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[Volimar]

i doubt they'd be opposed to being contracted for such a purpose if the agreements were sweet enough.

We're all going to be massacred by killer robots anyway. Might as well have your name on the project.

 

[tokkun]

Google also began encrypting data being sent over trans-oceanic links in response to revelations of NSA wiretapping. And they introduced encryption facilities into Android that caused the director of the FBI to complain that it was too difficult for law enforcement to get data from people's phones.

I guess including those facts would conflict with his narrative.

 

[nelsonroyale]

Why bite the hand that feeds you? Google as a corporation has been able to grow to the extent it has precisely because the system in place facilitates/encourages the growth of megacorps which can operate across national boundaries. Why wouldn't he/they support the status quo or push it further?

The Silicon Valley ideal of a tailored society administered through drawing on Big Data sounds somewhat Orwellian 1984. Big Data as a thing is quite funny. Who coined that phrase anyway?

 

[leadbelly]

Google also began encrypting data being sent over trans-oceanic links in response to revelations of NSA wiretapping. And they introduced encryption facilities into Android that caused the director of the FBI to complain that it was too difficult for law enforcement to get data from people's phones.

I guess including those facts would conflict with his narrative.

Who exactly does that protect us from?

Google can still see that data. Their business relies on that data. If Google can still see it, then the NSA can still see it. It doesn't change anything.

 

[tokkun]

Who exactly does that protect us from?

Google can still see that data. Their business relies on that data. If Google can still see it, then the NSA can still see it. It doesn't change anything.

It protects us from illegal surveillance. If it changed nothing, the government wouldn't be complaining about it.

 

[ISOM]

Who exactly does that protect us from?

Google can still see that data. Their business relies on that data. If Google can still see it, then the NSA can still see it. It doesn't change anything.

I'm pretty sure the NSA doesn't have free access to Google servers.

 

[Ruas]

what does he mean?

 

[leadbelly]

It protects us from illegal surveillance. If it changed nothing, the government wouldn't be complaining about it.

You're confusing two different things though. The FBI were talking about encryption of cell phone data. It doesn't stop the NSA though going to the phone companies and collecting metadata (what they're really interested in).

In terms of Google's encryption of searches, it doesn't stop the NSA getting that data from Google. We don't even know for sure how reliable that encryption is.

 

[leadbelly]

I'm pretty sure the NSA doesn't have free access to Google servers.

What was PRISM about?

 

[that1dude24]

It protects us from illegal surveillance. If it changed nothing, the government wouldn't be complaining about it.

do you really mean illegal? so far as i know the surveillance conducted by the nsa was legal.

 

[leadbelly]

I honestly believe actually that Google wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't compromised in some way.

After all, Lavabit (the encryption email service Snowden used) was forced to shut down after being put under pressure from the US government to compromise its encryption. They wouldn't sit idly by as their programme was increasingly undermined by the US tech companies. Just isn't going to happen.

 

[tokkun]

In terms of Google's encryption of searches, it doesn't stop the NSA getting that data from Google. We don't even know for sure how reliable that encryption is.

It stops them from getting the data without a warrant.

I'm not sure what the point of baseless speculation about the efficacy of the encryption is, aside from just being argumentative. Assange is bringing up instances where Google has had a financial relationship with the government in order to imply that they are willingly complicit in surveillance. I am pointing out that Google has also taken explicit steps to make surveillance more difficult, and that Assange is cherrypicking facts that suit his argument. Whether this ultimately prevents government surveillance or simply makes it more difficult is beside the point.

 

[tokkun]

do you really mean illegal? so far as i know the surveillance conducted by the nsa was legal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...10e554-05ca-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html

In what appears to be one of the most serious violations, the NSA diverted large volumes of international data passing through fiber-optic cables in the United States into a repository where the material could be stored temporarily for processing and selection.

The operation to obtain what the agency called “multiple communications transactions” collected and commingled U.S. and foreign e-mails, according to an article in SSO News, a top-secret internal newsletter of the NSA’s Special Source Operations unit. NSA lawyers told the court that the agency could not practicably filter out the communications of Americans.

In October 2011, months after the program got underway, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled that the collection effort was unconstitutional. The court said that the methods used were “deficient on statutory and constitutional grounds,” according to a top-secret summary of the opinion, and it ordered the NSA to comply with standard privacy protections or stop the program.

James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has acknowledged that the court found the NSA in breach of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, but the Obama administration has fought a Freedom of Information lawsuit that seeks the opinion.

 

[leadbelly]

It stops them from getting the data without a warrant.

I'm not sure what the point of baseless speculation about the efficacy of the encryption is, aside from just being argumentative. Assange is bringing up instances where Google has had a financial relationship with the government in order to imply that they are willingly complicit in surveillance. I am pointing out that Google has also taken explicit steps to make surveillance more difficult, and that Assange is cherrypicking facts that suit his argument. Whether this ultimately prevents government surveillance or simply makes it more difficult is beside the point.

They can't collect data on domestic targets without a warrant. That is true regardless of what means they use for collecting that data. They have loopholes in the law however that protects themselves from that. One way they get around it is, they have secret interpretations of the law. It is not classed as surveillance for instance unless they actually specifically task their computers to look for information on a US citizen.

Documents indicate that PRISM is "the number one source of raw intelligence used for NSA analytic reports", and it accounts for 91% of the NSA's Internet traffic acquired under FISA section 702 authority."[15][16] The leaked information came to light one day after the revelation that the FISA Court had been ordering a subsidiary of telecommunications company Verizon Communications to turn over to the NSA logs tracking all of its customers' telephone calls on an ongoing daily basis.[17][18]

They're not targeting specific people and issuing a warrant to these tech companies for eveyr single person, they are just sucking up mass amounts of data. Some of it 'inadvertently' sucks up US citizens. Another word they use to cover their backs.

91% of their data comes from them.

And in terms of speculating whether the encryption is compromised or not. Obviously you don't know that for sure, but we do know for certain that the US government does this, and attempted to do this in the past. If not for Lavabit shutting down for instance, they would have been compromised in this way.

 

[juliushandle]

Google spent more on Washington lobbyist than Lockheed Martin. Ahhahahahahahah, the robots are coming and they know where your go, when you spank it, etc.

 

[tokkun]

And in terms of speculating whether the encryption is compromised or not. Obviously you don't know that for sure, but we do know for certain that the US government does this, and attempted to do this in the past. If not for Lavabit shutting down for instance, they would have been compromised in this way.

The government didn't break Lavabit's encryption. They legally compelled them to turn over their keys.

In any case, as I said, the point is that Google making an effort toward thwarting warrantless wiretaps.

 

[User Name Here]

Google in bed with government to continue the Military Industrial Complex. War, Google, Robots, ...Skynet.

I was waiting for this kind of post lol.

 

[leadbelly]

The government didn't break Lavabit's encryption. They legally compelled them to turn over their keys.

In any case, as I said, the point is that Google making an effort toward thwarting warrantless wiretaps.

Compromised the encryption. It's irrelevant by what method they chose to do this.

I don't think they are though. Most of the NSA's data comes directly from them. 91% of their data comes from PRISM affiliates. It hasn't changed anything.

They don't need a warrant to collect data on foreign citizens to begin with. They've always needed a warrant to collect data on US citizens. In terms of US citizens, they are able to look at data if it is a US citizen talking to a foreign citizen. And also data inadvertently sucked up[ of US citizens can in fact be used, if it shows evidence of a crime.

That is the framework of the law. However, there are cases of them using this data illegally as has been reported in the press.

 

[JimiNutz]

Fuck Google.
They are Skynet.

 

[cooljeanius]

Google spent more on Washington lobbyist than Lockheed Martin. Ahhahahahahahah

And yet as far as I know, most Congressional offices are still stuck with Lockheed Martin's shitty Intranet Quorum for a CRM, which is a much crappier piece of software than anything that Google's ever come up with...

 

[dr3upmushroom]

I thought it would be something more insidious before reading. I'm still awaiting the Google Robot Armies.