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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, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @05:41AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @05:41AM (#411354)

    Well you see, after decades of constitutional violations and being lied to by government and corporations, yes, cynicism takes precedent. You reminded me of a link posted by butthurt: https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e [medium.com]

    The surveillance machine has been in place for a very long time. I guess Snowden couldn't shake enough sense into people. While I understand the desire to believe that things aren't truly that bad, it flies in the sense of reason to think that the government hasn't strong armed corporations into giving them what they want. The closet in the AT&T building, denied by the company for a long time. Yahoo claiming that they fought long and hard, yet it turns out they rolled right over, lying about their cooperation the whole time. More leaks showing the DNC actively undermining Sanders in order to promote Clinton. Federal agencies committing crimes in order to discredit political organizations.

    But Google, hey they say they aren't evil and some of their engineers put systems in place to protect Google's data streams, so they of all the companies truly care about their customers. Oh wait. Not their customers, their product. Any benefit that the users gain is due only to the fact that Google is trying to protect its own interests. I'm sure a lot of their employees are legitimately interested in protecting users, and lots of good work comes from their efforts. However, it only takes a few bought off engineers or managers to get another secret closet built that undermines every other effort.

    So please, explain how you can justify defending the largest tech company that runs the most openly pervasive data mining surveillance business?

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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 07 2016, @11:54AM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday October 07 2016, @11:54AM (#411438) Journal

    So please, explain how you can justify defending the largest tech company that runs the most openly pervasive data mining surveillance business?

    Don't forget Acxiom [acxiom.com]. They aggregate all those other data sets Google doesn't have access to, like your offline purchases, your medical history, etc. The corporate HQ is in Little Rock, Arkansas. Their CEO is good pals with the Clintons; they have a little game where they try to spy each other on the telescopes they have at the little penthouses on top of their respective buildings, the Acxiom HQ and the Clinton Presidential Library.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday October 07 2016, @01:42PM

    by Nerdfest (80) on Friday October 07 2016, @01:42PM (#411477)

    In the case of Google protecting their/my data, it's a matter of their interests aligning with mine. Same applies to their desire for an open internet, so they can serve ads on all platforms.

    • (Score: 2) by AnonymousCowardNoMore on Friday October 07 2016, @05:32PM

      by AnonymousCowardNoMore (5416) on Friday October 07 2016, @05:32PM (#411552)

      In the case of Google protecting their/my data, it's a matter of their interests aligning with mine.

      Let's examine Google's interests in the matter:

      • It is in Google's interest to protect their data.
      • It is in Google's interest to protect your data from their direct competitors.
      • It is in Google's interest to have you think that they protect your data.
      • It is in Google's interest to not get their asses thrown in prison by a secret court order.

      Only the second aligns with your interests.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @01:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @01:53PM (#411483)

    > So please, explain how you can justify defending the largest tech company that runs the most openly pervasive data mining surveillance business?

    I'm not "defending" them. I'm arguing that believing they (or anyone) are pure evil rather than a complicated mix of good and bad is not only stupid but also counter-productive because if you aren't willing to acknowledge the good parts then they have no reason to do any good.

    You are creating the very monster you accuse them of being.