9 ms·

Look at the two writeups (Zuckerberg's and Page's) side by side. Each has 4 paragraphs. Each of the pairs of paragraphs addresses the same thing. 1st paragraph

• austenallred 13y ago
  Isn't a possibility just that they are using the same PR template, or that one looked at the other as they were responding? They are remarkably similar, but if you were the PR person at a company isn't that exactly what you would say as well?
• cjensen 13y ago
  Could Zuckerberg's statement have been "inspired" by Google's? Did any other companies release similar statements?
  • anthonycerra 13y ago
    In college, after we'd submit a programming assignment, our code was run through a program to test for plagiarism of another student's code. Can we run the same analysis on these announcements?
    • jedc 13y ago
      Something like this? http://churnalism.com&#x2F http://churnalism.com/
  • Create 13y ago
    https://secure.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/5455525432/in/photostream&#x2F https://secure.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/5455525432/in/ph...;
  • e_w 13y ago
    They have good lawyers who come to similar conclusions how to formulate these statements from a legal and PR perspective.
• camus 13y ago
  each were prepared by the same law / PR firm ... ( dont know could be :) ), or even worse , it is a template written directly by your government("if you get caught , say that"). The sad truth is most people dont even care ...
  • christoph 13y ago
    The really sad thing I thought when I clicked the link was that over 100k people liked that post.
• harold 13y ago
  I'd be curious to know if either Page or Zuckerberg met with Obama while he was in SV last night.
• CoryG89 13y ago
  This is the first thing I noticed. It really scares me as well. I put more of my trust in Google, and perhaps even Facebook then I place in the Gov. or the phone companies and 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.
  • CoryG89 13y ago
    I hope someone can find out if possibly these CEOs met yesterday. Perhaps they decided to try and come up with a uniform and consistent way to respond to this situation, and there wasn't some external source actually able to tell them all what to say. If there is not some kind of explanation such as this I am going to have to rethink how much trust I can have in such huge companies with no real clue about who is really controlling the show.
• jfoster 13y ago
  PG made a post on Twitter about the Yahoo and Apple quotes being similar, but I initially thought it were probably due to the way the journalist asked the question. The similarity between these two does suggest something else is happening. Many people are going to jump to the conclusion that it's because they were following the same broad script, but another possibility is that they want people to notice the similarities and become more upset about PRISM.
  • pitchups 13y ago
    >>..another possibility is that they want people to notice the similarities and become more upset about PRISM. Ah, that makes sense, if they are under a gag order, but yet want to subtly convey that they are under a gag order! It would be a brilliant way of circumventing it.
    • leoc 13y ago
      That doesn't seem likely to me. If you want to let the truth be known, but you feel so much under the gun that you issue not just a minimum-compliance false statement but a fulsome one under your own name, would you really feel safe contacting a bunch of other Silicon Valley CEOs to co-ordinate such a subtle but intentional secret message?
      • jlgreco 13y ago
        The last part in each, the part about transparency, makes me think that it is possible they all decided to co-ordinate an intentional not secret message: they think there should be more transparency.
        • leoc 13y ago
          Sure: it seems possible that these statements are co-ordinated, but instead of being false or deceptive statements co-ordinated by a three-letter agency they're truthful or largely truthful statements co-ordinated by the tech companies' PR departments, and the close similarities are designed to amplify a message the companies agreed among themselves. Of course, under the circumstances the similarity looks suspicious, but it seems possible that could be an unintentional blunder rather than a genuine sign of guilt.
• quackerhacker 13y ago
  I agree with you! I feel these statements are for the fans of these companies that want to hear it to believe it and quick to dismiss it. Personally: I got in trouble with Google in 08' and yet I still use their products even assuming that I am probably monitored or easily creating a gov profile that can easily be subpoenaed (or given just b/c they may not like me).
• drawkbox 13y ago
  I want them to say not only 'direct' access but also no third parties between them and the government. None have said that...
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• lifeguard 13y ago
  Totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent what could go wrong? http://s3.amazonaws.com/dk-production/images/14030/large/OccupySniperPlan.PNG?1356861369 http://s3.amazonaws.com/dk-production/images/14030/large/Occ...
  • namwen 13y ago
    Could you explain what exactly that is?
    • akama 13y ago
      I might be wrong, but I believe it a section of the leaked document that discussed using a sniper to kill leaders of Occupy movements.
      • lifeguard 13y ago
        That is correct. Blackwater working for DHS essentially.
• rayiner 13y ago
  It's almost as if they all had their lawyers write these statements, who then wrote it in the predictable, stylized, way lawyers do.
  • MartinCron 13y ago
    You're raining on someone's conspiracy parade, there.
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
• Bjorkbat 13y ago
  Whoa, spooky. First thing I noticed was really the fact that it took these companies so long to put these statements out there, in Mark's case less than an hour ago as of the time of this posting. Personally, if someone accused my company of giving customer data to the government, and a large segment of my users believed these claims, then I would switch to damage control mode and send a statement out within 6 hours at the most. Then again, I suppose if you sent out a statement too soon, then people might think that you knew in advance about the leak. Well, anyway, the weirdness I observed pales in comparison to the odd coincidence you discovered.
• rasterizer 13y ago
  Lawyer-speak tends to be consistent.
• slg 13y ago
  The implication that there is some central figure behind this giving these companies scripts to read meets the most common flaw of governmental conspiracy theories. It requires the government to be simultaneously incredibly competent and incompetent. If the NSA was able to keep this project under wraps for so long with the number of people involved, I think they would be smart enough to at least slightly alter the words of their puppets, after all this is supposed to be the area of their expertise.
  • electic 13y ago
    Things done in haste tend to look like this. It is almost absurd to think that every company mentioned somehow came up with the same statement by chance.
    • corresation 13y ago
      We've had this same conspiracy appear a number of times. It isn't chance that their statements look similar: You can be absolutely sure that each looked to the other for some sort of direction, and once that came they followed the leader simply because it makes sense. Even excluding that, really how many variations could there possibly be? Someone said you did something illegal. Say "no I didn't do something illegal, and everything I have done has been above the board and transparent". Do the same thing to twenty people and you would get remarkably similar statements, because a response can only come in so many forms.
  • samstave 13y ago
    We see Eglin's sockpuppets all the time on reddit, they are actually pretty easy to spot.
    • jlgreco 13y ago
      The airforce base has sock puppets?
      • brymaster 13y ago
• paulrademacher 13y ago
  You seem to be suggesting one of two things. Either: 1) The heads of these companies had a conference call this morning and agreed on a 4-paragraph format, with specific points for each paragraph. Or 2) The federal government instructed each company to respond today, with a 4-paragraph point-by-point, and then Larry and Mark obediently complied. Ludicrous.
  • adventured 13y ago
    It's not ludicrous at all that the companies were given basic PR instruction when they signed on, in the case of being asked about the program. In fact, that's exactly what would occur. What's ludicruous is thinking the Feds are tapping every major telecom provider, but wouldn't do the same to Facebook / Google / Apple / Microsoft. These companies are collectively vastly more important than AT&T and Verizon, worth about a cool trillion dollars, and now make-up a huge portion of the data infrastructure for American consumers. A spy is given instructions in case of interrogation by the enemy. Why wouldn't a $250 billion corporation be given instruction in case one of the largest spying systems in history hits the public news? It's absurd to think they wouldn't be.
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  • coldtea 13y ago
    "Ludicrous"? Are you kidding me? In any case of accidental exposure of a covert government operation involving many such parties, there would be instructions how to handle the media. Those could be known in advance (at least for some cases), or they would get a call in case of emergency with instructions on what they are allowed to reveal and how to say it. It's not different than what would happen at a multinational if there was some embarrassing incident related to one branch (e.g a costly in human lives accident). The legal/marketing team would reach to each branch pronto, with instructions what to say to the media. So, if the media get the manager of the, say, Canadian, branch, he would say more or less what the manager of the German branch would tell to his media. The only "ludicrous" thing is your misplaced scepticism -- as if things thing isn't both obvious and something that's standard practice to media handling from entities of any scale...
• dorkrawk 13y ago
  Maybe the official responses by these major companies were about the same event were all reviewed by corporate lawyers who all hone in on very similar language and addressable points because it's a tricky statement to make and there are few ways to make it correctly?
• outside1234 13y ago
  Microsoft did directly deny being in a widescale program - it's here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/Jun13/06-06statement.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/Jun13/06-06st...
  • guimarin 13y ago
    "If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don’t participate in it." -priceless. Of course they wouldn't participate in such a thing voluntarily, can you imagine how expensive that would be...
  • adventured 13y ago
    No, they didn't deny anything meaningful. An NSA program like this would not be voluntary.
  • sixothree 13y ago
    They don't participate in any "voluntary" programs.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• Dove 13y ago
  I'm not impressed. Most press releases have only a handful of paragraphs. I'd believe it was common to go over the topics of "What We're Talking About, What We Deny, What We Affirm, and How It Could Be Better." It may look impressive that they all say they don't allow "direct access to servers", but it's hardly surprising, since the original Guardian headline[1] was "Top-secret Prism program claims direct access to servers of firms including Google, Apple and Facebook". If they didn't say that exactly, you'd be suspicious. It may look impressive that they all say they "haven't heard of PRISM," but this is really quite a natural thing to say if it's true, and someone accuses you of being involved in the program. Moreover, aside from the "direct access" thing, the phrases they all use are actually different. "We have not heard of PRISM" in one case, "We have never heard of PRISM" in another, "We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday," in a third, and so forth. You don't have any case for funny business based on similar wording (because it isn't), and the case for contamination based on similar content would be a whole lot more impressive if that content weren't something common and expected. On the whole, I think the similarities have plausible mundane explanations. Admittedly, I am no student of accidental plagiarism. I don't have an academic opinion on how similar or dissimilar we should expect the statements to be when ten people try to say the same thing in response to the same accusation. But that is just my point: if you want to persuade me of something so preposterous as that all of these people are following a script, you're going to have to do more than wave your hands and say, "Look, there are similarities." Please. That's the stuff of superstition. If you want to convince me the probability of this occurring at random is low, you're going to have to do some math. [1] 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...
  • arange 13y ago
    or all these companies are intentionally making similar press releases in hopes people will catch on that theyre being coerced into denying involvement. this way they're (assuming they have one) fulfilling their denial obligation with the NSA, yet still are protesting what they dont actually want to be doing
    • taktix 13y ago
• theboywho 13y ago
  Relevant http://i.huffpost.com/gen/249171/STEVE-JOBS-MARK-ZUCKERBERG-OBAMA.jpg http://i.huffpost.com/gen/249171/STEVE-JOBS-MARK-ZUCKERBERG-...
• wheels 13y ago
  Wouldn't Occam's Razor instead suggest that since the Page statement was much earlier that Zuckerberg or whoever wrote this (probably not Mark) just copied the style of Page's statement semi-intentionally? They'd have almost certainly have read it.
  • mattront 13y ago
    If he would be free to say what he wants, he would intentionally try to write the statement in different style and with different words, not to give impression that statements are scripted.
  • vecter 13y ago
    Precisely this. It's really sad to see the sheer volume of conspiracy-theorizing going on around HN.
    • beedogs 13y ago
      Even though this is an actual conspiracy between the government and several large Internet companies?
      • _pmf_ 13y ago
        > Even though this is an actual conspiracy between the government and several large Internet companies? If it's a conspiracy, what's the common goal? There's nothing in in for the companies involved. You might just as well say rape is a conspiracy between the rapist and the victim.
        • gmoore 13y ago
          wow - a rape analogy? Really?
        • coldtea 13y ago
          >If it's a conspiracy, what's the common goal? A conspiracy doesn't have to have a common goal between all parties. What kind of bizarro logic did you use to reach that conclusion? People and companies can conspire with others against their will, you know. E.g I blackmail you in order to conspire with me to steal valuable data from your employeer, etc. The goals are set by the NSA, and the tech companies could not care less about them. The agree to conspire (ie. help the NSA) though, because there would be other consequences if they did not. From prosecution from the government, to under the table blackmail, etc.
• jcromartie 13y ago
  Maybe they just copied each other's language?
• Domenic_S 13y ago
  You're getting a lot of flak, but I immediately noticed the same thing. Google: "we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers" FB: "Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers." Google: "We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday." FB: "We hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday." Google: "there needs to be a more transparent approach." FB: "governments to be much more transparent about all programs" Call me nutty, but this can't be coincidence.
  • jfoster 13y ago
    It's definitely not coincidence, but it's important to keep an open mind about all the possibilities. Participating with government requests doesn't make these companies any money. It must be a major drag, actually. It involves lawyers, tech people, and trying to strike an uncomfortable balance between user trust and trying to persuade a court that a request should be denied. This might be because they've been given a script, but it might also be because they chose to copy each other. They could copy each other out of not wanting to be "the odd one out." Any company that puts out a statement much different from the others risks being trusted less than the others. They could copy each other because they want people to jump to the conclusion that the government gave them a script (even if they didn't) so that people get more pissed than they already are. As others have pointed out, the similarity could also be because the PR/lawyer response to this is so cookie cutter. I think the "not wanting to be the odd one out" would be the #1 mundane reason, though.
• Dn_Ab 13y ago
  I call convergent evolution on this one. A convex optimization problem. It's the simplest explanation. They need a broadly accessible response, so that gives like what 2000 words? By the time you account for the various pits of contradiction, handwash to some sufficiently nebulous concept of indirect access; all while the government breathes down your back, the outraged crowd bustles for explanations and a gaggle of lawyers dog your every step like a herd of bumper cars, you have basically 6 or 7 words left in your vocabulary and only one way to string them into a sentence. Before proceeding to inflate into paragraphs from a very limited palette of legalese sanctioned fluff. The collusion/double speak/poppeteering or game theoretic layered messaging within a secretly orchestrated gag conspiracy are plausible but I'd prefer to wait for more evidence before I accept Facebook and Google are complicit or prisoners to that. That doesn't mean I think they are either of them blindingly righteous beacons of morality (or even chipped and dulled pyrite morality for that matter), just that the implications of the scenario (democracy canceled xor executives willfully distorting the donut of truth into a mug) are hard to believe.
  • omarchowdhury 13y ago
    Nice.
• xeper 13y ago
  Oh noes, it's a conspiracy!
• collypops 13y ago
  Need a generic PRISM involvement denial statement? Well you're in luck: http://colingourlay.github.io/deny-prism http://colingourlay.github.io/deny-prism
• einhverfr 13y ago
  I looked at these very carefully and slowly, looking for signs of shared authorship or template structure, and the only structures I could find were those practically dictated. This being said, if you read it more closely what they say is actually quite a bit more damning. Read closely, the denial is actually entirely nonsensical. Both deny involvement in "PRISM" but both then go on to mistakenly identify PRISM with the Verizon order. Page says he learned about it when Greenwald broke the story (Greenwald broke the Verizon story, the Washington Post broke the PRISM story). Zucherberg similarly talks about metadata significantly. In essence it is a bait and switch. Sort of like "I wasn't at work yesterday. I can show this because I didn't go on vacation." The Norwegians have a story called "Good day fellow. Ax handle" which would be a fair summary of what is going on here. The story is about an old deaf ferryman who is deep in debt and left all alone to face the bailiff. So he thinks about all the questions he will face and answers he will give, but when the bailiff comes to ask directions to the inn, he gives answers that are entirely humorous. Things like: "Where is your wife?" asked the bailiff (hoping to find someone less confused). "I am going to tar her. She's lying down on the beach, cracked up at both ends." Replied the ferryman (thinking he was being asked about his boat).
• borlak 13y ago
  This phrase 'direct access' -- I wouldn't assume, if there exists something like PRISM, that it would have 'direct access' to anybody's servers. More likely, the data would be given from a company TO PRISM. You could even argue that an API would not be 'direct access'
  • sixothree 13y ago
    You could argue that anything not physical would not be 'direct access'.
• motyard 13y ago
  Yes there is an application for it. http://colingourlay.github.io/deny-prism/?company=MyCompany.com http://colingourlay.github.io/deny-prism/?company=MyCompany....
• SmokyBorbon 13y ago
  Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
• kunai 13y ago
  This is the exact same thing that sprung to my mind as soon as I read the testimonies. They sound too homogeneous; too staged and rehearsed to be genuine. I wish somebody had the guts to be a hero. We need more of them.
• gnu8 13y ago
  The message is clear: the government is forcing them to say that. They're resisting by repeating their mandated message verbatim, which is as far as they can go in admitting that it's a lie.
• neilxdsouza 13y ago
  I think all companies followed the government supplied script on purpose. To alert public that it was a govt supplied script and that they still have gag orders. They expected people to see a pattern - this is the best that they could do, given the handcuffs they are wearing.
• 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-...
• belorn 13y ago
  Those responses are eery close, and both Zuckerberg's and Page responses do not address a key question: Do their companies run queries over users data to answer questions that the state are willing to pay/force to get? The value of the data inside Facebook would actually go down if it was transfer out of Facebook. Its much better if Facebook themselves would run the query (like they normally do with advertisement), and provide the NSA with either a summery or webbugs/custom code in form of targeted images (advertisement) sent to those NSA is interested about. Copying massive data would not just be logistically hard, it would need to be constantly updated. The simplest answer is that "direct access" simply mean NSA provided queries that google/facebook run at "request". No need for backdoors.
• kriro 13y ago
  That was my initial reaction as well. The "we never heard of PRISM" line is particularly interesting. Varizon stuff that was leaked mentioned a clause that they can't talk about it so I'm assuming that's the reason.
• suredo 13y ago
  but they are not lying because according to terms of service, you licensed your content to them..... so they are not sharing your content.... they are sharing their content
• washedup 13y ago
  I bet the White House wrote up a response for all companies to follow in light of the NSA leak.