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Larry Page addresses PRISM

• danbruc 13y ago
  (At least) one party did not tell the truth - opinions?
  • danso 13y ago
    There's two middlemen layers in this game of telephone: 1. What the leaker communicated to news outlets 2. What the news outlets communicated to us It seems likely that exact terms and technical capabilities have been misunderstood or misinterpreted. Already, there are common misconceptions arising from the public's interpretation of the news...for example, conflating the NSA's deal with Verizon to the PRISM program. And there's also the natural confusion that generally arises in any discussion of government surveillance programs...some people seem to be surprised that the NSA is spying on foreign communications, when that is pretty much NSA's raison d'etre. I think we should take Page as a clear denial, that is, that he's not weaseling out on a technicality. That doesn't mean he couldn't be flat out lying, of course. I think it's also a believable that if Google were to participate in a program like PRISM, that Page would be one of the people in the know.
• pkfrank 13y ago
  I trust Google more than the U.S. Gov't. Who's lying? Confused?
  • deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  • cdash 13y ago
    If you don't trust the government how can you trust google in a situation like this?
• chrisacky 13y ago
  I can't understand the repeated use of "direct access". It's the kind of language a lawyer would use to qualify a patent clause. - We do not provide direct access to our servers. - We do not provide direct access nor is there a backdoor. - O, but we do still pipe all of your data to external NSA servers. </sarc> Every company named (I'm not just picking on Google here) has come out with the same overarching statement. "We do not provide direct access". It just smells of being rehearsed, and carefully coordinated to select such language.
  • packetslave 13y ago
    Read the blog post. "Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period"
    • ceejayoz 13y ago
      Which is still pretty flexible language. "Oh, it's not open-ended access, it's limited to the conditions in the authorization..." The Verizon order was limited to 3 months, for example, which is hardly open-ended... except that it presumably got re-upped every three months.
      • packetslave 13y ago
        Read the NEXT SENTENCE! "Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records." AND THE TWO AFTER THAT: "We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false."
        • hga 13y ago
          "NEXT SENTENCE": I don't think they're a telco with millions of users, Goggle Voice is pretty small, right? The two after that look like a pretty good denial, though.
• rosser 13y ago
  There's that "direct access to our servers" verbiage again. I love how these people apparently think that denying doing something that's not the thing that everyone is talking about is going to distract and mollify the public...
• tsunamifury 13y ago
  When I worked IT for a medium sized university we were asked by the DOJ to install switches that copied all internet traffic directly to an unspecified government server. We were told all ISPs (anyone providing internet to more than 100 persons) were told to do this as well. We refused to comply obviously as the request was absurd, but in the small print of the request we were told we were not allowed to speak of the request and were to deny any involvement if asked under some unknown penalty. I wouldn't be surprised if special terms of Google's interaction with any government agencies has a similar clause.
  • thrownaway2424 13y ago
    Please throw out an estimate of how big you think a mirror of all Google's network traffic might be.
    • adamdavis 13y ago
      And this is relevant to what?
      • thrownaway2424 13y ago
        It's relevant because some of the things that are being suggested here on HN are clearly infeasible, from an infrastructure standpoint.
        • adamdavis 13y ago
          Word. I get that. I just thought the question sort of steered away from the main point of the parent comment, which was that if Google did have some sort of nefarious partnership that they would be legally obliged to deny it no matter what. My apologies, I'm probably just being a bit nitpicky.
        • Finster 13y ago
          O RLY? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center
• chime 13y ago
  If this entire PRISM thing is fabrication, then it is the best thing to have happened to personal liberties and Internet privacy since encryption. Until the recent shooting in CA, all the major networks were going on and on about PRISM. No amount of money could have bought the kind of attention PRISM is getting.
• andyl 13y ago
  Larry Page: "the U.S. government does not have direct access" Apple: "We do not provide any government agency with direct access" Facebook: "We do not provide any government organization with direct access" Yahoo: "We do not provide the government with direct access" Remarkably consistent - as if it was coordinated, or scripted by an attorney...
  • gridscomputing 13y ago
    It's not "direct" access, it's access through a one-way live xml feed
    • varjag 13y ago
      It's for the government, gotta be CSV in EBCDIC.
    • venomsnake 13y ago
      Please ... it will be binary format. Even the government isn't so wasteful to transmit data as xml. And if it did you could easily find where the servers were located by the 5 nuclear power plants needed to power such parsing.
      • gridscomputing 13y ago
        HUR DUR XML IS BAD HUR DUR
      • Achshar 13y ago
        No, JSON.
      • bifrost 13y ago
        I hate to tell you this, but the government has never been concerned enough with overhead to not use something like XML. Frankly its probably tab deliminated ASCII. We'd be lucky to see a binary protocol.
  • lurker14 13y ago
    It's no secret that companies (and libraries, etc) must provide indirect access: https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/US&#x2F https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/U...; What exactly do you think is happening, that Google is hiding? Where are the datacenters big enough to hold a whole extra copy of every piece of data google maintains? (plus every other company)
• agentultra 13y ago
  > Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Which is what is in question, no? If being in accordance with the law means keeping secret the requests you do serve, even if broad, means you're still handing out the information. You just don't have to put it in your, "transparency report." Can't really say any of this is even remotely surprising given what we, in the industry of software development, know about what kind of information can be gathered and how vast volumes of it can be processed and analyzed.
• newobj 13y ago
  Here's an idea. Instead of telling us what you DON'T do, tell us what you DO do.
  • ceejayoz 13y ago
    They're legally barred from doing so.
• hga 13y ago
  Aren't these the same words we've been hearing from the others, ones that ignore the concept of a front door, push mechanism to satisfy government demands that cannot be revealed without committing a felony?* I'd be a bit happier if we were to hear from Soviet refugee Sergey Brin.... * That's one of the terrible things about doing everything in secret; we know that if Google is subject to a broad demand from a National Security Letter they can't tell us that without suffering terrible penalties. The government has set up a situation where we literally are not able to trust the words of Google et. al.---at least prior to a major figure deciding to pay that penalty for the greater good. Which history tells us requires a rare courage.
• mcintyre1994 13y ago
  The obvious issue here is that if the order was similar to Verizon's, Google wouldn't be allowed to admit its existence anyway.
• esja 13y ago
  Very carefully worded & not a denial of the allegations.
• deleted 13y ago
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• guelo 13y ago
  In his remarks today Obama said "Now, with respect to the Internet and emails, this does not apply to U.S. citizens, and it does not apply to people living in the United States." He's clearly stating that they do read non-American's emails. So how do they do it if they don't have access to Google's servers? BTW, if you run a company outside of America you'd be crazy to rely on Google since the US could be reading your emails for corporate espionage purposes. I think in the long run these revelations are very threatening to Silicon Valley.
  • rryan 13y ago
    > So how do they do it if they don't have access to Google's servers? So there's this protocol called SMTP...
  • dragonwriter 13y ago
    > BTW, if you run a company outside of America you'd be crazy to rely on Google since the US could be reading your emails for corporate espionage purposes. The US could be spying on activities, including email transmissions, that happen wholly outside of the US, as well. The only reason PRISM, et al., are newsworthy is that there are expectations and widely-perceived legal/constitutional limitations of US government domestic surveillance that don't exist for foreign surveillance.
    • guelo 13y ago
      If my company is outside the US I can try to use infrastructure that at least makes it harder for the US to gain access. If, for example, the US is spying on European allies' infrastructure it would be a diplomatically damaging revelation and the European governments would try to fight it off. If I use a Silicon Valley service I know for a fact that the US can read my data at will without any recourse on my part. It makes no sense to use Google which is why I'm saying this is threatening to Silicon Valley. Think of it this way, do you think a Chinese email service could become trusted enough to become globally competitive?
      • dragonwriter 13y ago
• deelowe 13y ago
  Why is everyone so suspicious of Google to begin with? Is there a shred of evidence to lend any credibility to the accusations thus far? Given how Google's technology works, I imagine it would be quite an expense to provide the kind of access the govt. would want and Google hasn't been exactly overly enthused with having to comply with BS government requests(e.g. see how they deal with requests to scrub search results).
  • mullingitover 13y ago
    The President getting on national television and acknowledging that the program exists is a pretty big shred of evidence.
    • unreal37 13y ago
      PRISM can exist, AND they cannot have direct access to Google data. Both can be true. There is another vector of privacy leakage here - there are also the ISPs, who I am pretty sure work alongside the government in a majorly secretive way.
    • deelowe 13y ago
      He said nothing about Google, which is the topic of the OP.
      • mullingitover 13y ago
        In case you missed it, this is the program he acknowledged - Note the three Google products whose logos feature prominently in the leaked doc: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-n...
        • deelowe 13y ago
          I missed the pictures of the slides. That said, there are ways to target these services without involving the companies directly. Up to and including espionage itself.
• monkmartinez 13y ago
  Google doesn't know what the program is called inside the NSA, that is not earth shattering news. The problem is they don't need to "know" any of this. Hypothetically; If I was approached by the NSA for access to my users data... I would ask or come up with, at a minimum, some kind of Plausible Deniability... its the only sane option given the nature of these requests. Ie. "Never heard of it... We push back as much as we can... See these push-backs in our transparency report. Feel Better?"
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• TheOsiris 13y ago
  "Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law" Well, now I feel better. Oh wait, PRISM is technically legal since it's supposedly authorized by the senate?
• kjackson2012 13y ago
  - What indirect access does Google provide to the government? - What lawful data does Google automatically provide to the government without any requests? - Can the government can ask Google for data once, and then Google is required to constantly supply data, periodically? If so, what is that data? - What data does Google provide to the government upon request?
  • zaphar 13y ago
    http://www.google.com/transparencyreport&#x2F http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/
• danielpal 13y ago
  What a lot of people haven't considered is that it's likely that the NSA had a big breakthrough on Integer Factorization and their capable of breaking RSA public key crypto (used everywhere you see HTTPS) Then they can just save all your encrypted traffic and break it on demand. We all need to start considering moving to Elliptic Curve Cryptography.
  • rthomas6 13y ago
    Why is this at all likely?
• chris_mahan 13y ago
  I think the US government can put enough pressure on any CEO of any company in the United States to lie about information collection efforts that such denial is meaningless.
• kahirsch 13y ago
  I am going to guess that PRISM is a system which receives and parses the data files from those companies that are produced as a result of warrants/subpoenas/national security letters. So the excerpt from the NSA document that the Washington Post gave—"Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple" — may refer only to some kind of secure file transfer (private circuit with NSA hardware encryption, maybe). It's just a guess, but it could fit with the relatively low cost figure given ($20 Million).
• hammerzeit 13y ago
  One thing I'd think about: If Google is lying or misrepresenting the truth here, then it would be phenomenally foolish to put out a denial under Larry's name as it just did. Specifically, the personal integrity of the founders -- especially vis-a-vis these kinds of issues -- is one of the bedrocks of Google's culture. If a statement like this was proven out to be a deliberate misrepresentation (even if not an outright lie) it would cause IMO severe harm to Google morale.
• necubi 13y ago
  For all those complaining about the language of this and other denials, what could possibly satisfy you? This seems as blanket as possible. "Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process." "We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale [as of the Verizon order] is completely false." Finally, NSLs cannot compel an organization to lie like this, and doing so would be very legally dangerous for Google. It's amazing how little critical thinking HN does when we see something that confirms our beliefs.
  • bitwize 13y ago
    Larry Page wants to live. And he wants Google to keep functioning as a company, and not e.g., to have sudden tax issues crop up with the IRS. He has plenty of incentive to tell an out-and-out lie in this case.
    • Matt_Cutts 13y ago
      Oh come on. Google is willing and able to push back on overly broad governmental requests. When the Department of Justice sent subpoenas to 34 companies in 2005 asking for months of user queries, Google was the only company I know of that fought back in court and won. I know because I wrote a declaration for that case. See http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/doj-sent-subpoenas-to-34-companies&#x2F http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/doj-sent-subpoenas-to-34-compa...; and http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-responds-to-doj-subpoena&#x2F http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-responds-to-doj-subpoen...; for example. We were also the first company to publish our transparency report on governmental requests, and the first company to include any specific number ranges on the number of national security letter (NSLs) that we get. See also http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/04/google-fights-nsl&#x2F http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/04/google-fights-nsl&#...; about national security letters. The appropriate and constructive place to channel frustation is at bad laws/legal provisions.
      • 13y ago
• deleted 13y ago
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• dannyr 13y ago
  Some of the comments here just shows that people will believe what they want to believe. There's nothing Google, Apple, Facebook, etc can say that some people won't poke holes into.
  • ceejayoz 13y ago
    That's the frustrating state of the law. Gag orders make it very difficult to trust public communications like this. With secret, fairly unaccountable courts that statistically appear to rubber-stamp government requests, it's hard to discount the possibility of the NSA having, say, the authority to say "Google, you will post the following PR release now" as part of one of these orders.
• chime 13y ago
  I don't want any more fluff "no direct access" emails. I just want these questions to be answered with a YES/NO: 1. Is there any way that someone outside of Google, can get a copy of an email I sent from my gmail to my own gmail, without a warrant that specifies my exact gmail address? 2. If I delete my Google search history, is there any way for anyone to access this history, with or without a warrant? 3. If I make a Google search from an incognito window, is there any way for Google to connect it to my Google account via my IP address? I know I've done this in the past to prevent spambots from creating fake accounts. Can Google connect these dots if someone sends them an NSL? If the answer to any of this is YES, I am going to have to rethink my entire online life.
  • badclient 13y ago
    You don't need google to answer some of these. 2. If I delete my Google search history, is there any way for anyone to access this history, with or without a warrant? I would think google has historical backups they could refer to to pull out data that you've recently deleted. 3. If I make a Google search from an incognito window, is there any way for Google to connect it to my Google account via my IP address? I know I've done this in the past to prevent spambots from creating fake accounts. Can Google connect these dots if someone sends them an NSL? Why not? You should already assume that google and pretty much any site logs your IP whether you are using incognito or not. You should also assume that any time you log in to gmail your IP is noted. It's extremely basic to do a db search for all gmail accounts that have been accessed by a given IP.
    • chime 13y ago
      > I would think google has historical backups they could refer to to pull out data that you've recently deleted. I should have clarified: except for temporary cache or periodic backups. > Why not? You should already assume that google and pretty much any site logs your IP whether you are using incognito or not. You should also assume that any time you log in to gmail your IP is noted. It's extremely basic to do a db search for all gmail accounts that have been accessed by a given IP. I meant if you do not login to Google and do a search in incognito mode, is that history stored? I can delete my history if I'm logged in. But there is no way to delete history by IP. It seems 'safer' to in fact use your logged in Google account to search.
• piyush_soni 13y ago
  "We put that in our transparency report "whenever possible". :)
• washedup 13y ago
  It is very possible that Google is lying or, at best, bending the truth.
• deleted 13y ago
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• glesica 13y ago
  I assume the government would require them to deny involvement, just like companies aren't (weren't?) allowed to discuss NSLs. Consequently, I view the denials as meaningless.
  • bskap 13y ago
    So then what could these companies do to convince you, short of giving you physical access to all of their datacenters and shell access to all of their servers?
    • glesica 13y ago
      Nothing, that's the problem. What needs to happen is for these programs to be brought in to the sunlight and for Congress to make it explicitly legal for people to discuss them, regardless of any previous prohibition. Then I might be able to believe a denial, or at least accept it as meaningful.
    • glesica 13y ago
      Nothing, that's the problem. What needs to happen is for these programs to be brought in to the sunlight and for Congress to make it explicitly legal for people to discuss them, regardless of any previous prohibition. Then I might be able to believe a denial, or at least accept it as meaningful.
• bcRIPster 13y ago
  IDK, if the gov't has core network switch access and is sniffing all of the packets, that's "back door" enough for my mind. I'm wouldn't be surprised if none of these companies was involved, and it's just a case that the NSA is simply harvesting and processing all of their traffic for a net same result.
• deleted 13y ago
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• akilism 13y ago
  yeah but what about Google's Irish branch?
• uptown 13y ago
  Watch this: http://youtu.be/oYNXVgYhPOc http://youtu.be/oYNXVgYhPOc The key phrase is "in the United States" so they just replicate the data outside the United States and you've got yourself a data 'black site' outside the jurisdiction of US law. No direct access. No laws broken. Open access to the NSA.
  • chris_mahan 13y ago
    Ireland?
    • hrbrtglm 13y ago
      The dark side of the moon.
• ISL 13y ago
  Okay, HN, how can Google provide a compelling denial that they're not participating in PRISM as described in the leak? If we're to be a country where innocence is presumed and guilt is proven, we must consider what Larry Page would write in the case that Google is not supplying any sort of un-warranted feed to NSA. Would it be any different?
• rollo_tommasi 13y ago
  General Clapper point-blank lied - or provided a legally-truthful answer so contorted it may as well have been a lie - to Representative Wyden when questioned about NSA phone-data collection just a few months ago. You can't take any statement by any authority figure on these types of programs at face value. Obviously this opens the door to all kinds of unfalsifiable, paranoid conspiracy madness, but that is a direct consequence of the government's unrelenting commitment to maximum secrecy.
• aniket_ray 13y ago
  Disclaimer: I don't know the truth about anything that's going on. First, I'm not a US citizen. So, it seems I just have to assume that NSA is certainly tracking me. Now to the topic of spying on US citizens, considering how no one seems to have ever heard about PRISM, the breaking of this story based on flimsy evidence seems to me like an attempt to side track from the real and confirmed story of NSA accessing Call Data Records from Verizon of millions of citizens (The industry calls it CDRs, why have we started calling it "Metadata" since yesterday). I wouldn't be surprised (though I have no evidence at all) that the PRISM story was planted to change the public discourse.
  • deleted 13y ago
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  • brown9-2 13y ago
    To cover from the Verizon story, the government planted a story that makes the practice look even grander in scope? The idea that they want to cover up the Verizon story is negated by the fact that many Congressional leaders came out immediately afterwards and said basically "yes this has been going on for years, they continually renew the 3-month orders, it's all telcos, we are pleased with it".
• natch 13y ago
  Wow, so many weasel words. So what would satisfy me? "We minimize intrusions into our users' privacy by encrypting their data on the client side with good crypto algorithms and secure keys that assuming a secure client system are under the full control of our users." Followed by a list of types of data, and which types are or are not encrypted in this way. That comes close. It's not exactly PR-speak, but captures the spirit I would hope for. Google could at least try harder to be proactive about protecting privacy.
• pgrote 13y ago
  If Google is forced to turn over data to the government, but precluded from discussing it due to national security laws then the denial really doesn't mean anything. Right?
• Matt_Cutts 13y ago
  Personally, I'm really glad that Google published such a clear, plain-spoken post to tackle this issue head on. This whole issue makes me want to donate a bunch of money to the EFF. If anyone else feels the same way, you can donate to the EFF here: https://supporters.eff.org/donate https://supporters.eff.org/donate and I believe a lot of employers will match contributions.
  • chime 13y ago
    EFF is certainly doing a great job right now, so donations are definitely going to help. Let me ask you this - do you feel 100% comfortable that nobody outside of Google can read your personal gmail?
    • Matt_Cutts 13y ago
      Me personally? I do. I still want Google to up the number of key bits on our SSL connections, plus explore how to make the connection even more secure though. But yes, I'm quite confident.
      • chime 13y ago
        Thanks! Believe it or not, your one statement made me feel more assured than all the press releases I've seen so far.
      • abraham 13y ago
        It looks like the security team is currently working on upping the SSL bits. http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2013/05/changes-to-our-ssl-certificates.html http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2013/05/changes-to-...
        • Matt_Cutts 13y ago
          2048 bits! Woohoo!
  • cloudwizard 13y ago
• joering2 13y ago
  This was a TOP SECRET document that leaked out. Page may be well in position not only to deny any knowledge of PRISM, but even further publicly deny Google worked or works with PRISM/NSA. The way the government bends the law for some years now just to punish everyone they feel like, either through imprisonment, scrutiny or simply by wasting years of their lives, savings of their lives and leaving them with a huge lawyer's bill, I wouldn't be surprised if Page had no choice than to lie on the record. And guess what; if, arguendo, he did, he will be pardoned later on. What would you choose? Admit to a secret program ran by secret agency and face brutal consequences (fines, imprisonment, charge with espionage or maybe capital punishment? (why not? why wouldn't government go after Page "proving" that by admitting US sees everything everyone types to Google, it tipped over some terrorist somewhere that stopped using Google and because of that government lost a track of him until he blew himself up in the middle of crowded street. You get the drift)), or perhaps come up as a good patriot and tell the truth. We already have one that told the truth. He spent 3 years in solitary confinement and may be facing life sentence or capital punishment. People need to understand. This is too big of a secret even for someone like Page to come up and admit.
• deleted 13y ago
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• ajdecon 13y ago
  Regardless of the wording, no statement from Google (or Facebook, Apple, etc) is really going to be believed. A denial from innocence is indistinguishable from a denial which is legally compelled by the language of an order form the government. But to be honest, I don't bear any ill will toward Google on this. Based on their behavior in the past, I'm willing to believe that if this program existed, they pushed back to the extent they felt they could... but if they eventually complied, it's difficult to blame them, given the threats the government is capable of making. Unfortunately, the only place to resolve this is at the government level, if it can be resolved at all.
• Steko 13y ago
  Just because the government has access to Google's servers doesn't mean Google gave them that access. We're all big kids, if you read that the Chinese/Russian/whatever government had access to information straight from Facebook's servers most people wouldn't doubt it for a second and most people would assume they took it through hacking. So how can you be surprised that NSA is listening to your Skype calls? Maybe they're using a backdoor made for them, maybe they're using a backdoor MS put in for synergy, maybe they threw a million gpus at it for a few years... And maybe they got permissions from MS, or maybe they social hacked it[1], maybe they take it before it gets to MS's servers. Some of those might be illegal and some not but anyone who's surprised or suddenly outraged has been living under a rock since forever. [1] "It is generally done via secret arrangements not with the company, but with the employees. The company does not provide back-door access, but the people do. The trick is to place people with excellent tech skills and dual loyalties into strategic locations in the company. These 'assets' will then execute the work required in secret, and spare the company and most all of their workmates the embarrassment" http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001431.html http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001431.html I don't see any citation or evidence given for this so this persons claim could just be idle speculation but it's along the lines of what I'd assume. The NSA treats your privacy as a math problem and routes around it.
• T3RMINATED 13y ago
  If Google is not part of PRISM where is the lawsuit for damaging the image of Google and putting their Trademark in a document that is fake a lie... Where is that slander, PR lawsuit? Google you have billions, if its not true file a lawsuit we will believe you then.
• cloudwizard 13y ago
  A nice $10M donation to the EFF would help me believe him.
• jmadsen 13y ago
  At some point, I think - perhaps this is only wishful thinking, but I do think it nonetheless - someone from one of these companies will simply come out in a TV interview and spill the beans. Just make a big enough stir, be explicit about what threats were levied, and tell us all. It would be impossible to prosecute them after that shitstorm.
• weinzierl 13y ago
  The last paragraph sound to me like: "Oh guys, we'd love to tell you what they force us to do, but we can't because we're under gag order.". Especially the final sentence is explicit: But the level of secrecy around the current legal procedures undermines the freedoms we all cherish. Am I reading this wrong?
• deleted 13y ago
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• rachelbythebay 13y ago
  It just occurred to me: the "data liberation" thing they have which lets you download your own data... would be terribly useful for such requests. What better way to scrape the entirety of the various storage systems than to have a team who does nothing but that? The team itself wouldn't even need to know about it. Just keep them funded and let them stay current on supporting the latest doodad, and it stays useful to the nefarious spy work as well.
• grandalf 13y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5838921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5838921
• onecommentonly 13y ago
  A few thoughts: It's unlikely that he cannot deny or admit giving data to NSA /FBI, because he both admitted and denied, albeit with weasel words. No "backdoor" and "no direct access" but maybe from the front door and indirect access :). I suspect that NSA has live access to Google /FB / MS for certain cases, tracking every online move for certain individuals. That's why it costs just $20 million, maybe they created a portal from which they track Person A going from site to site, what he searches for, who he calls, and what he types. Larry smells the end of his company's "trust us with all your data...all your life on cloud...search while logged in...visit pages with Google Analytics...it's secure" etc. etc etc. While NSA might not catalog everything you do, Google does and everything is there for NSA's and FBI's asking. The more information Google and Facebook (to pick two of the largest) have stored, the worst it is for us. They know EVERYTHING about pages you visit, how long you stay there, what you searched for, what places you went to (Android) what you emailed, foods you liked, what your ordered from ebay, and so on. A treasure trove for NSA, a nightmare for us. Start thinking! Stay logged out of Google and FB, use hosts file, Ghostery etc to block and make NSA's and FBI's life as hard as possible. What's good for Google is good for NSA, but not necessarily for you. NSA would love Google Now, wouldn't they?
• cpeterso 13y ago
  Could the NSA have recruited Google employees as moles? The company might not be providing "direct access", but an individual employee might be able to. What kind of security do companies like Google and Facebook have to protect private user data from employees? I remember reading that Facebook used to (?) allow unfettered access to all private user data until (surprise!) some creepy employees began stalking people.
• deleted 13y ago
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• IanDrake 13y ago
  >Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. This is problematic when the government decides the law means you have to give them your data, you can't say no, you can't say anything about it, and if asked you must deny it. In this day and age, who knows who's telling the truth. When lying becomes law, truth no longer exists.
• achalkley 13y ago
  Drafted at Bilderberg 2013
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• cromwellian 13y ago
  There's a new kind of Birther or Truther, let's call them PRISMers. No amount of denials or evidence to the contrary, no matter how they are worded or exposed, will satisfy PRISMers that Google is not uploading all user activity to the NSA. It's just impossible to repair the harm that's been done to the brand by the government. For some people, I doubt trust can ever be regained. Companies affected by this PRISM program should sue the US Government for damages, or at least sue them until it is completely declassified.
• LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
  > Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Great! So if the law - namely the Patriot Act - states the Government has the authority to spy on all your users emails, your legal team reviews it, says it's ok according to the law and you cooperate. Is that how it works?
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• vijayr 13y ago
  Does anyone care, outside of tech circles? Most people don't seem to care, even though they understand what's happening
• Fuzzwah 13y ago
  I had to chuckle at Mr Page using the "royal we": "As Google’s CEO and Chief Legal Officer, we wanted you to have the facts."
• EGreg 13y ago
  Is it just me or did the personal statements by Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg have similar format and language?
  • aayala 13y ago
    indeed, very similar like a government script ...
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• 7952 13y ago
  Couldn't a huge amount of metadata be gleaned by just monitoring the size, disposition, and timing of encrypted traffic. That sort of information would only be useful to government and would give them the ability to deny everything.
• coherentpony 13y ago
  > First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday. Right, but government-hired contractors are not 'the government'. So while this could be true, users' data could still be being intercepted.
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• CoryG89 13y ago
  Everyone please also go read Mark Zuckerberg's response: https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10100828955847631 https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10100828955847631 Now look at it side-by-side with Larry Page's response. Anyone with half a brain should be scared by this. It really scares me as well. I put more of my trust in Google, and perhaps even Facebook then I place in the Government, or the phone companies, or others. However, these definitely look like they are created from the same template. Very worrying coming from Page and Zuckerberg like this at the exact same time. I just hope there really isn't a man behind the curtain pulling the strings of such powerful figures in technology today. Does anyone know if there could have been a meeting between these CEOs to decide how they were going to respond. Perhaps they all decided to make their responses uniform together, instead of some external source telling them what to do.
• CoryG89 13y ago
  This just looks like it was crafted from the same template as Mark Zuckerberg's response! Very worrying coming from Page and Zuckerberg, (and I hear other CEOs) like this at the exact same time. I just hope there really isn't a man behind the curtain pulling the strings of such powerful figures in technology today.
• lazyjones 13y ago
  So the gmail access given to government agencies, that allegedly enabled the Chinese to hack it in 2010 - as reported by CNN (http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/23/schneier.google.hacking/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/23/schneier.google.ha...) was just a figment of Bruce Schneier's imagination? Or was it just "indirect access", as in via some other company?
• feverishaaron 13y ago
  There's some undertone about having Drummond listed as the co-author. When the chief legal officer co-authors a post with a ceo, it means that each word has been carefully chosen, because each of these statements carries serious consequences if they get it wrong.
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• anonymousab 13y ago
  Sure thing, Larry. So you won't be afraid to swear as such under oath nor sign a contract stipulating multibillion dollar penalties should this in any way prove to be a lie or deception, right?
• icambron 13y ago
  This is absolutely crammed with weasel wording. With notes: First, we have not joined [Maybe you didn't "join", but instead merely participated in?] any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access [How about indirect access? What is "direct access", anyway?] to our servers [The reporting suggests the NSA provided some hardware. So I guess it's not your servers, huh?]. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access [There's that weird term again] or a “back door” [With quotes. Nice.] to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday [This one is especially bad. Apparently the NSA didn't tell them the program was called 'PRISM'?] Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law [Note that the government also claims this program is in accordance with the law]. Our legal team reviews each and every request [What's the scope of a request?], and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process. Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data [Not what the reports are suggesting] are false, period. Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records [Which is wholly unrelated to PRISM and Google.]. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false [Such a scale being what, exactly? All of your users' data?]. Note what it doesn't answer: Does Google provide data to the NSA? Does the NSA have resources in Google data centers? Does Google know what these reports about the NSA spying on our Google accounts are all about? It really doesn't answer those. Lame.
• stevewillows 13y ago
  While I enjoy my tinfoil hat, it seems that they're being open about the access given. This being said, if I didn't trust Google I wouldn't use them. I accept that I am trading certain information about me (interests, usage etc) for the bevvy of free services they provide. What sort of information about me would the NSA be interested in?
• mattbarrie 13y ago
  Qualified statement "direct". Of course they are not providing "direct" access to production servers. What about "copies"?
• jmomo 13y ago
  This from the same guy who once gave away access to anyone's data to impress friends. His quote: Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks. He has no credibility. http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2010/05/report-zuckerberg-called-facebook-users-who-trust-him-dumb/24459&#x2F http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2010/05/report-zuc...; http://www.newser.com/story/88716/zuckerberg-once-mocked-dumb-users-over-trust.html http://www.newser.com/story/88716/zuckerberg-once-mocked-dum...
  • paramsingh 13y ago
    Not the same guy at all...
• jmomo 13y ago
  Zuckerberg would never give away private info just to impress friends: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2010/05/report-zuckerberg-called-facebook-users-who-trust-him-dumb/24459&#x2F http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2010/05/report-zuc...; http://www.newser.com/story/88716/zuckerberg-once-mocked-dumb-users-over-trust.html http://www.newser.com/story/88716/zuckerberg-once-mocked-dum...
• Udo 13y ago
  I think they are probably replicating their content in realtime onto government servers, so technically Google et al don't give the NSA any "direct" server access. In practice it's way more convenient to house all that data directly under the NSA/DHS/whatever umbrella than to connect to Google every time they need something. Using piecemeal "direct access" would also hurt the government's data mining ambitions, so there are a lot of factors that suggest internet companies are simply obligated to stream all their data into a gov black box. This way, everybody wins: the government gets warrant-less, hassle-free access to absolutely everything, the internet companies get freedom from search warrants and NSLs, and they get to use the canned "direct access" denial line which is technically true but is still actually a huge lie.
• zmmmmm 13y ago
  It's disturbing how similar the language of the different denials is. While individually they are quite convincing (to me, anyway), when you read them one after the other they all have the same "voice". It starts to sound like Orwellian newspeak, exactly how it would sound if all these statements were coordinated by a shadowy background figure. It may be just an unfortunate coincidence of timing and nature of lawyer laden executive language - but together these statements almost become counterproductive.
• adventured 13y ago
  With Clapper's admission that Prism is real, I don't understand why it's still a debate as to whether Google / Facebook / Microsoft / Apple are involved. What Internet companies are they getting information from, such that they wouldn't target the top dozen companies that account for the radical majority of anything you'd want to bother tapping into? Who do people think they're talking about? Excite? Some small local ISP? They got Verizon and AT&T to sign on to massive scale spying. If they can do that, they can get Google and Facebook and so on. These companies simply have no choice in the matter. You'll recall that Google's anti-trust inquiry recently, conveniently, went away with barely a slap on the wrist.
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• yarou 13y ago
  principiis obsta et respice finem
• kineticfocus 13y ago
  Hopefully all this spurs more transparency like Larry suggests. We're certainly on the wrong side of a slippery slope right now. -(says a Canuck who has to deal with this stuff to)
• randomfool 13y ago
  "Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law." Would be much better if this were "only when required to by law".
• aayala 13y ago
  So the CEO knows every technical detail of the IT infrastructure? that's awesome
• dontbelieveit 13y ago
  I have a completely different take on this. While something along the general lines of 'Prism' probably exists, in aggregate, across different NSA programs, I believe the presentation slides are fake and were created / leaked by the executive branch. Here's my reasoning: The Slides ---------- Who is the audience???? Who were these slides prepared for? Who is the target audience? If real, the information is obviously very, very sensitive- so it follows that the original audience would have been very, very high level. But who at that high of a level needs this type of explanation for a project that started years ago?? It reads more like something you would create for someone that has never heard of it. Doesn't make sense. Slide Design Gee- nice of the creator to put the logos of each of the companies at the top of the slide- of every slide. Which leads me to ask... Where are the rest of the slides? Was it only a 4 slide presentation? Who gives super-high level presentations with only 4 slides? If there were more than 4 slides, were the company logos across the top of EVERY page? Does that even make sense? It's also interesting that the 4 slides present such a simple, easy to understand story line- it reads like the target audience is a school tour - not super-secret-high-level-officials-(hearing about it for the first time). Prism Logo Who made the logo? The NSA graphic design office? Seriously, why would a program like that have a logo? For marketing purposes?? Prism has a web page! From the bottom of slide 3- "Complete list and details on Prism web page: Go PRISMFAA" A web page? Even if it's private to the NSA it's absurd. The Political Angle (motive) ---------------------------- IRS - Big Government Story The IRS / Tea Party story was looking very, very bad for the administration. It's one thing for Republicans / Libertarians to say big government is bad - you play that off as partisan politics. The average person goes about their day. The IRS is different- EVERYONE deals with the IRS. The narrative was a simple one - IRS abuses power to attack political enemies. That scares people- pretty much everyone. The Obama administration is all about big government - they don't see it as a bad thing. They believe government is in a unique position to help people. If the electorate turns against 'big government', whatever agenda Obama has for the next 3 year would be finished. The IRS story is a very big deal. Incredibly Savvy Political Operators The Obama political team is a force to be reckoned with. Between incredible political savvy and incredible data analysis, they have taken the political game to an entirely new level. They are very, very good. How does one 'fix' this problem? A tried and true solution is for a bigger story to come along and eclipse the 'problem' story. In the Wag The Dog world, you would start a war. But that's just a movie. What would be a perfect story? How about a story that simultaneously eclipses the IRS story, while blurring the big government issue? That's just what happened. The NSA story is at an abstract level the same as the IRS story- it's about big government run amok. However, by rolling the two together Obama can claim 'security' as a trump card. It only really applies to the NSA part of the story - but the press isn't big on subtle distinctions, so no worries there. Timing Is it a coincidence the Washington Post broke the story just as the evening news was starting on the West Coast? IE - the end of the day's news cycle? That gives a full day for the press to roll the IRS stories up and for the President to make a presidential statement about security. Sum it all up on the evening news and gee - look at that - it's Friday. Time for a summer weekend. Denials ------- All the firms listed in the slide presentation header have denied the story. Yes the language they used is very similar but at the same time it is the same language used by the press ("direct access"). The denials sound pretty believable to me. Even if Larry Page were under some gag order, I doubt he'd say something along the lines of 'I've never heard of it.' I think he'd follow the letter of the law (gag order), but not the spirit. This is a long post - and my first post (long time lurker though). In a nutshell: The slide presentation looks very 'Made for TV' The timing is SUPER convenient. Thoughts?
• mgiiu1 13y ago
  Several of the largest telephone carriers in the United States knowingly and voluntarily assisted the National Security Agency in illegally spying, the online companies I feel have more too lose if they took that kind of mindless attitude. Online companies monetize user data so consumers may lose faith in the companies ability to protect their data from government if they have "direct access". Online firms adopted a aggressive, pro-privacy legal theories. The problem isn't about direct access, the friendly benefits the intelligence community gets with current structuring of federal law is what needs to be changed for more respect to privacy in our society.
• gridmaths 13y ago
  Missing from this cynical legal response, is the outrage towards the government for spying on all our private communications [ both legally and illegally ] Google could have used their platform to campaign for better laws : a 'free speech + question mark' logo on their home page outlining their concerns would have been consistent with 'Dont be Evil'.. but they didn't even do that. A not-just-non-evil-but-actively-good Google should have said to the Government : "No, you may not have any access to our customers data - you need to physically raid our buildings with a warrant to prise that from our stewardship. You need to hold us as a company in contempt of court." How much better is the US than China ? : how can there be a democracy without both free speech and a right to private conversation ?
• lifeguard 13y ago
  "Tech companies might have also denied knowledge of the full scope of cooperation with national security officials because employees whose job it is to comply with FISA requests are not allowed to discuss the details even with others at the company, and in some cases have national security clearance, according to both a former senior government official and a lawyer representing a technology company. " http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/technology/tech-companies-bristling-concede-to-government-surveillance-efforts.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/technology/tech-companies-...
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• jchimney 13y ago
  Maybe the larger point is that they don't need permission
• svdad 13y ago
  Ok, let's read this closely. It doesn't seem to me like Larry and David are really denying much of anything. "Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers." Sure, that's fine. But the fact that the initial PPT gives a specific date on which Google cooperation began already suggests that Google may be handing over data, not that the gov't is sucking it all down automatically. Also, they say "data centers" in particular. Data travels over lots of other pipes. "We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday." Not surprising the NSA wouldn't tell them the secret code name of the project in their discussions. "we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process." This is an enormous loophole. "in accordance to the law" could mean anything, and with automated review systems the volume of data passing through could be massive. "Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period." Not providing "open-ended acces" does not mean not providing any access. "We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist." But not surprised to learn that other not-so-broad orders exist. How broad is too broad? "Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false." Not "on such a scale", but on a slightly smaller scale, sure. "there needs to be a more transparent approach" In other words, we wish we could tell you about everything we're doing with the NSA, but we aren't allowed to. Really this doesn't read like any sort of denial at all.
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• cLeEOGPw 13y ago
  If these companies truly were innocent they would immediately sue press for slander. The fact that they all posted a denial that are all exactly same worded says everything imo.
• Steer 13y ago
  I'm sure many people have said the same thing much more eloquently than I can, but what I find extra depressing in all this is that we all obviously want to take advantage of the possibilities that the Internet gives us, but while people are prosecuted right and left for sharing a song the government (any government) can do things on a scale which we can only dream of. We're all connected, but has it empowered us or has it made us into a bunch of sheep? What happened to the government working for us, the people? Yes, I'm sure I'm naive, but still. I don't see this getting better before it gets worse. Sorry.
• dude3 13y ago
  Google gave the Chinese gov direct access that's how they got hacked.
• jlebar 13y ago
  We should really read what the Times has to say about this before we engage in armchair investigation. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/technology/tech-companies-bristling-concede-to-government-surveillance-efforts.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/technology/tech-companies-...
• jtormey 13y ago
  The denials sound like a politician denying he had an affair...and in the end it turns out to be true. PRISM at least expresses the intent of the government, which trashes our right to privacy, probable cause,etc. The only right to privacy these days is if you're having an abortion.