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I don't buy it. What I quoted above doesn't say anything about US persons or non-US persons, about content or metadata, about this law or that one. It just sa

by Dove 13y ago

I don't buy it. What I quoted above doesn't say anything about US persons or non-US persons, about content or metadata, about this law or that one. It just says, Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false. Now, Page may well be lying, but he definitely isn't weaseling. I'm pretty sure that denial covers both of the possibilities you're referring to.

A1kmm 13y ago
I think there are a lot of possibilities that could be consistent with Page's statement that also involve the NSA spying on Google users. For example, perhaps the NSA asked Google to disclose their SSL private keys; then, if they are willing to do an active attack with their own infrastructure, they could transparently perform a MITM attack on all requests to gmail, and it would be virtually undetectable. Another possibility is that the NSA could have served orders on Google employees directly, and they are compelled not to tell their managers about what they did for the NSA.
- pyre 13y ago
  | they are compelled not to tell their managers | about what they did for the NSA. This seems problematic. What if another employee discovers what was done? What if it goes all the way up the chain? When they ask the employee why the created a backdoor, is the employee then obligated to lie? Get fired for the lie? Go to prison while maintaining it's not a NSA secret program?
- hindsightbias 13y ago
  Or you just follow standard operating procedures for foreign intelligence collection. You hire a foreign national, working for a foreign division of Google to be your spy. Unless every US citizens mail server is domestic, lotta a loopholes to be found. People should also not assume the credit card statement from their bank is a batch job run on US servers by their bank. I've been told this stuff is outsourced, probably to the lowest bidder. Which if I were an intelligence service, I would be more than happy to subsidize.
  - mcherm 13y ago
    >I've been told this stuff is outsourced, probably to the lowest bidder. You have been told incorrectly. (Source: I work for a major US credit card company.) Certain pieces of the development and maintenance may be outsourced (under the supervision of US employees), but we (and, as far as I know, all our major competitors) own the data centers where they are run.
jamesjporter 13y ago
I 100% agree; I don't see how anyone can ask for a more blatant and firm statement than that.
cracell 13y ago
But if they were give similar court order terms as under the Verizon court order wouldn't he legally have to lie or violate the court order? Or just not give a comment, but no comment on this would implies guilt to a lot of people so lying could seem like the correct path.
- Selfcommit 13y ago
  I don't believe he can be forced to lie. If he was in that situation, I imagine he would simply not respond.
gibsonf1 13y ago
The key issue here is that Google and the other companies may have no idea this is going on. My read is that the NSA has managed to gain access to the data centers either through inside help, spy craft, hardware/router back doors, or some other means we have no idea about.
- macchina 13y ago
  It's hard for me to believe they could access to the data centers without Google's knowledge. Isn't it more plausible that they're intercepting data flowing in and out of Google servers?
  - VladRussian2 13y ago
    an old time option - a few employees "compelled" to provide access and keep mouth shout. a new time option - Larry is lying because of the gag order. in between - Larry said "on such scale". Well, Google probably is of a bigger scale than Verizon. Anyway, once the data is out there, it is only a matter of time and determination for a government (or any financially well backed up player) to get to it. This scandal will be a great boost for any services involving "crypto", and probably would spring a new ones like an encrypted phone exchange/switch service, where one can see incoming and outcoming phone numbers, yet not which one connected to which :)
  - bigiain 13y ago
    Hmmm… <conspiracy theory> We haven't seen posts from the CEOs of Cisco/Juniper/Dell/HP or other manufacturers of datacenter grade network equipment. Who needs Google/Facebook's "knowledge" if you've got root on all the border network gear (and SSL termination hardware)? I know here in .au, Huawei have been excluded from the government-deployed National Broadband Network due to suspicions that the Chinese government has too much control/access to Huawei newtwork hardware.
    - infographic- 13y ago
      Huawei's exclusion was based purely on FUD. There was no evidence to suggest such a thing.
xenophanes 13y ago
Of course it's weaseling. Maybe they disclosed such information on a slightly lesser scale. That passage doesn't say. They all said stuff about "direct access", without discussing what would and wouldn't qualify as "indirect". They didn't deny doing all kinds of different access that could be called indirect in some way.
- kllrnohj 13y ago
  Of course they don't deny indirect because that would be a lie. Everyone provides data indirectly via a thing called "warrants". Google publishes how many indirect requests they comply with right here: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests
  - RWeaver 13y ago
    The thing is we can't trust any statement by anyone because of the gagging component of NSLs. I've heard it said that the above information is for FBI requests under the patriot act and doesn't include NSLs. For all we know NSL gags could explicitly forbid that kind of reporting and may even compel the recipients to lie if asked. The last sentence he made, that the government needs to be far more transparent about what they're doing is the only sentence I can really trust as honest, especially given that the alternative to lying could be being thrown into Guantanamo for 'assisting terrorists'.
  - hannibal5 13y ago
    Those goole reports are for regular law enforcement requests. They have nothing to do with spying that happens in the name of national intelligence.
    - kllrnohj 13y ago
      False, national intelligence is still covered by Google's transparency report - see the NSL (National Security Letters) part.
cpleppert 13y ago
>>Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false. If you consider that PRISM is not a 'dragnet' but rather an automated system that processes FISA warrants on company premises then the denial wouldn't be wrong. There is no 'scale' that you wouldn't be able to get using regular data requests to internet companies. PRISM could just make the process a lot easier for everyone involved. So instead of sending a warrant over, having the company verify and send the data to the NSA, then finally transforming the data into a reportable format PRISM automates the whole process. If you read some of the media descriptions it almost looks like PRISM is more of a data aggregation and portal system that sits on top of a data source and allows analysts to explore content.

by Dove 13y ago

A1kmm 13y ago

I think there are a lot of possibilities that could be consistent with Page's statement that also involve the NSA spying on Google users. For example, perhaps the NSA asked Google to disclose their SSL private keys; then, if they are willing to do an active attack with their own infrastructure, they could transparently perform a MITM attack on all requests to gmail, and it would be virtually undetectable. Another possibility is that the NSA could have served orders on Google employees directly, and they are compelled not to tell their managers about what they did for the NSA.

pyre 13y ago
| they are compelled not to tell their managers | about what they did for the NSA. This seems problematic. What if another employee discovers what was done? What if it goes all the way up the chain? When they ask the employee why the created a backdoor, is the employee then obligated to lie? Get fired for the lie? Go to prison while maintaining it's not a NSA secret program?
hindsightbias 13y ago
Or you just follow standard operating procedures for foreign intelligence collection. You hire a foreign national, working for a foreign division of Google to be your spy. Unless every US citizens mail server is domestic, lotta a loopholes to be found. People should also not assume the credit card statement from their bank is a batch job run on US servers by their bank. I've been told this stuff is outsourced, probably to the lowest bidder. Which if I were an intelligence service, I would be more than happy to subsidize.
- mcherm 13y ago
  >I've been told this stuff is outsourced, probably to the lowest bidder. You have been told incorrectly. (Source: I work for a major US credit card company.) Certain pieces of the development and maintenance may be outsourced (under the supervision of US employees), but we (and, as far as I know, all our major competitors) own the data centers where they are run.

jamesjporter 13y ago

I 100% agree; I don't see how anyone can ask for a more blatant and firm statement than that.

cracell 13y ago

But if they were give similar court order terms as under the Verizon court order wouldn't he legally have to lie or violate the court order? Or just not give a comment, but no comment on this would implies guilt to a lot of people so lying could seem like the correct path.

Selfcommit 13y ago
I don't believe he can be forced to lie. If he was in that situation, I imagine he would simply not respond.

gibsonf1 13y ago

The key issue here is that Google and the other companies may have no idea this is going on. My read is that the NSA has managed to gain access to the data centers either through inside help, spy craft, hardware/router back doors, or some other means we have no idea about.

macchina 13y ago
It's hard for me to believe they could access to the data centers without Google's knowledge. Isn't it more plausible that they're intercepting data flowing in and out of Google servers?
- VladRussian2 13y ago
  an old time option - a few employees "compelled" to provide access and keep mouth shout. a new time option - Larry is lying because of the gag order. in between - Larry said "on such scale". Well, Google probably is of a bigger scale than Verizon. Anyway, once the data is out there, it is only a matter of time and determination for a government (or any financially well backed up player) to get to it. This scandal will be a great boost for any services involving "crypto", and probably would spring a new ones like an encrypted phone exchange/switch service, where one can see incoming and outcoming phone numbers, yet not which one connected to which :)
- bigiain 13y ago
  Hmmm… <conspiracy theory> We haven't seen posts from the CEOs of Cisco/Juniper/Dell/HP or other manufacturers of datacenter grade network equipment. Who needs Google/Facebook's "knowledge" if you've got root on all the border network gear (and SSL termination hardware)? I know here in .au, Huawei have been excluded from the government-deployed National Broadband Network due to suspicions that the Chinese government has too much control/access to Huawei newtwork hardware.
  - infographic- 13y ago
    Huawei's exclusion was based purely on FUD. There was no evidence to suggest such a thing.

xenophanes 13y ago

Of course it's weaseling. Maybe they disclosed such information on a slightly lesser scale. That passage doesn't say. They all said stuff about "direct access", without discussing what would and wouldn't qualify as "indirect". They didn't deny doing all kinds of different access that could be called indirect in some way.

kllrnohj 13y ago
Of course they don't deny indirect because that would be a lie. Everyone provides data indirectly via a thing called "warrants". Google publishes how many indirect requests they comply with right here: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests
- RWeaver 13y ago
  The thing is we can't trust any statement by anyone because of the gagging component of NSLs. I've heard it said that the above information is for FBI requests under the patriot act and doesn't include NSLs. For all we know NSL gags could explicitly forbid that kind of reporting and may even compel the recipients to lie if asked. The last sentence he made, that the government needs to be far more transparent about what they're doing is the only sentence I can really trust as honest, especially given that the alternative to lying could be being thrown into Guantanamo for 'assisting terrorists'.
- hannibal5 13y ago
  Those goole reports are for regular law enforcement requests. They have nothing to do with spying that happens in the name of national intelligence.
  - kllrnohj 13y ago
    False, national intelligence is still covered by Google's transparency report - see the NSL (National Security Letters) part.

cpleppert 13y ago

>>Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false. If you consider that PRISM is not a 'dragnet' but rather an automated system that processes FISA warrants on company premises then the denial wouldn't be wrong. There is no 'scale' that you wouldn't be able to get using regular data requests to internet companies. PRISM could just make the process a lot easier for everyone involved. So instead of sending a warrant over, having the company verify and send the data to the NSA, then finally transforming the data into a reportable format PRISM automates the whole process. If you read some of the media descriptions it almost looks like PRISM is more of a data aggregation and portal system that sits on top of a data source and allows analysts to explore content.