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posted by martyb on Friday October 07 2016, @01:57AM   Printer-friendly
from the that's-the-polite-form-of-the-response dept.

Since word spread that Yahoo! backdoored its own email servers for US intelligence services, we've heard from rival webmail providers denying they have put in place similar arrangements.

That Yahoo! has a cosy relationship with the Feds is not surprising, especially given what we know about PRISM and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. What is bizarre is that Yahoo!'s engineering team did not, it is claimed, involve its internal security team and introduced exploitable vulnerabilities into the email scanning system.

There's also the issue that this blanket surveillance, as reported, potentially scoops up private and personal communications of millions of innocent people.

We asked Google if it created a similar mechanism in which g-men can search all incoming messages for certain keywords, or if it has been asked to. A spokesman told us:

We've never received such a request, but if we did, our response would be simple: 'No way.'

Previously:
Yahoo "Secretly Scanned Emails for US Authorities"
US Government Threatened Yahoo with $250K Daily Fine if it didn't use PRISM


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:31AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:31AM (#411325)

    > Perhaps they are being very very precise and trying to hide behind the fact that the gov didn't use a form letter for all tech companies..

    That wouldn't fly. If google is lying through omission they will get caught because secrets like that don't last anymore - they leak out and the bigger the hypocrisy in their public statements the more it motivates potential leakers to come forward. Google's no dummy they know a lie like that will have a short half-life. They also know it will be tons worse for them this time around, before Snowden they were unwitting dupes. But now not only do they know, they've been making a lot of noise about keeping the spooks out. And Apple has shown them up by making the FBI blink over the san bernadino iphone crack. Google has too much to lose by lying like that.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @05:57AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @05:57AM (#411359)

    Har har, and how many corporations have escaped blame by throwing some peons and maybe a higher tier manager under the bus? Your argument is that Google is too smart?? NSL and gag orders cover a lot ground, they can just say that they were legally required to keep it secret. The Apple bit with the FBI made no sense, and it turns out the FBI got what they wanted anyway. Talk about a convenient story to make Apple look look good and keep the public feeling safe.

    Basically, they played on people's fears and told them stories to make them feel safe. "No no, the government can't get into everything. You're safe on the internet with these extremely large companies, we've put decent encryption into our devices! Oh look, the iPhone 5 wasn't safe after all, but hey the 6 is the cat's meow! Can't break that one, no way no how.

    Oh look, a bridge!