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Not really. They're more of intersecting sets. Is a foreign mail provider as likely to succumb to PRISM? No. Is it possible for GMail to have vulnerabilities un
by tghw 13y ago
Not really. They're more of intersecting sets. Is a foreign mail provider as likely to succumb to PRISM? No. Is it possible for GMail to have vulnerabilities unique to GMail and not to a more standard mail setup? Of course.
- tptacek 13y agoI think the issue is that we disagree, probably very very strongly, about the relative likelihood of vulnerabilities in Google Mail versus vulnerabilities in any other mail service provider. It's O.K. to disagree! We don't have to agree on anything, let alone this. Just know that my opinion is a professional one in this specific case. There are extremely smart people working on Google Mail's security, and on the security of every component in the stack that Google Mail depends on, and that is an arrangement (in both degree and kind) that is pretty much unique to Google Mail.
- tghw 13y agoI'm just pointing out that asking for data from a database is always going to be easier than exploiting a system, no matter whose it is. From what we know, it seems that the USG has the ability to do surveillance on Google Mail by querying a database, but likely does not have that same ability on a foreign mail service. Therefore, it is likely that it is easier for the USG to read mail from a Google user. As you know, security is not about making things impossible but making them more difficult and resource-intensive. So far, we have little evidence that Google has been making anything difficult for the USG.