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Runaway1956 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Google users had previously received only a one-line warning, which appeared on a bar at the top of the Gmail page, reading: “We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise your account or computer.”

Activists, journalists, and policy-makers are most likely to fall prey to government-initiated cyber-attacks, but only 0.1 percent of Gmail users become victims of such attempts, according to the company’s assessment.

Last month, Google started notifying Gmail users if a message they send or receive is unencrypted, meaning they could be intercepted by third parties relatively easily. A broken red lock icon will appear next to an email address if a message is not encrypted, and a question mark instead of a profile photo if it cannot be authenticated. The novelty has increased the number of encrypted emails by 25 percent, according to the company.

In explaining the reason for its enhanced warnings, Google cited several high-profile computer security scandals, including Edward Snowden’s revelations and the current showdown between Apple and the FBI. The federal law enforcement agency has been waging a legal war on Apple in an attempt to coerce the tech giant into unlocking a cellphone that had belonged to Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the attackers in last December’s San Bernardino shooting, which claimed the lives of 16 people.

Google’s CEO, Sundar Pinchai, has backed Apple’s approach to user privacy, tweeting out a string of posts in which he called the FBI’s request a “troubling precedent” and warned that complying could “compromise user privacy.”

“For many of us, the iPhone is an extension of ourselves,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook at the company’s latest launch event. “We did not expect to be in this position, at odds with our own government. But we have a responsibility to help you protect your data and protect your privacy. We owe it to our customers and we owe it to our country,” he added.

First spotted this story on https://www.rt.com/usa/337331-google-warning-state-attack/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS [rt.com]
Quick search gave me 47.5 million hits on the subject - most of them quite old articles. Switch from the whole web to "news", I only get 18.3 million hits.

http://www.neowin.net/news/google-will-make-it-clearer-if-youre-being-attacked-by-a-state-sponsored-hacker [neowin.net]
http://m.androidcentral.com/google-now-clearly-alerts-you-when-governments-could-be-hacking-your-account [androidcentral.com]
http://www.engadget.com/2016/03/24/gmail-security-new-warning-systems-hacking/ [engadget.com]

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