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Google Chief Architect: we only respond to specific orders about individuals

158 points by msabalau 13y ago

waterphone 13y ago
To be clear, this is the chief architect of Google+, not Google as a whole. Would he necessarily know?
- packetslave 13y ago
  He actually responded to just this question in the comments (and he's a very senior 10-year engineer, so it's plausible). "I have various reasons to believe that the odds that I would have known about it are higher than those for most employees -- but it still wouldn't be a certainty. That said, the odds are good enough that I would be fairly surprised, and rather furious, to find out that such a thing had been happening without my knowledge."
msabalau 13y ago
Also worth reading is the comment thread. " We don't sell our users' information to anybody.... we do use user information to target ads: this approach has made us what's technically known as "large stacks of cash:" "
packetslave 13y ago
For clarity, he's currently chief architect for Social/Google+ not Google as a whole, but he's still a very senior, longtime engineer.
- msabalau 13y ago
  Good clarification. Only so many words that would fit into the headline...
  - saraid216 13y ago
    One more character would have been sufficient...
- nostrademons 13y ago
  Yeah, I saw the headline and thought "We have a chief architect?", but then I saw who it was, and he really does have a longtime track record of critical contributions to both G+ and Search before it.
- mh- 13y ago
  to be frank, that changes my opinion of the significance of his posting quite a bit. it'd be nice if someone would correct the title of this.
eightyone 13y ago
We pretty much already have confirmation that PRISM exists. [1] It's a little funny all of these companies expect us to believe that none of them are involved. [1] http://gizmodo.com/the-government-responds-to-the-prism-spying-program-511822476 http://gizmodo.com/the-government-responds-to-the-prism-spyi...
fchollet 13y ago
>"the only way in which Google reveals information about users are when we receive lawful, specific orders about individuals -- things like search warrants." Things like search warrants? What has been described in the PRISM slides is an interface in which a NSA agent can access a subject's data at will, in a few clicks and an affirmation that "yes, this person is a terrorist". Also the US government has confirmed that systematic collection of user data was indeed happening for non-US citizens. What of that? Are they users of lesser rights in the eyes of Google, etc?
- danso 13y ago
  > Things like search warrants? What has been described in the PRISM slides is a interface in which a NSA agent can access a subject's data at will, in a few clicks and an affirmation that "yes, this person is a terrorist". Google has officially denied being a part of PRISM. The way you phrased this statement makes it sound like the OP is sneakily leaving out the PRISM implementation, which would be sneaky if Google were a part of PRISM. (this doesn't mean that Google's isn't flat-out lying about everything...but you seem to be alleging a contradiction where there is none, at least in the OP) > "Also the US government has confirmed that systematic collection of user data was indeed happening for non-US citizens. What of that? Are they users of lesser rights in the eyes of Google, etc?" NSA's mandate since its inception is to conduct surveillance of foreign communications suspected to be a threat to America...So while it's still worth arguing whether the surveillance they conduct is unethical or unproductive, it's not going to be worthwhile arguing whether they do it at all. edit: removed sarcasting phrasing that was too assholish for a Friday after work.
  - fchollet 13y ago
    This is not about what the NSA does, this is about whether Google and co are handing out foreign users' data to the NSA. It appears they are. I hope every non-american netizen realizes that their private communications are being systematically collected by US intelligence. It is now impossible to trust an american company. Before the Internet, the ECHELON program was shown to have been used for private industrial espionage on foreign compagnies [1]. I assume this is happening on another scale entirely now, with the cooperation of Google, Apple, FB and MSFT. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
andyl 13y ago
Since the Chief Architect is so supportive of privacy rights - I'd like to participate in G+ using a pseudonym. How about it Google??
- mayanksinghal 13y ago
  Something like this? https://plus.google.com/+BradleyHorowitz/posts/SM5RjubbMmV https://plus.google.com/+BradleyHorowitz/posts/SM5RjubbMmV
  - BCM43 13y ago
    No, that says you can't use a pseudonym without proving to Google that it is one a lot of people know you by.
    - jmillikin 13y ago
      https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/victory-google-surrenders-nymwars https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/victory-google-surrend... http://mashable.com/2011/10/19/google-to-support-pseudonyms&#x2F http://mashable.com/2011/10/19/google-to-support-pseudonyms&...;
    - huggah 13y ago
      Nothing in the names policy prohibits pseudonyms. If your given name is "Jason Ramirez", you're welcome to have a separate Google+ account with the name "Nancy Young". You only have to prove people know you by a name if you want to go by "#RS", "Albert Einstein", or "GreenLife Rx"; all three of those are likely name violations for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with knowing who you are.
- msabalau 13y ago
  He is responding in the thread, so you could actually ask there, and maybe hear an answer, as opposed to merely being snarky here. Unless, of course, you are someone who actually needs a pseudonym even to ask such a question, in which case such a forum is not for you...
ISL 13y ago
This is the sort of response that I find convincing. Thank you, Dr. Zunger.
lvs 13y ago
>"Google had no involvement in the PRISM program and the first we heard of it was when Greenwald's article hit the press." Greenwald broke the story about the Verizon FISA warrant, not the PRISM story. These are (ostensibly) different things.
- signed0 13y ago
  I think he broke both stories. From 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... > The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation
runn1ng 13y ago
What I don't get is: from US government, we got confirmations - half-ass confirmations, but still confirmations - that PRISM is real, we maybe have some information wrong and we should stop asking and talking about it, but it's real. While the companies and its architects all oppose the claims in a way that's very convincing. I don't know what to believe anymore.
- danso 13y ago
  I can't tell you want to believe, but maybe a place to start is: the world is a confusing place, full of miscommunication and gray areas. Why should we expect the world to be as it is in the movies, in which bad guys are obviously bad and that there is an "ending" in which things are clear? For starters, I just re-skimmed the Washington Post report and noticed that it has since been amended: > It is possible that the conflict between the PRISM slides and the company spokesmen is the result of imprecision on the part of the NSA author. In another classified report obtained by The Post, the arrangement is described as allowing “collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,” rather than directly to company servers. edit: Here's the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story_1.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence... I think I'm wrong that that was one of the actual changes since yesterday...either way, the Post is allowing for the possibility of a miscommunication/misinterpretation by its source. Business Insider also alleges of other hedging by the WaPo here: http://www.businessinsider.com/washington-post-updates-spying-story-2013-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/washington-post-updates-spyin... At this moment in time, we still do not know two things: who the leaker is, beyond a "career intelligence officer" and the contents of this 41-slide presentation other than the 3 or 4 slides that the Post and the Guardian have published. The identity or motives of the leaker isn't necessary to know, but it's kind of problematic when we are missing context to the so-far published slides that explain the PRISM program. For example, it kind of changes things if the first two slides say "PROPOSAL" or the last slide says "APRIL FOOLS"
  - runn1ng 13y ago
onecommentonly 13y ago
>> the fact that we do stand up for individual users' privacy and protection, for their right to have a personal life which is not ever shared with other people without their consent, even when governments come knocking at our door with guns, is one of the two most important reasons that I am at this company The indisputable fact is that your company gathers a lot of private info online about its users for profit, make that for extra, extra profit. Best case scenario, it makes NSA's job super easy, all they have to do is ask for it. Worst case scenario, the government knows all our thoughts as we type on Google search and everything else we do on Google. I do not trust that such info will stay private. Not anymore. >> the national security apparatus has convinced itself and the rest of the government that the only way it can do its job is to know everything about everyone. That's not how you protect a country. We didn't fight the Cold War just so we could rebuild the Stasi ourselves. Yeah, WTF do they think they are, Google or Facebook?????
uotnr 13y ago
What might have happened is this: 1. NSA bribed someone to obtain Google's SSL certificate private keys 2. NSA installed wiretaps outside of all Google datacenters 3. NSA hired someone to write software that would reconstruct Gmail inboxes, login activity, etc. based on the decrypted traffic If Facebook, Google, etc. are indeed innocent they should change SSL certificates immediately, store the new ones in secure cryptographic hardware, stop offering non-HTTPS access, and start inspecting network equipment for the wiretaps.
lawnchair_larry 13y ago
It sounds like this employee was not even aware that Google's "Transparency Report" specifically does not include the number of FISA orders that they have received: "Update 2013-06-07: at the time that we wrote this post, we asked Google whether its Transparency Report included data about secret FISA court orders that would send data to the NSA. The response we received was extremely vague, but seemed to possibly be "no". In the wake of yesterday's revelations that the NSA was harvesting data from Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, Facebook, AOL, PalTalk, Skype, Youtube and Apple, Google has now clearly confirmed that the numbers in its Transparency Report do not include the number of orders or targets for NSA surveillance." https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/new-statistics-about-national-security-letters-google-transparency-report https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/new-statistics-about-n... This is especially interesting, because it means Google has acknowledged the distinction between NSLs, which include a gag order, and some other even more secret directive, which services NSA surveillance. It's also worth noting that if Google was willingly supplying anything PRISM-like, this employee would not be allowed to know without a Top Secret clearance. Any Google employees who do have such clearance face the threat of prison if they tell him or anyone else.
- rieter 13y ago
  He said "as much as possible".
- danso 13y ago
  > It sounds like this employee was not even aware that Google's "Transparency Report" specifically does not include the number of FISA orders that they have received Are you concluding that from this statement? > "I'm not sure what the details of this PRISM program are, but I can tell you that the only way in which Google reveals information about users are when we receive lawful, specific orders about individuals -- things like search warrants. And we continue to stand firm against any attempts to do so broadly or without genuine, individualized suspicion, and publicize the results as much as possible in our Transparency Report." He may be ignorant of that fact...however, that last statement, "as much as possible", would cover that. However, his assertion that "the only way in which Google reveals information about users are when we receive lawful, specific orders about individuals" would still cover FISA, because FISA, as far as we know, is specifically for the targeted surveillance of individuals. Moreover, FISA, as it applies to Americans, requires a court-approved warrant for that surveillance. So again, what the OP is claiming is non-contradictory, because FISA requests are both legal actions that target individuals that go through an approval process. This is entirely different than what PRISM is alleged to be, which, well, we don't know exactly what it is, but involves the warrantless surveillance of Internet usage with the collaboration of Internet companies...currently, Google is outright denying being a part of that. Some relevant links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellige... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/30/obama-fisa-warrantless-wiretapping_n_2385690.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/30/obama-fisa-warrantl... Also worth noting, national security letters, which Google does oppose, are controversial because, among other things, they do not require a warrant. This is not the case with FISA and American citizens.
icambron 13y ago
This denial is a lot stronger than Page's, which was full of weasel words. Unless Zunger is just lying, which somehow seems unlikely (forgive my naiveté), it'll be interesting to know how PRISM actually works. But I will say that his faith in his company sounds misplaced, since Google's more official denials are so weak. edit: clarity
- saalweachter 13y ago
  He hints at a couple of reasons for his confidence in his post. One of his assumptions was that people would notice surreptitiously installed hardware or software doing the monitoring. I don't think this is unreasonable. Hoovering up all the private data in Google is bound to be a big job, regardless of whether you are sieving it on site or transferring it off site. Even if it would only take a few people to install and manage, everyone else would probably be tripping over it constantly. Accessing all of Google's data means you'd be tied into nearly every system. It's possible to keep projects secret inside a large company like Google, but only if an exceedingly few number of people know about it, and have good reasons to not tell anyone else. A system with as much surface area as you'd probably need to hoover off all of Google's data would be vulnerable to almost every engineer and datacenter worker accidentally running across while debugging other problems. Even -- especially? -- if they didn't realize the significance of it immediately, they'd probably ask their coworkers about this weird extra code/jobs/hardware, and pretty soon everyone would have heard about it. Once everyone inside of Google had heard of it, I think you'd have a very hard time keeping the secret from leaking into the outside world.
  - icambron 13y ago
    Right, that mostly paraphrases his arguments. But it doesn't convincingly eliminate a few possibilities for how this works. One possibility: Google obviously has some capacity to honor search warrants and NSLs. And presumably that involves some technical artifacts somewhere: admin-level API access to data and some sort of external endpoint through which the government can actually make those requests. So that's all stuff we can confidently say is already there humming along happily, whether used for nefarious purposes or not. OK, so given that those exist, how much volume do they support? How hard would it be to modify them to bypass the scrutiny process? Or give the NSA access to those endpoints instead of just domestic law enforcement? In other words, these are just changes to the process, totally invisible to anyone without explicit access to it. It might not involve any weird hardware at all, and could operate with very few people in the know. Another possibility: Google handed over its TLS keys and just let the taps happen upstream. That's why the confidence of a senior person that there isn't fishy hardware running around makes the question of how PRISM works more interesting. But it certainly doesn't make the project impossible. Edit: removing distracting aside
andreyf 13y ago
His comments are actually the most insightful points I've seen about the discussion regarding PRISM: I have my own suspicions -- which I won't go into here -- about what PRISM was actually about. I'll just say that there are ways to intercept people's Google, Facebook, etc., traffic in bulk without sticking any moles into the org -- or directly tapping their lines. You may find some interesting hints in the leaked PRISM slides [1], especially the second and fourth ones shown there. The subtleties of phrasing are important, I suspect, not because they were trying to be elliptical but because they reveal what was obvious to the people who were giving that presentation. And like I said, I have both some reason to believe that there aren't such devices inside Google, and that the PRISM slides are actually talking about a somewhat different kind of data collection -- one that's done from outside the companies. Any ideas what he could be thinking? 1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/m http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-...
- jmgao 13y ago
  A target's phone call, e-mail or chat will take the cheapest path, not the physically most direct path - you can't always predict the path Dates When PRISM Collection Began For Each Provider This is complete conjecture, but this reads to me like the NSA set up its own backhauls and set up peering agreements at artifically low prices to get traffic going over their pipes. Is there historical data for route announcements available anywhere? There are a lot of specific dates that could confirm/disprove this.
  - ihsw 13y ago
    This is expounded upon in some news articles, particularly that data is routed not by the most efficient geographic route but by the cheapest by dollar price. It's a very important tidbit of information that divulges the heart of the matter -- the NSA is a backbone operator[1]. It's a tall claim to make, however their involvement in internet exchange points (and other regional network access points) would be far more difficult to conceal. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_1_network#List_of_tier_1_networks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_1_network#List_of_tier_1_n...
tptacek 13y ago
Two things that cannot be true at the same time: this Google+ post, and the idea that Google coughed up their TLS keys to the government.
- JunkDNA 13y ago
  You're one of the few whose opinion I would trust on this: how much data would the NSA need to derive TLS encryption keys from encrypted data? I feel like I read once that you could possibly use statistical methods to derive the key if you had enough encrypted source data.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    The technique they'd be using to do that would be new to science. Here it is worth pointing out that Google did something awhile ago to make NSA's job much harder (if their goal is to read everyone's mail): they became aggressive advocates for TLS forward secrecy. http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2011/11/protecting-data-for-long-term-with.html http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2011/11/protecting-... TLS forward secrecy involves the ephemeral Diffie Hellman ciphersuites (which your browser supports). Instead of deriving a session key and using the server's RSA key to convey it, the DHE ciphersuites run the DH protocol to derive a session key between the client and the server, and then use the RSA key to sign the exchange ("breaking the tie" if there was a MITM). The RSA key is never used to convey a session key; if you got all of Google's TLS keys, you would not be able to go back in time and decrypt old sessions that used a DHE ciphersuite. It is also worth pointing out that some of the hardest people working in security show business, including Adam Langley and Michal Zalewski and Justin Schuh, people with unimpeachable reputations in my field, work for Google on these problems.
- voidlogic 13y ago
  "Two things that cannot be true at the same time" Only if you assumed he is fully informed. Do you think Google chief software architect would fall within "need to know", if Google had been ordered to hand over their SSL private keys? I doubt it.
jonknee 13y ago
I wonder what the NSA thinks about Google's plan to change their SSL certificates? http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2013/05/changes-to-our-ssl-certificates.html http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2013/05/changes-to-... Seems like that could put a crimp on any beam split obtained data. At least for a short while.
jcrites 13y ago
I'd really like to know whether Google shared its SSL/TLS certificates with government agencies. I asked the author (Yonatan Zunger) a short question and he replied to say he doesn't know anything. I followed up with: > It seems you care very much about user privacy: >> I would no longer be working at Google [but for] the fact that we do stand up for individual users' privacy > Will you be willing to find out whether Google has shared its SSL/TLS keys for public sites with government agencies? As a person interested in user privacy, I imagine this will be as of much interest as whether they have direct access to the data. > As you mentioned, direct access would require Google to build something. Intercepting SSL/TLS traffic would not. > If Google shared its SSL keys, then the NSA can intercept all inbound and outbound traffic, and would be able to capture virtually all Google user data. They can store the data and search it. They wouldn't particularly even benefit from direct access to Google's data, if they're planning to store it themselves anyway. > I would be great to hear an affirmation from Google that it has not shared its encryption keys with governments. I can't figure out how to link to my comment, but it appears in the comments on Yonatan Zunger's post. (See original post)
lifeguard 13y ago
"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" 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-... Welcome to evil google team. It was nice knowing you. You will not miss me, but good bye.
Glyptodon 13y ago
Somebody probably puts the census in their inbox, then.
cupcake-unicorn 13y ago
With all of the conspiracy theories floating around, what about something fun, like the government proved P=NP and is just able to secretly crack the encryption keys, passwords, etc., like that silly movie "The Traveling Salesman Problem" where they turn algorithms into an action packed movie. Seriously though, it seems like the general consensus is that no one on either side is actually lying, but the companies involved are using weasely language that can be interpreted to exclude any kind of indirect access, SSL keys, etc? I'm surprised at the tone of the statements the companies are giving, because were it to come out that the companies are giving indirect access, their adamance would just make them look terrible...It's as if the companies in their statements, at least FB and Google, sound shocked, hurt, etc. to find out people would assume that of them.
- mortehu 13y ago
  It's widely known and admitted that they have indirect access, by issuing warrants and being provided with slices of the data. You must be talking about some specific form of indirect access?
bsaul 13y ago
one thing crossed my mind : could the fact that this things blows up right when china's president is coming to the US to talk about cyber espionage and individual liberties be a coincidence ?
- DenisM 13y ago
  That's a good point. It does seem like the slides are fake and someone is trying to play the public against Internet companies, or alternatively, that someone is playing public against US governement.

158 points by msabalau 13y ago

waterphone 13y ago

To be clear, this is the chief architect of Google+, not Google as a whole. Would he necessarily know?

packetslave 13y ago
He actually responded to just this question in the comments (and he's a very senior 10-year engineer, so it's plausible). "I have various reasons to believe that the odds that I would have known about it are higher than those for most employees -- but it still wouldn't be a certainty. That said, the odds are good enough that I would be fairly surprised, and rather furious, to find out that such a thing had been happening without my knowledge."

msabalau 13y ago

Also worth reading is the comment thread. " We don't sell our users' information to anybody.... we do use user information to target ads: this approach has made us what's technically known as "large stacks of cash:" "

packetslave 13y ago

For clarity, he's currently chief architect for Social/Google+ not Google as a whole, but he's still a very senior, longtime engineer.

msabalau 13y ago
Good clarification. Only so many words that would fit into the headline...
- saraid216 13y ago
  One more character would have been sufficient...
nostrademons 13y ago
Yeah, I saw the headline and thought "We have a chief architect?", but then I saw who it was, and he really does have a longtime track record of critical contributions to both G+ and Search before it.
mh- 13y ago
to be frank, that changes my opinion of the significance of his posting quite a bit. it'd be nice if someone would correct the title of this.

eightyone 13y ago

We pretty much already have confirmation that PRISM exists. [1] It's a little funny all of these companies expect us to believe that none of them are involved. [1] http://gizmodo.com/the-government-responds-to-the-prism-spying-program-511822476 http://gizmodo.com/the-government-responds-to-the-prism-spyi...

fchollet 13y ago

>"the only way in which Google reveals information about users are when we receive lawful, specific orders about individuals -- things like search warrants." Things like search warrants? What has been described in the PRISM slides is an interface in which a NSA agent can access a subject's data at will, in a few clicks and an affirmation that "yes, this person is a terrorist". Also the US government has confirmed that systematic collection of user data was indeed happening for non-US citizens. What of that? Are they users of lesser rights in the eyes of Google, etc?

danso 13y ago
> Things like search warrants? What has been described in the PRISM slides is a interface in which a NSA agent can access a subject's data at will, in a few clicks and an affirmation that "yes, this person is a terrorist". Google has officially denied being a part of PRISM. The way you phrased this statement makes it sound like the OP is sneakily leaving out the PRISM implementation, which would be sneaky if Google were a part of PRISM. (this doesn't mean that Google's isn't flat-out lying about everything...but you seem to be alleging a contradiction where there is none, at least in the OP) > "Also the US government has confirmed that systematic collection of user data was indeed happening for non-US citizens. What of that? Are they users of lesser rights in the eyes of Google, etc?" NSA's mandate since its inception is to conduct surveillance of foreign communications suspected to be a threat to America...So while it's still worth arguing whether the surveillance they conduct is unethical or unproductive, it's not going to be worthwhile arguing whether they do it at all. edit: removed sarcasting phrasing that was too assholish for a Friday after work.
- fchollet 13y ago
  This is not about what the NSA does, this is about whether Google and co are handing out foreign users' data to the NSA. It appears they are. I hope every non-american netizen realizes that their private communications are being systematically collected by US intelligence. It is now impossible to trust an american company. Before the Internet, the ECHELON program was shown to have been used for private industrial espionage on foreign compagnies [1]. I assume this is happening on another scale entirely now, with the cooperation of Google, Apple, FB and MSFT. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

andyl 13y ago

Since the Chief Architect is so supportive of privacy rights - I'd like to participate in G+ using a pseudonym. How about it Google??

mayanksinghal 13y ago
Something like this? https://plus.google.com/+BradleyHorowitz/posts/SM5RjubbMmV https://plus.google.com/+BradleyHorowitz/posts/SM5RjubbMmV
- BCM43 13y ago
  No, that says you can't use a pseudonym without proving to Google that it is one a lot of people know you by.
  - jmillikin 13y ago
    https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/victory-google-surrenders-nymwars https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/victory-google-surrend... http://mashable.com/2011/10/19/google-to-support-pseudonyms&#x2F http://mashable.com/2011/10/19/google-to-support-pseudonyms&...;
  - huggah 13y ago
    Nothing in the names policy prohibits pseudonyms. If your given name is "Jason Ramirez", you're welcome to have a separate Google+ account with the name "Nancy Young". You only have to prove people know you by a name if you want to go by "#RS", "Albert Einstein", or "GreenLife Rx"; all three of those are likely name violations for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with knowing who you are.
msabalau 13y ago
He is responding in the thread, so you could actually ask there, and maybe hear an answer, as opposed to merely being snarky here. Unless, of course, you are someone who actually needs a pseudonym even to ask such a question, in which case such a forum is not for you...

ISL 13y ago

This is the sort of response that I find convincing. Thank you, Dr. Zunger.

lvs 13y ago

>"Google had no involvement in the PRISM program and the first we heard of it was when Greenwald's article hit the press." Greenwald broke the story about the Verizon FISA warrant, not the PRISM story. These are (ostensibly) different things.

signed0 13y ago
I think he broke both stories. From 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... > The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation

runn1ng 13y ago

What I don't get is: from US government, we got confirmations - half-ass confirmations, but still confirmations - that PRISM is real, we maybe have some information wrong and we should stop asking and talking about it, but it's real. While the companies and its architects all oppose the claims in a way that's very convincing. I don't know what to believe anymore.

danso 13y ago
I can't tell you want to believe, but maybe a place to start is: the world is a confusing place, full of miscommunication and gray areas. Why should we expect the world to be as it is in the movies, in which bad guys are obviously bad and that there is an "ending" in which things are clear? For starters, I just re-skimmed the Washington Post report and noticed that it has since been amended: > It is possible that the conflict between the PRISM slides and the company spokesmen is the result of imprecision on the part of the NSA author. In another classified report obtained by The Post, the arrangement is described as allowing “collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,” rather than directly to company servers. edit: Here's the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story_1.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence... I think I'm wrong that that was one of the actual changes since yesterday...either way, the Post is allowing for the possibility of a miscommunication/misinterpretation by its source. Business Insider also alleges of other hedging by the WaPo here: http://www.businessinsider.com/washington-post-updates-spying-story-2013-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/washington-post-updates-spyin... At this moment in time, we still do not know two things: who the leaker is, beyond a "career intelligence officer" and the contents of this 41-slide presentation other than the 3 or 4 slides that the Post and the Guardian have published. The identity or motives of the leaker isn't necessary to know, but it's kind of problematic when we are missing context to the so-far published slides that explain the PRISM program. For example, it kind of changes things if the first two slides say "PROPOSAL" or the last slide says "APRIL FOOLS"
- runn1ng 13y ago

onecommentonly 13y ago

>> the fact that we do stand up for individual users' privacy and protection, for their right to have a personal life which is not ever shared with other people without their consent, even when governments come knocking at our door with guns, is one of the two most important reasons that I am at this company The indisputable fact is that your company gathers a lot of private info online about its users for profit, make that for extra, extra profit. Best case scenario, it makes NSA's job super easy, all they have to do is ask for it. Worst case scenario, the government knows all our thoughts as we type on Google search and everything else we do on Google. I do not trust that such info will stay private. Not anymore. >> the national security apparatus has convinced itself and the rest of the government that the only way it can do its job is to know everything about everyone. That's not how you protect a country. We didn't fight the Cold War just so we could rebuild the Stasi ourselves. Yeah, WTF do they think they are, Google or Facebook?????

uotnr 13y ago

What might have happened is this: 1. NSA bribed someone to obtain Google's SSL certificate private keys 2. NSA installed wiretaps outside of all Google datacenters 3. NSA hired someone to write software that would reconstruct Gmail inboxes, login activity, etc. based on the decrypted traffic If Facebook, Google, etc. are indeed innocent they should change SSL certificates immediately, store the new ones in secure cryptographic hardware, stop offering non-HTTPS access, and start inspecting network equipment for the wiretaps.

lawnchair_larry 13y ago

It sounds like this employee was not even aware that Google's "Transparency Report" specifically does not include the number of FISA orders that they have received: "Update 2013-06-07: at the time that we wrote this post, we asked Google whether its Transparency Report included data about secret FISA court orders that would send data to the NSA. The response we received was extremely vague, but seemed to possibly be "no". In the wake of yesterday's revelations that the NSA was harvesting data from Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, Facebook, AOL, PalTalk, Skype, Youtube and Apple, Google has now clearly confirmed that the numbers in its Transparency Report do not include the number of orders or targets for NSA surveillance." https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/new-statistics-about-national-security-letters-google-transparency-report https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/new-statistics-about-n... This is especially interesting, because it means Google has acknowledged the distinction between NSLs, which include a gag order, and some other even more secret directive, which services NSA surveillance. It's also worth noting that if Google was willingly supplying anything PRISM-like, this employee would not be allowed to know without a Top Secret clearance. Any Google employees who do have such clearance face the threat of prison if they tell him or anyone else.

rieter 13y ago
He said "as much as possible".
danso 13y ago
> It sounds like this employee was not even aware that Google's "Transparency Report" specifically does not include the number of FISA orders that they have received Are you concluding that from this statement? > "I'm not sure what the details of this PRISM program are, but I can tell you that the only way in which Google reveals information about users are when we receive lawful, specific orders about individuals -- things like search warrants. And we continue to stand firm against any attempts to do so broadly or without genuine, individualized suspicion, and publicize the results as much as possible in our Transparency Report." He may be ignorant of that fact...however, that last statement, "as much as possible", would cover that. However, his assertion that "the only way in which Google reveals information about users are when we receive lawful, specific orders about individuals" would still cover FISA, because FISA, as far as we know, is specifically for the targeted surveillance of individuals. Moreover, FISA, as it applies to Americans, requires a court-approved warrant for that surveillance. So again, what the OP is claiming is non-contradictory, because FISA requests are both legal actions that target individuals that go through an approval process. This is entirely different than what PRISM is alleged to be, which, well, we don't know exactly what it is, but involves the warrantless surveillance of Internet usage with the collaboration of Internet companies...currently, Google is outright denying being a part of that. Some relevant links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellige... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/30/obama-fisa-warrantless-wiretapping_n_2385690.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/30/obama-fisa-warrantl... Also worth noting, national security letters, which Google does oppose, are controversial because, among other things, they do not require a warrant. This is not the case with FISA and American citizens.

icambron 13y ago

This denial is a lot stronger than Page's, which was full of weasel words. Unless Zunger is just lying, which somehow seems unlikely (forgive my naiveté), it'll be interesting to know how PRISM actually works. But I will say that his faith in his company sounds misplaced, since Google's more official denials are so weak. edit: clarity

saalweachter 13y ago
He hints at a couple of reasons for his confidence in his post. One of his assumptions was that people would notice surreptitiously installed hardware or software doing the monitoring. I don't think this is unreasonable. Hoovering up all the private data in Google is bound to be a big job, regardless of whether you are sieving it on site or transferring it off site. Even if it would only take a few people to install and manage, everyone else would probably be tripping over it constantly. Accessing all of Google's data means you'd be tied into nearly every system. It's possible to keep projects secret inside a large company like Google, but only if an exceedingly few number of people know about it, and have good reasons to not tell anyone else. A system with as much surface area as you'd probably need to hoover off all of Google's data would be vulnerable to almost every engineer and datacenter worker accidentally running across while debugging other problems. Even -- especially? -- if they didn't realize the significance of it immediately, they'd probably ask their coworkers about this weird extra code/jobs/hardware, and pretty soon everyone would have heard about it. Once everyone inside of Google had heard of it, I think you'd have a very hard time keeping the secret from leaking into the outside world.
- icambron 13y ago
  Right, that mostly paraphrases his arguments. But it doesn't convincingly eliminate a few possibilities for how this works. One possibility: Google obviously has some capacity to honor search warrants and NSLs. And presumably that involves some technical artifacts somewhere: admin-level API access to data and some sort of external endpoint through which the government can actually make those requests. So that's all stuff we can confidently say is already there humming along happily, whether used for nefarious purposes or not. OK, so given that those exist, how much volume do they support? How hard would it be to modify them to bypass the scrutiny process? Or give the NSA access to those endpoints instead of just domestic law enforcement? In other words, these are just changes to the process, totally invisible to anyone without explicit access to it. It might not involve any weird hardware at all, and could operate with very few people in the know. Another possibility: Google handed over its TLS keys and just let the taps happen upstream. That's why the confidence of a senior person that there isn't fishy hardware running around makes the question of how PRISM works more interesting. But it certainly doesn't make the project impossible. Edit: removing distracting aside

andreyf 13y ago

His comments are actually the most insightful points I've seen about the discussion regarding PRISM: I have my own suspicions -- which I won't go into here -- about what PRISM was actually about. I'll just say that there are ways to intercept people's Google, Facebook, etc., traffic in bulk without sticking any moles into the org -- or directly tapping their lines. You may find some interesting hints in the leaked PRISM slides [1], especially the second and fourth ones shown there. The subtleties of phrasing are important, I suspect, not because they were trying to be elliptical but because they reveal what was obvious to the people who were giving that presentation. And like I said, I have both some reason to believe that there aren't such devices inside Google, and that the PRISM slides are actually talking about a somewhat different kind of data collection -- one that's done from outside the companies. Any ideas what he could be thinking? 1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/m http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-...

jmgao 13y ago
A target's phone call, e-mail or chat will take the cheapest path, not the physically most direct path - you can't always predict the path Dates When PRISM Collection Began For Each Provider This is complete conjecture, but this reads to me like the NSA set up its own backhauls and set up peering agreements at artifically low prices to get traffic going over their pipes. Is there historical data for route announcements available anywhere? There are a lot of specific dates that could confirm/disprove this.
- ihsw 13y ago
  This is expounded upon in some news articles, particularly that data is routed not by the most efficient geographic route but by the cheapest by dollar price. It's a very important tidbit of information that divulges the heart of the matter -- the NSA is a backbone operator[1]. It's a tall claim to make, however their involvement in internet exchange points (and other regional network access points) would be far more difficult to conceal. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_1_network#List_of_tier_1_networks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_1_network#List_of_tier_1_n...

tptacek 13y ago

Two things that cannot be true at the same time: this Google+ post, and the idea that Google coughed up their TLS keys to the government.

JunkDNA 13y ago
You're one of the few whose opinion I would trust on this: how much data would the NSA need to derive TLS encryption keys from encrypted data? I feel like I read once that you could possibly use statistical methods to derive the key if you had enough encrypted source data.
- tptacek 13y ago
  The technique they'd be using to do that would be new to science. Here it is worth pointing out that Google did something awhile ago to make NSA's job much harder (if their goal is to read everyone's mail): they became aggressive advocates for TLS forward secrecy. http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2011/11/protecting-data-for-long-term-with.html http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2011/11/protecting-... TLS forward secrecy involves the ephemeral Diffie Hellman ciphersuites (which your browser supports). Instead of deriving a session key and using the server's RSA key to convey it, the DHE ciphersuites run the DH protocol to derive a session key between the client and the server, and then use the RSA key to sign the exchange ("breaking the tie" if there was a MITM). The RSA key is never used to convey a session key; if you got all of Google's TLS keys, you would not be able to go back in time and decrypt old sessions that used a DHE ciphersuite. It is also worth pointing out that some of the hardest people working in security show business, including Adam Langley and Michal Zalewski and Justin Schuh, people with unimpeachable reputations in my field, work for Google on these problems.
voidlogic 13y ago
"Two things that cannot be true at the same time" Only if you assumed he is fully informed. Do you think Google chief software architect would fall within "need to know", if Google had been ordered to hand over their SSL private keys? I doubt it.

jonknee 13y ago

I wonder what the NSA thinks about Google's plan to change their SSL certificates? http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2013/05/changes-to-our-ssl-certificates.html http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2013/05/changes-to-... Seems like that could put a crimp on any beam split obtained data. At least for a short while.

jcrites 13y ago

I'd really like to know whether Google shared its SSL/TLS certificates with government agencies. I asked the author (Yonatan Zunger) a short question and he replied to say he doesn't know anything. I followed up with: > It seems you care very much about user privacy: >> I would no longer be working at Google [but for] the fact that we do stand up for individual users' privacy > Will you be willing to find out whether Google has shared its SSL/TLS keys for public sites with government agencies? As a person interested in user privacy, I imagine this will be as of much interest as whether they have direct access to the data. > As you mentioned, direct access would require Google to build something. Intercepting SSL/TLS traffic would not. > If Google shared its SSL keys, then the NSA can intercept all inbound and outbound traffic, and would be able to capture virtually all Google user data. They can store the data and search it. They wouldn't particularly even benefit from direct access to Google's data, if they're planning to store it themselves anyway. > I would be great to hear an affirmation from Google that it has not shared its encryption keys with governments. I can't figure out how to link to my comment, but it appears in the comments on Yonatan Zunger's post. (See original post)

lifeguard 13y ago

"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" 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-... Welcome to evil google team. It was nice knowing you. You will not miss me, but good bye.

Glyptodon 13y ago

Somebody probably puts the census in their inbox, then.

cupcake-unicorn 13y ago

With all of the conspiracy theories floating around, what about something fun, like the government proved P=NP and is just able to secretly crack the encryption keys, passwords, etc., like that silly movie "The Traveling Salesman Problem" where they turn algorithms into an action packed movie. Seriously though, it seems like the general consensus is that no one on either side is actually lying, but the companies involved are using weasely language that can be interpreted to exclude any kind of indirect access, SSL keys, etc? I'm surprised at the tone of the statements the companies are giving, because were it to come out that the companies are giving indirect access, their adamance would just make them look terrible...It's as if the companies in their statements, at least FB and Google, sound shocked, hurt, etc. to find out people would assume that of them.

mortehu 13y ago
It's widely known and admitted that they have indirect access, by issuing warrants and being provided with slices of the data. You must be talking about some specific form of indirect access?

bsaul 13y ago

one thing crossed my mind : could the fact that this things blows up right when china's president is coming to the US to talk about cyber espionage and individual liberties be a coincidence ?

DenisM 13y ago
That's a good point. It does seem like the slides are fake and someone is trying to play the public against Internet companies, or alternatively, that someone is playing public against US governement.