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Well, you can't prove a negative so I'm not sure there's anything Page can say. But at the same time they can't all be right. NSA says it's getting data in som

by mpyne 13y ago

Well, you can't prove a negative so I'm not sure there's anything Page can say. But at the same time they can't all be right. NSA says it's getting data in some form from Google, Page says no direct access. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle then... but where?

cheald 13y ago
I'm 100% with you. I don't know what Page could say, and I agree that it's extremely likely that the truth is somewhere in the middle, but damned if any of us have any ability to actually suss out what that is. It's very frustrating. I just think it's important to not be entirely cynical here, and to keep in mind what such a statement might look like if it were being truthful. I don't know how much different it might be, which generally makes the statement only as good as Larry Page's word, and only then if he doesn't have a gun to his head.
anon808 13y ago
The truth comes from the source that wasn't intended to be public.
dragonwriter 13y ago
I don't know why we'd expect the truth to be in the middle. If the NSA document is genuine, the information the NSA is collecting from Google is part of a Top Secret program as described in the leaked internal document. If that is true, why would we expect that Google officials would be able to make any public confirmation of the Top Secret program? And, given that, why, in that case, would we expect the truth to be "in the middle"? Conversely, if the leaked document is not genuine, then I still don't see any basis for expecting the truth to be in the "middle" between the false document and the Google denial.
- dwild 13y ago
  Did I miss some information? I only saw two slides. One that show the potential data accessible and one that show when the companies were added. It doesn't say exactly that they had access to everything. As far as we know PRISM can simply be there to centralize the information that the NSA got in legals ways. We do know that the government ask about 100 users account information each day to Google, we can guess that they do the same to every company on that list and they were all added to PRISM at the date you can find on the slides. I mean that slide contains one of the most important information that we currently have to guess the magnitude of PRISM, the budget. They only need 20 millions $ every years. True data mining is much more expensive than that.
bilbo0s 13y ago
I don't know how many of us served as officers in the military, but the requisite action in this situation is pretty clear. If one is interested in day to day security, speaking from a strictly tactical perspective: You assume Google is giving the NSA information and act accordingly. Doubts are like bothersome flies... until they are crushed... you will never be comfortable at your current position.
darkarmani 13y ago
> NSA says it's getting data in some form from Google, Page says no direct access. Page says no direct access and not even legal access at that scale (verizon). He doesn't say they don't have any access -- in fact he says they comply within the bounds of law, but it's not at the Verizon scale.

by mpyne 13y ago

cheald 13y ago

I'm 100% with you. I don't know what Page could say, and I agree that it's extremely likely that the truth is somewhere in the middle, but damned if any of us have any ability to actually suss out what that is. It's very frustrating. I just think it's important to not be entirely cynical here, and to keep in mind what such a statement might look like if it were being truthful. I don't know how much different it might be, which generally makes the statement only as good as Larry Page's word, and only then if he doesn't have a gun to his head.

anon808 13y ago

The truth comes from the source that wasn't intended to be public.

dragonwriter 13y ago

I don't know why we'd expect the truth to be in the middle. If the NSA document is genuine, the information the NSA is collecting from Google is part of a Top Secret program as described in the leaked internal document. If that is true, why would we expect that Google officials would be able to make any public confirmation of the Top Secret program? And, given that, why, in that case, would we expect the truth to be "in the middle"? Conversely, if the leaked document is not genuine, then I still don't see any basis for expecting the truth to be in the "middle" between the false document and the Google denial.

dwild 13y ago
Did I miss some information? I only saw two slides. One that show the potential data accessible and one that show when the companies were added. It doesn't say exactly that they had access to everything. As far as we know PRISM can simply be there to centralize the information that the NSA got in legals ways. We do know that the government ask about 100 users account information each day to Google, we can guess that they do the same to every company on that list and they were all added to PRISM at the date you can find on the slides. I mean that slide contains one of the most important information that we currently have to guess the magnitude of PRISM, the budget. They only need 20 millions $ every years. True data mining is much more expensive than that.

bilbo0s 13y ago

I don't know how many of us served as officers in the military, but the requisite action in this situation is pretty clear. If one is interested in day to day security, speaking from a strictly tactical perspective: You assume Google is giving the NSA information and act accordingly. Doubts are like bothersome flies... until they are crushed... you will never be comfortable at your current position.

darkarmani 13y ago

> NSA says it's getting data in some form from Google, Page says no direct access. Page says no direct access and not even legal access at that scale (verizon). He doesn't say they don't have any access -- in fact he says they comply within the bounds of law, but it's not at the Verizon scale.