5 ms·

What? Have you been following this topic at all? Exactly where are these convincing arguments that google is sending all e-mail to the NSA? Links? Data? Do yo

by mbell 13y ago

What? Have you been following this topic at all? Exactly where are these convincing arguments that google is sending all e-mail to the NSA? Links? Data? Do you have anything that supports this at all? There is the telephone stuff that was leaked, which has been well known since 2006 [0]. But, where is this miraculous evidence that google is handing everything over to the NSA? [0] http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.h...

bigiain 13y ago
Yeah, I've been following, with the point of view of someone explicitly not protected by your 4th amendment rights. (I'm assuming, possibly incorrectly, that you're a US citizen?) As a "non-US person", I read all the "We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law" explanations from Google/Apple/Yahoo/Facebook et al - as saying "Oh, you want our data from that guy in Australia? Sure, that's 'in accordance with the law' - here's all his email… Anything else you'd like? His social graph? His contact list/address book? His Adwords clickthroughs? His Google Analytics enabled website visits? Oh look, it seems he accidentally put his GPG private key into his GoogleDrive folder - have that too!" Do you really find it surprising that people outside the US see Snowdon's revelations and the US government's reactions to strongly suggest this is the only sensible interpretation? _All_ the denials/re-assurances we're seeing are of the form "in accordance with the law", then going on to talk about presumed protection against _domestic_ spying, and the 4th amendment rights of US citizens. None of which is reassuring from where I sit.
- comex 13y ago
  Though I'd agree that non-US persons have reasons to be concerned, you moved the goal posts. It may not be particularly difficult for the NSA to get your data from Google services if they decide to target you specifically, but Google has explicitly denied broadly sending over data from some significant fraction of users, as you suggested in your previous post: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html
  - bigiain 13y ago
    Maybe - but I'm reading it with the suspicion of someone who's just having been served a wake-up call on the exact nature of a friendship, and finding it's a lot less mutually respectful than expected. I still see that "Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law." glaring out at me from the middle of that denial. My suspicious mind now reads phrases like " … and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process" and "Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period", as saying "so long as 'correct process' includes a FISA rubber stamp, and that '(claims of) open-ended access to our users' can only be true if it includes all domestic US users" - then sure, we can say that while still handing over _all_ data on non-US users -it's still _technically_ true. This is for me, kinda like when someone you thought was a close friend gets married and doesn't invite you to the wedding - nothing's actually changed, but you now view everything differently. Right now I've got that "Oh, _that's_ how it is huh? I guess that explains a few things, I wish I'd known earlier…" feeling - complete with that sense of foolishness for ever having thought things were different. It might be paranoid - or it might just be pragmatic. Either way, things _are_ different now. I just didn't get invited to The US's wedding, while Apple, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Skype, TeamViewer, PayPal, eBay, Digital Ocean, Linode, Rackspace, Dropbox, Evernote, Trello, Freshbooks, and a bunch of others all did. Now I have to re-evaluate all those relationships too. How paranoid is it to wonder if I can trust 1Password any more?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
cheese1756 13y ago
The issue is not what we know, but what we don't. Keep in mind, all we have is what was leaked. We only have a tiny glimpse into the massive amounts of post-9/11 surveillance. We can ascertain that the government is doing extensive amounts of surveillance on large amounts of people, and that the NSA has either refused to tell Congress the scope of the programs or outright lied about it (take a look at this (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/nsa-spied/ http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/nsa-spied/) article from a year ago , and look at Clapper's "Not Wittingly" statement). To ask for "Links? Data? Do you have anything that supports this at all?" is asking the wrong question, since the amount that is public is incredibly small (just a tiny fraction would be my guess, but all we can do is make estimates). The question is, Is it reasonable to assume that there is more surveillance? The answer is yes, and to assume that there is detailed email surveillance, either at the ISP level, through backdoors, or through direct cooperation is not unreasonable.
- bigiain 13y ago
  "The answer is yes, and to assume that there is detailed email surveillance, either at the ISP level, through backdoors, or through direct cooperation is not unreasonable." I'd suggest _not_ assuming that might be considered negligent.

by mbell 13y ago

bigiain 13y ago

Yeah, I've been following, with the point of view of someone explicitly not protected by your 4th amendment rights. (I'm assuming, possibly incorrectly, that you're a US citizen?) As a "non-US person", I read all the "We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law" explanations from Google/Apple/Yahoo/Facebook et al - as saying "Oh, you want our data from that guy in Australia? Sure, that's 'in accordance with the law' - here's all his email… Anything else you'd like? His social graph? His contact list/address book? His Adwords clickthroughs? His Google Analytics enabled website visits? Oh look, it seems he accidentally put his GPG private key into his GoogleDrive folder - have that too!" Do you really find it surprising that people outside the US see Snowdon's revelations and the US government's reactions to strongly suggest this is the only sensible interpretation? _All_ the denials/re-assurances we're seeing are of the form "in accordance with the law", then going on to talk about presumed protection against _domestic_ spying, and the 4th amendment rights of US citizens. None of which is reassuring from where I sit.

comex 13y ago
Though I'd agree that non-US persons have reasons to be concerned, you moved the goal posts. It may not be particularly difficult for the NSA to get your data from Google services if they decide to target you specifically, but Google has explicitly denied broadly sending over data from some significant fraction of users, as you suggested in your previous post: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html
- bigiain 13y ago
  Maybe - but I'm reading it with the suspicion of someone who's just having been served a wake-up call on the exact nature of a friendship, and finding it's a lot less mutually respectful than expected. I still see that "Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law." glaring out at me from the middle of that denial. My suspicious mind now reads phrases like " … and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process" and "Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period", as saying "so long as 'correct process' includes a FISA rubber stamp, and that '(claims of) open-ended access to our users' can only be true if it includes all domestic US users" - then sure, we can say that while still handing over _all_ data on non-US users -it's still _technically_ true. This is for me, kinda like when someone you thought was a close friend gets married and doesn't invite you to the wedding - nothing's actually changed, but you now view everything differently. Right now I've got that "Oh, _that's_ how it is huh? I guess that explains a few things, I wish I'd known earlier…" feeling - complete with that sense of foolishness for ever having thought things were different. It might be paranoid - or it might just be pragmatic. Either way, things _are_ different now. I just didn't get invited to The US's wedding, while Apple, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Skype, TeamViewer, PayPal, eBay, Digital Ocean, Linode, Rackspace, Dropbox, Evernote, Trello, Freshbooks, and a bunch of others all did. Now I have to re-evaluate all those relationships too. How paranoid is it to wonder if I can trust 1Password any more?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

cheese1756 13y ago

The issue is not what we know, but what we don't. Keep in mind, all we have is what was leaked. We only have a tiny glimpse into the massive amounts of post-9/11 surveillance. We can ascertain that the government is doing extensive amounts of surveillance on large amounts of people, and that the NSA has either refused to tell Congress the scope of the programs or outright lied about it (take a look at this (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/nsa-spied/ http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/nsa-spied/) article from a year ago , and look at Clapper's "Not Wittingly" statement). To ask for "Links? Data? Do you have anything that supports this at all?" is asking the wrong question, since the amount that is public is incredibly small (just a tiny fraction would be my guess, but all we can do is make estimates). The question is, Is it reasonable to assume that there is more surveillance? The answer is yes, and to assume that there is detailed email surveillance, either at the ISP level, through backdoors, or through direct cooperation is not unreasonable.

bigiain 13y ago
"The answer is yes, and to assume that there is detailed email surveillance, either at the ISP level, through backdoors, or through direct cooperation is not unreasonable." I'd suggest _not_ assuming that might be considered negligent.