so that they can collect personal information and turn that into ad revenue. If they perceive some action as putting their revenue stream at risk, then they will spend a carefully calculated amount of money to change things.

    12. Re:Less suspect than the others by LVSlushdat · · Score: 1

      I believe that if the majority of Americans who are fed up with the lawlessness by this (and previous) administrations are able to somehow "right the ship of state" in the near future, Edward Snowdon will claim a place in history like this nations heros during the revolutionary war, for example, Paul Revere.. Considering Mr Snowdon did a similar service to the nation as Paul Revere...

      --
      THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
    13. Re:Less suspect than the others by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so, you don't trust Apple because they (according to you) make negligible contributions to OSS. If that's the case, where are Google's non-negligible?

      No, your post betrays your fanbois status. You'd prefer google, whose *business* is amassing huge quantities of personal information and selling it (you do realize that Google and Facebook are competitors, even though Google's core is search and Facebook's is social networking?)

      Weird. But sado-masochism exists in many forms.

    14. Re:Less suspect than the others by Anubis+IV · · Score: 2

      Apple responded by doing a full audit of code checked in around the time that the NSA claims they successfully infiltrated Apple. The most publicized outcome of the audit was the fixing of the notorious "goto fail" bug that looked innocent but would have allowed an attacker with knowledge of its presence to listen in on communication between two parties.

    15. Re:Less suspect than the others by ahodgson · · Score: 1

      If history is any guide, righting the ship of state is incredibly unlikely. Dictatorship and some form of imperial rule are far more likely outcomes.

    16. Re:Less suspect than the others by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google does not sell user data to customers. Customer simply buy ads. The number of idiots that fail realize this very basic and common fact is bewildering.

    17. Re:Less suspect than the others by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think Edward Snowden is one of the great American heroes - Correct all your great heroes are traitors HRH.

    18. Re:Less suspect than the others by slimjim8094 · · Score: 1

      Just to concur, I also work at Google and the security is pretty incredible. They baked it into the RPC system (predating but similar to the publicly-available gRPC) so you don't even have to think about it - it just happens automatically and still doesn't get in the way (which is a remarkable achievement). I work pretty closely with one of the teams responsible for most of the user traffic, and they did some pretty heroic stuff to secure their part (which was some huge percentage of "all of it") in like a week.

      Internally the sentiment in response to seeing our golden geese on the NSA slides was pretty much outrage and "explod[ing] in profanity" just about covers it. I think the higher ups were pretty outraged and frankly felt betrayed by their country, as Google's always cooperated with lawful, reasonable, and limited-in-scope requests, so to have them breaking in to dark fiber is pretty treacherous. I know I felt betrayed. (Some sense of the outrage can be seen in David Drummond's statement)

      Google's actually pretty admirable from the inside. I wish we could publish more of what we do to protect user data, as without knowing it it's easy to be cynical. This video is worth watching, as far as legal requests go.

      --
      I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
    19. Re:Less suspect than the others by arcade · · Score: 1

      Let me pile on as another Googler.

      The feeling of outrage within the organization was palpable.

      The feeling of betrayal, fury and pure anger towards the NSA.

      --
      "Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
    20. Re:Less suspect than the others by KGIII · · Score: 1

      It is a little late in the conversation to add this but maybe we should start a write-in candidacy for Snowden for president? I am not sure that he is old enough. Perhaps a senate seat and we can assume he is still a citizen of Hawaii.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  4. Read the article ... BUT... by shri · · Score: 1

    Over the last few days the public has gained an unusually detailed insight into how hard Google will fight to protect its users against government overreaching, even when this involves only a single user's data.

    What are those insights?!?!?

  5. Conspiracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See if Google was really being operated by a Government Agency, they would give the data up with no questions!

  6. Sharing...... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    .... is something does not like..... Google always first. If someone is looking at user data, it should be them and not anybody else.... especially not government!
    I worked for them, that is the bottom line..... And in the meantime everyone get's fooled by the fact they are trying to secure your online privacy, when they are the reason you are not private online! It is like a cluster bomb manufacturer saying he is not responsible for what people are doing with bombs. But this is western politics. There is only a problem when others start doing it too!

  7. Where's the read me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Where's the read me button? Not liking the changes

  8. Quasi-journalism at it's zenith by Overzeetop · · Score: 3, Informative

    Note that I didn't say finest. It's a personal blog post rather than actual reporting, and contains little more than the summary. You are entreated to go read https://drive.google.com/file/... - the 300+ pages of filings yourself in lieu of a journalistic treatment with more substantive information. A noble academic endeavor, but not really a "first cup of coffee" piece.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
  9. I'm a bit confused by joeflies · · Score: 2

    The article says that Google lost the case several months after it started in 2011, and it was gagged from telling anyone until 2015.

    So thus, can we conclude that Google did in fact turn over all of the requested metadata on the user without his knowledge for nearly 4 years?

    The question about whether Google should fight to protect this information should be weighed along with just how much metadata that Google collects and stores about your online behavior in the first place.

    1. Re:I'm a bit confused by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      What I also wonder is whether Google instantly informed the person in question of the demand (thereby basically ignoring the gag order which they didn't think was valid anyway).

      And is such a gag order even legally bounding the moment it's issued even if the receiving party has strong grounds to believe it is not? Because if it is, just by issuing gag order anyone could stop any information from being released for quite a while, at least until the court decided it's invalid. In this case Google seriously believed the order was invalid, or they wouldn't go to court over it.

    2. Re:I'm a bit confused by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Informative

      They were forced to turn over the data they had, but then carried on fighting for four years just for the right to inform the victim of what had happened. Hopefully by making it slow, expensive and time consuming for the DoJ they discouraged other such requests too.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:I'm a bit confused by Virtucon · · Score: 1

      A gag order is issued by a judge on procedural grounds based on the merits of the case in front of it. The DOJ would have argued that Google by informing the person targeted would taint their investigation. Usually judges will err on the side of the government, not always, but mostly they will. Since the Gag order is issued by the court, violating that gag order usually means sanctions. You don't want to get a judge pissed off with you when you're arguing a case in front of them.

      I haven't read the 300 pages of court documents, TL;DR, but one can also assume that the big reason that Google defended this user was because of the potential damage it could have done to its business model. Think about it, if you're caught giving out information based on somebody's say-so and other customers found out, they'd probably leave and your treasure trove of social mining would collapse. Defending this user wasn't so much about protecting user rights but about protecting their business interests.

      --
      Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    4. Re:I'm a bit confused by Agripa · · Score: 1

      So thus, can we conclude that Google did in fact turn over all of the requested metadata on the user without his knowledge for nearly 4 years?

      Yes. Further we can conclude that all of this information from any provider is available to law enforcement under the standard of reasonable suspicion without a warrant. In many or all cases now however the same data is available with an administrative subpena which just requires the data to be relevant to an investigation.

  10. Let's not pat them on the back by h33t+l4x0r · · Score: 0

    It's clear that Google is operating on what they believe is their best interest. Obviously rolling over for the feds would be a PR nightmare. I'm not comfortable applauding corporations for protecting their bottom line and neither should anyone else be.

    1. Re:Let's not pat them on the back by N1AK · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When other firms have decided that protecting their bottom line is best done by giving the government everything and anything they ask for I'm willing to cut them a little slack and give them the credit for fighting to protect user data even if, heaven forbid, that might be in their best interests.

    2. Re: Let's not pat them on the back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Because having to spend tens of millions of dollars fighting the government, instead of just giving them the info, is really effective to the bottom line... You stupid motherfucker.

    3. Re:Let's not pat them on the back by sensei+moreh · · Score: 1

      I'm not comfortable applauding corporations for protecting their bottom line and neither should anyone else be.

      If I were a shareholder (I'm not) , I'd definitely consider applauding Google's protection of their bottom line

      --
      Geology - it's not rocket science; it's rock science
    4. Re: Let's not pat them on the back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe their team of 200 lawyers already on payroll were tired of playing in the cafeteria? Also, today it seems like they got good value for money PR-wise, don't you think? But I don't really blame Google, even though I dislike the company. There is something seriously wrong with your country. Please fix it.

    5. Re:Let's not pat them on the back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Rolling over? Oh, you mean like Microsoft.

      July 31, 2012
      Microsoft (MS) began encrypting web-based chat with the introduction of the new outlook.com service. This new Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption effectively cut off collection of the new service for FAA 702 and likely 12333 (to some degree) for the Intelligence Community (IC). MS, working with the FBI, developed a surveillance capability to deal with the new SSL. These solutions were successfully tested and went live 12 Dec 2012.

      March 15, 2013
      SSO's PRISM program began tasking all Microsoft PRISM selectors to Skype because Skype allows users to log in using account identifiers in addition to Skype usernames. Until now, PRISM would not collect any Skype data when a user logged in using anything other than the Skype username which resulted in missing collection; this action will mitigate that. In fact, a user can create a Skype account using any e-mail address with any domain in the world. UTT does not currently allow analysts to task these non-Microsoft e-mail addresses to PRISM, however,

      March 7, 2014
      PRISM now collects Microsoft Skydrive data as part of PRISM'S standard Stored Communications collection package for a tasked FISA Amendments Act Section 702 (FAA702) selector. This means that analysts will no longer have to make a special request to SSO for this - a process step that many analysts may not have known about. This new capability will result in a much more complete and timely collection response from SSO for our Enterprise customers. This success is the result of the FBI working for many months with Microsoft to get this tasking and collection solution established. "SkyDrive is a cloud service that allows users to store and access their files on a variety of devices

    6. Re: Let's not pat them on the back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or perhaps they were busy fighting patent trolls like Apple and Microsoft.....

  11. Why does the timing of this seem like counter puff by justcauseisjustthat · · Score: 1

    Apple recent push on "we don't want users data, etc" and then this counter piece stating that Googles the good guy, seems like puff piece to counter Apples puff.

  12. Horseshit. by PrimeNumber · · Score: -1

    Thanks to Snowden and Greenwald, we know Google, and its 800lb gorilla friends Apple and Microsoft actively participated with the NSA and its PRISM program.

    1. Re:Horseshit. by Demonoid-Penguin · · Score: 4, Informative

      Thanks to Snowden and Greenwald, we know Google, and its 800lb gorilla friends Apple and Microsoft actively participated with the NSA and its PRISM program.

      Bullshit. You lie and you've been called out. We do not know anything of the sort. Feel free to link to a single released document from Snowden (or any of the NSA leakers) that shows, or claims otherwise.

      We know that Powerpoint slides purportedly from Snowden, that he proportedly stole from the NSA, show NSA boasting of having broken into Google. If they had to break in where was the "active participation"? And why the rapid restructuring to stop the data breach?

      We know Google has lead and participated in major campaigns that threaten the wholesale spying by the NSA. And we know that despite the usual "gravitate towards evil in the name of short-term profits" that shareholder owned companies succumb to - that Google remains a company that mostly practices "enlightened self-interest" (probably helped by the type of people they employ). We believe it's more productive to cheer good work and criticise bad than the reverse (we, in this instance, does not include you).

      You on the other-hand, demonstrably - know nothing (Yeah - that Bill Gates is an altruist and Google only implements security after the Snowden leaks). The reason you smell shit everywhere is not because of your superior vision and intellect - it's that your head is up your arse.

      You seem like the fanboi face-painter type who refuses to consider it possible not to worship at a particular altar of commerce or technology (like shopping at a range of retailers instead of recalcitrantly spending at one only, while singing their jingle).

    2. Re: Horseshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't get how they don't get it...They actually believe that Google is their friends... Google is the worst offender of their privacies! Ugh...

    3. Re:Horseshit. by Virtucon · · Score: 2

      I do believe that 80% of what Snowden leaked is true to some extent but based on the sniff test, the other 20% is bullshit. The problem then becomes trying to filter out what's crap and what's truth. Do I believe that Google, Apple and Microsoft had to cooperate with the DOJ and FBI? Absolutely, they're required to by law. Do I believe that they're vanguards of liberty and privacy? Fuck no. Do I believe that the NSA has taps on all their data centers? No Do I believe that the NSA has tried to tap into their data centers? Yes.

      --
      Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    4. Re:Horseshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what a lot of bullshit there is floating around here. I'm not sure if you're head is in the sand, or if you are knowingly covering for the NSA by spreading these half truths and lies.

      You want to emphasize the lack of "knowing" but maybe we should turn that on you? You *claim* a lot of things. You *may* be working for the NSA. You *may* be an FBI informant. You *claim* that Google "mostly practices" enlightened self interest, but we do not *know* that.

      Try to spin things all you want, the leaked documents clearly show the *NSA* was claiming (bragging, even) that they had direct access (not MITM as another astroturfer/apologist has tried to spin it) under a program named PRISM. They had dates for when Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc., each joined the fold. Apparently, at the time of the document they had just recently won Apple over.

      The many disclaimers issued by the companies involved were emphatic, but carefully stated. For example, disavowing knowledge of the NSAs internal code name means nothing. Even the wording related to disavowal of direct access was done in such a way as to allow for exactly what the released NSA documents claimed. For example, all of the companies involved agree that they provide information on "legal" request -- and the US government maintained that these programs were "legal" according to secret interpretations.

      Signing into PRISM certainly would've contained gag requirements. It probably included incentives, quite possibly guarantee from liability. Sure, known of the details are *known*, but they can certainly be *inferred* from public knowledge about the events and how governments and corporations interact.

    5. Re:Horseshit. by PrimeNumber · · Score: 2

      You obviously prefer reading Google press releases, here is real news instead:
      The original NSA document stating seven companies helped with PRISM, one being Google.
      [The] presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a Guardian request for comment on Thursday denied knowledge

      News from today another example of how little Google values privacy.

      You Millenial fanboi's are so gullible. Corporations could give two flying fucks about you or your privacy, but you go on defending them.

    6. Re:Horseshit. by Demonoid-Penguin · · Score: 1

      You obviously [blah, blah, dodge, dodge, more attempts to baffle with bullshit]

      Read the first paragraph of the first link you referred to, then re-read what I wrote (if your lips don't get too sore). Big difference between your claim Google "actively participated" and "the NSA gained access". Confirmation bias much?

      You need to workshop your shilling with Mike Rogers before you post - that way you'd look less of a dick when claiming Google, Apple and others co-operated with the NSA, while he happily claims the "backdoors" "don't harm privacy" - and simultaneously "wants front-doors". But you're right, he, and Bruce Shneier, are wrong. Bruce is obviously shilling for the NSA when he claims PRISM is a series of backdoors into Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL, and Apple. And the moon is made of green cheese.

      'cause "infiltration" is the NSA code word for "they let us in through the front door"?? Rogers admitted that concerns about US government infiltration of US companies’ data represented a business risk for US companies, but he suggested that the greater threat was from cyber-attacks..

    7. Re:Horseshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You obviously [blah, blah, dodge, dodge, more attempts to baffle with bullshit]

      Your intellect is truly impressive, on the scale of Vizzini.

      Read the first paragraph of the first link you referred to

      From the link: "The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants ... the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies"

      I think the problem is you are conflating two activities. First, Google et. al. knowingly gave them access to some stuff (as the link you mention says). Second, since Google et. al. didn't give them access to everything they wanted, they used technical means to gain additional access which Google quickly scrambled to correct when the leaks made them aware. So NSA was using both front doors and back doors.

      Big difference between your claim Google "actively participated" and "the NSA gained access".

      Both apply. See above.

      You need to workshop your shilling with Mike Rogers before you post - that way you'd look less of a dick

      You need to heed your own advice, and to stop using ad hominem attacks when you are challenged.

    8. Re:Horseshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why don't you search the Snowden documents for all of the Google related NSA and FBI activities. I did and I couldn't find much.

      But then I did a Microsoft search and found these. Looks like Microsoft was the sneaky, hypocritical, lying bastard they've always been.

      https://search.edwardsnowden.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Microsoft

      July 31, 2012
      Microsoft (MS) began encrypting web-based chat with the introduction of the new outlook.com service. This new Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption effectively cut off collection of the new service for FAA 702 and likely 12333 (to some degree) for the Intelligence Community (IC). MS, working with the FBI, developed a surveillance capability to deal with the new SSL. These solutions were successfully tested and went live 12 Dec 2012.

      March 15, 2013
      SSO's PRISM program began tasking all Microsoft PRISM selectors to Skype because Skype allows users to log in using account identifiers in addition to Skype usernames. Until now, PRISM would not collect any Skype data when a user logged in using anything other than the Skype username which resulted in missing collection; this action will mitigate that. In fact, a user can create a Skype account using any e-mail address with any domain in the world. UTT does not currently allow analysts to task these non-Microsoft e-mail addresses to PRISM, however,

      March 7, 2014
      PRISM now collects Microsoft Skydrive data as part of PRISM'S standard Stored Communications collection package for a tasked FISA Amendments Act Section 702 (FAA702) selector. This means that analysts will no longer have to make a special request to SSO for this - a process step that many analysts may not have known about. This new capability will result in a much more complete and timely collection response from SSO for our Enterprise customers. This success is the result of the FBI working for many months with Microsoft to get this tasking and collection solution established. "SkyDrive is a cloud service that allows users to store and access their files on a variety of devices

  13. It's not your data, folks. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Leaving things laying around on the network is dumb. Keep repeating till the light bulb goes on.

    1. Re:It's not your data, folks. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Excactly. If you don't want the maid stealing you shit, don't stay in a hotel. It's not the maid's fault, it's yours.

  14. Detailed insight? by EmagGeek · · Score: 2

    I don't know who this "Lauren" person is, but their blog post is about as insightful as, I dunno, Luke Skywalker, or maybe a pet rock. Why can't editors just link to the real detail?

    https://drive.google.com/file/...

  15. The lawyers ran out of money? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So they hired contractors to do the public "spin" on this case? The blog author is hysterically funny with previous rants about how "the right to be forgotten is silly, companies are safe!!!" and now when corporate records on private citizens are abused, "see, we're safe because we failed to protect you !!!"

    They're like a teenager rationalizing how they need the car to be cool and treated as an adult, even when they keep being arrested with open booze in the car. It's pitiful.

  16. I am Google by Trogre · · Score: 3, Funny

    I fight... for the users.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    1. Re:I am Google by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Alright, so someone did make a TRON reference after all.

      +1 to you, sir.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  17. Hogwash! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Google is the NSA.

  18. Google fights for... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... Google.

    They don't care about your meta-data.

    They just don't want anybody to know how much meta-data they collect.

  19. How Google fights for its users... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It gladly lets the federal government rip its filthy bunghole apart, but politely declines the reach around.

  20. Why the hate? by walterbyrd · · Score: 2

    Seems that, for some people, Google cannot possibly do anything right.

    No matter matter Google does, or does not do, some people have to find some reason to hate Google anyway.

  21. Fixed it by cjjjer · · Score: 1

    DOJ Vs. Google: How Google Fights On Behalf of Its Product

    Fixed the title...

  22. WTF by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    48 posts and not a single "TRON" reference?

    --
    Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  23. Google Chrome Listening In To Your Room by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Importance Of Privacy Defense In Depth. “Yesterday, news broke that Google has been stealth downloading audio listeners onto every computer that runs Chrome, and transmits audio data back to Google. Effectively, this means that Google had taken itself the right to listen to every conversation in every room that runs Chrome somewhere, without any kind of consent from the people eavesdropped on. In official statements, Google shrugged off the practice with what amounts to ‘we can do that.’”

  24. What? You mean... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...they defend their users (at least when they're not yanking your account name out from under you?