7 ms·

Probably stored under the same security infrastructure as Gmail and hangouts messages. Which, IIRC, means no human is given direct access without the account h

by nevir 10y ago

Probably stored under the same security infrastructure as Gmail and hangouts messages. Which, IIRC, means no human is given direct access without the account holder's permission. Algorithms are allowed access, but only if they emit data that is similarly secured, or emits data in aggregate (where, I think, aggregate was defined as 100k+ users per aggregate data point) It's extremely hard for a Googler or product team to do something directly nefarious, but you do have to trust Google's privacy infrastructure.

jtrip 10y ago
I don't think that is enough. Here we are relying on Google being magnanimous enough to not use the data to increase their profitability. And even beyond that, your opinion is a little naive to hold in a post-snowden world.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- tehwebguy 10y ago
  Right - their policies may be perfect today but they may not even exist tomorrow.
- witty_username 10y ago
  How is it necessarily wrong if Google uses the data to increase their profitability?
Zigurd 10y ago
That's fine as far as trusting Google keeping their employees from doing bad things. But that's not the first concern one would have. Pervasive surveillance programs have penetrated service providers' data centers. Law enforcement can get warrants to access this information too easily, and many service providers turn over information on request, rather than requiring a warrant.
- themihai 10y ago
  Well if you trust Google you don't need on-disk encryption in the first place. SSL already solved the transport issue.
  - themihai 10y ago
    My point that you have no control over the data once you send it to Google. You don't even know if they even encrypt it on their disk/server anyway.
idealpersona 10y ago
Extremely hard. I am so sick of hearing this. It all boils down to hand waving and assumptions instead of verification and scrutiny.
themihai 10y ago
That's really just BS. What's the point of encryption if both the keys and the content is known by Google? They could as well use just SSL and that wouldn't make it safer than this kind of "encryption".
- nevir 10y ago
  The benefits of this sort of encryption & privacy infrastructure: * Protects you (user) from eavesdroppers between you and Google. * Protects your data from eavesdroppers inside Google's data centers. * Protects your data at rest (on disk). * Protects your data from malicious employees. * Enforces a great deal of scrutiny over who can access your data, and what they are allowed to see. But, yes, they process and store your data, so there's no 100℅ secure approach to be had here. --- SSL only handles the first two bullet points.
  - themihai 10y ago
    The rest of points are not addressed by this sort of encryption because the keys are on disk too. Google employees have access to the keys. It's like leaving the keys into the lock and claiming it's more secure because it has a lock. In practice the data is protected only by ACL. Encryption is just a marketing keyword in this case.
    - skybrian 10y ago
      On disk somewhere (encrypted, with a different key) is not the same as "leaving the keys into the lock" in a large distributed system designed to avoid single points of failure. There are always weaknesses, but think about why a bank employee can't just decide to take your money. Internal controls are a thing.
      - themihai 10y ago
        >> Internal controls are a thing. That's what ACL is...The encryption doesn't improve the security of the data if the keys are not stored securely. Simply put the data security is as good as the ACL of the keys is. For your peace of mind you may want to know the processes(i.e. audits, ISO standards/certifications) rather than a marketing keyword("encryption", "military grade" etc). Encryption may be part of that framework but I don't think it's relevant enough to be advertised as a stand alone 'product'. You can be sure that your account balance is not encrypted. It's the ACL process that protects you from a rough employee. We already know that Google has a relative good security process in place. However this is not about security in the first place. It's about privacy. And here encryption brings no privacy gain because Google has the keys so as I previously said it's just marketing BS. Most people are not worried that Google gets hacked. They are worried that Google is selling their data to 3rd parties for profit and to governments for political reasons.
pdkl95 10y ago
> extremely hard for a Googler or product team to do something directly nefarious Unless the user is the only party that can access the keys (i.e. they are only stored locally on the user's device), then I'm sure Google will it very easy to access personal information when a government demands access. Or did we forget that Google is part[1] of PRISM? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg
ChrisClark 10y ago
I actually trust Google. And I believe they do their best to make it work this way. What I don't trust is the government. :(
- GioM 10y ago
  Bad news then... Google is not what it seems. http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447 http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279...
rmc 10y ago
> but you do have to trust Google's privacy infrastructure. The NSA have already backdoored it.
zeveb 10y ago
> Which, IIRC, means no human is given direct access without the account holder's permission. Or compulsion by any government to which Google is responsible (e.g. Russia, if I Googled correctly). Or a suitably clever Googler (as you note, it may be difficult, but 'difficult' ≠ 'cryptographically secure'). As when Facebook didn't think HTTPS made sense until someone sniffed Zuckerberg's password in a coffee shop, I don't think Google (or any other cloud firm) will take security seriously (as opposed to paying lip service to it for marketing purposes) until someone in the C-suite is materially embarrassed by its lack.
- idlewords 10y ago
  "Russia, if I Googled correctly." You clearly trust Google to some extent, since you search with it. I don't think you can accuse Google of not taking security seriously. They are making a security tradeoff that allows governments and insiders access to private data. This is a legitimate tradeoff to make, and a legitimate thing to criticize them for. Apple makes a different choice, and it's important that we have a debate around which is the right security design. But making a claim that Google is not serious about security does a disservice to the really good people there who move mountains to secure the service.
  - zeveb 10y ago
    > I don't think you can accuse Google of not taking security seriously. I don't think they take my security, and the security of my data, seriously. They seem to care very much about their security. > They are making a security tradeoff that allows governments and insiders access to private data. This is a legitimate tradeoff to make No, at this point I don't believe that it is legitimate, any more than it's legitimate to sell an oven which will explode if the temperature dial is set above 600° ('just don't set it that high!'). Yes, there are people at Google who work very hard to secure Google's data; there are people at Google (e.g. Adam Langley) who care a lot about users' data. There may even be people at Google who are working very hard to change its course on user privacy. But Google, the company, does not take the security of user data against privacy threats seriously: if it did, it would use a better architecture (note that Apple doesn't take user-data security seriously, either, since they can MITM any time they want; nor does Mozilla, nor does Microsoft: no organization's hands are clean, so far as I can tell).
thrillgore 10y ago
It doesn't matter how well its designed. Once they get an NSL, they would need to make compromises, unless the messages are not in a readable form. All that Google has accomplished, is convinced me to steer clear of Allo.
xg15 10y ago
This is the first time I'm reading about that sort of restrictions at Google. What are your sources? Or did/do you work there? Still, I wouldn't trust that. I can think of enough cases in which algorithms fed with that information would do things not in my interests. (You could easily imagine some internal scoring or profiling a lgorithms taking advantage of the data for example) Telling "it's only algorithms" doesn't make it secure it I don't know what the algorithms do. (Which of course I can't as it is the core of their busyness)
abysmallyideal 10y ago
In order to receive government protection and favors, they have to play their game. Its not like their advertisement profiling algorithms isn't useful for intelligence gathering and profiling.

by nevir 10y ago

jtrip 10y ago

I don't think that is enough. Here we are relying on Google being magnanimous enough to not use the data to increase their profitability. And even beyond that, your opinion is a little naive to hold in a post-snowden world.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tehwebguy 10y ago
Right - their policies may be perfect today but they may not even exist tomorrow.
witty_username 10y ago
How is it necessarily wrong if Google uses the data to increase their profitability?

Zigurd 10y ago

That's fine as far as trusting Google keeping their employees from doing bad things. But that's not the first concern one would have. Pervasive surveillance programs have penetrated service providers' data centers. Law enforcement can get warrants to access this information too easily, and many service providers turn over information on request, rather than requiring a warrant.

themihai 10y ago
Well if you trust Google you don't need on-disk encryption in the first place. SSL already solved the transport issue.
- themihai 10y ago
  My point that you have no control over the data once you send it to Google. You don't even know if they even encrypt it on their disk/server anyway.

idealpersona 10y ago

Extremely hard. I am so sick of hearing this. It all boils down to hand waving and assumptions instead of verification and scrutiny.

themihai 10y ago

That's really just BS. What's the point of encryption if both the keys and the content is known by Google? They could as well use just SSL and that wouldn't make it safer than this kind of "encryption".

nevir 10y ago
The benefits of this sort of encryption & privacy infrastructure: * Protects you (user) from eavesdroppers between you and Google. * Protects your data from eavesdroppers inside Google's data centers. * Protects your data at rest (on disk). * Protects your data from malicious employees. * Enforces a great deal of scrutiny over who can access your data, and what they are allowed to see. But, yes, they process and store your data, so there's no 100℅ secure approach to be had here. --- SSL only handles the first two bullet points.
- themihai 10y ago
  The rest of points are not addressed by this sort of encryption because the keys are on disk too. Google employees have access to the keys. It's like leaving the keys into the lock and claiming it's more secure because it has a lock. In practice the data is protected only by ACL. Encryption is just a marketing keyword in this case.
  - skybrian 10y ago
    On disk somewhere (encrypted, with a different key) is not the same as "leaving the keys into the lock" in a large distributed system designed to avoid single points of failure. There are always weaknesses, but think about why a bank employee can't just decide to take your money. Internal controls are a thing.
    - themihai 10y ago
      >> Internal controls are a thing. That's what ACL is...The encryption doesn't improve the security of the data if the keys are not stored securely. Simply put the data security is as good as the ACL of the keys is. For your peace of mind you may want to know the processes(i.e. audits, ISO standards/certifications) rather than a marketing keyword("encryption", "military grade" etc). Encryption may be part of that framework but I don't think it's relevant enough to be advertised as a stand alone 'product'. You can be sure that your account balance is not encrypted. It's the ACL process that protects you from a rough employee. We already know that Google has a relative good security process in place. However this is not about security in the first place. It's about privacy. And here encryption brings no privacy gain because Google has the keys so as I previously said it's just marketing BS. Most people are not worried that Google gets hacked. They are worried that Google is selling their data to 3rd parties for profit and to governments for political reasons.

pdkl95 10y ago

> extremely hard for a Googler or product team to do something directly nefarious Unless the user is the only party that can access the keys (i.e. they are only stored locally on the user's device), then I'm sure Google will it very easy to access personal information when a government demands access. Or did we forget that Google is part[1] of PRISM? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg

ChrisClark 10y ago

I actually trust Google. And I believe they do their best to make it work this way. What I don't trust is the government. :(

GioM 10y ago
Bad news then... Google is not what it seems. http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447 http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279...

rmc 10y ago

> but you do have to trust Google's privacy infrastructure. The NSA have already backdoored it.

zeveb 10y ago

> Which, IIRC, means no human is given direct access without the account holder's permission. Or compulsion by any government to which Google is responsible (e.g. Russia, if I Googled correctly). Or a suitably clever Googler (as you note, it may be difficult, but 'difficult' ≠ 'cryptographically secure'). As when Facebook didn't think HTTPS made sense until someone sniffed Zuckerberg's password in a coffee shop, I don't think Google (or any other cloud firm) will take security seriously (as opposed to paying lip service to it for marketing purposes) until someone in the C-suite is materially embarrassed by its lack.

idlewords 10y ago
"Russia, if I Googled correctly." You clearly trust Google to some extent, since you search with it. I don't think you can accuse Google of not taking security seriously. They are making a security tradeoff that allows governments and insiders access to private data. This is a legitimate tradeoff to make, and a legitimate thing to criticize them for. Apple makes a different choice, and it's important that we have a debate around which is the right security design. But making a claim that Google is not serious about security does a disservice to the really good people there who move mountains to secure the service.
- zeveb 10y ago
  > I don't think you can accuse Google of not taking security seriously. I don't think they take my security, and the security of my data, seriously. They seem to care very much about their security. > They are making a security tradeoff that allows governments and insiders access to private data. This is a legitimate tradeoff to make No, at this point I don't believe that it is legitimate, any more than it's legitimate to sell an oven which will explode if the temperature dial is set above 600° ('just don't set it that high!'). Yes, there are people at Google who work very hard to secure Google's data; there are people at Google (e.g. Adam Langley) who care a lot about users' data. There may even be people at Google who are working very hard to change its course on user privacy. But Google, the company, does not take the security of user data against privacy threats seriously: if it did, it would use a better architecture (note that Apple doesn't take user-data security seriously, either, since they can MITM any time they want; nor does Mozilla, nor does Microsoft: no organization's hands are clean, so far as I can tell).

thrillgore 10y ago

It doesn't matter how well its designed. Once they get an NSL, they would need to make compromises, unless the messages are not in a readable form. All that Google has accomplished, is convinced me to steer clear of Allo.

xg15 10y ago

This is the first time I'm reading about that sort of restrictions at Google. What are your sources? Or did/do you work there? Still, I wouldn't trust that. I can think of enough cases in which algorithms fed with that information would do things not in my interests. (You could easily imagine some internal scoring or profiling a lgorithms taking advantage of the data for example) Telling "it's only algorithms" doesn't make it secure it I don't know what the algorithms do. (Which of course I can't as it is the core of their busyness)

abysmallyideal 10y ago

In order to receive government protection and favors, they have to play their game. Its not like their advertisement profiling algorithms isn't useful for intelligence gathering and profiling.