<conspiracy theory>
We haven't seen posts from the CEOs of Cisco/Juniper/Dell/HP or other manufacturers of datacenter grade network equipment. Who needs Google/Facebook's "knowledge" if you've got root on all the border network gear (and SSL termination hardware)?
I know here in .au, Huawei have been excluded from the government-deployed National Broadband Network due to suspicions that the Chinese government has too much control/access to Huawei newtwork hardware.
an old time option - a few employees "compelled" to provide access and keep mouth shout.
a new time option - Larry is lying because of the gag order.
in between - Larry said "on such scale". Well, Google probably is of a bigger scale than Verizon.
Anyway, once the data is out there, it is only a matter of time and determination for a government (or any financially well backed up player) to get to it.
This scandal will be a great boost for any services involving "crypto", and probably would spring a new ones like an encrypted phone exchange/switch service, where one can see incoming and outcoming phone numbers, yet not which one connected to which :)
This was my initial assumption, that Prism referred to fiber optic prisms that are used to duplicate data with zero interference.
These can be installed at the trunk level with virtually no one knowing about it (maybe a couple of on site managers). They can handle massive data and pipe it directly to the NSA. The problem of course is you're dealing with raw data which isn't nearly as easy to work with then if you had direct access to internals.
These are already installed on every major backbone so I also don't see why they would bother to involve anyone, so there must be more to it.
ps. It would be nice if another whistleblower came out with the data on optic splitters and how the NSA uses them.
Anonymous didn't solve anything by identifying the alleged rapists. Nothing I have read suggests that Canadian law enforcement didn't know who the suspects were. They simply did not file charges. We don't know why exactly they didn't file charges, but for some reason they determined there was no case.
It seems to me what anonymous was saying is that isn't good enough. Also that the identities of the assailants would become available eventually with or without any help.
I think you've shifted the meaning of king in the parent comment to tyrant. After that you go on to give Google the benefit of the doubt. Google isn't a tyrant, but we are all beholden to Google. Due to cognitive dissonance, we have the tendency to minimize or excuse any instances of abuse on the part of our benevolent data custodian.
I think you're just making a different argument. The parent seemed to be implying that people are afraid to criticize Google aggressively because Google have too much power and may retaliate. I don't think that's true -- in particular, if they did start retaliating, it would invoke a backlash and push people to start actively seeking out competitors or advocating new regulations.
Maybe there is something to the cognitive dissonance argument, but that's a very different dynamic. Resigning yourself to having to deal with someone in the future and then convincing yourself that you like them because they're the option you've chosen for yourself is not at all the same thing as that party having some kind of sovereign power over you. Look at what people do with their local sports teams -- people love the local team because it's "their team," that doesn't prove anything about whether the Mets have any excess of economic power over the citizens of New York.
I don't think it matters because Kerr is just arguing that the district court interpreted and applied the law incorrectly. An appeals court has full power in these areas. It would only be a problem if they wanted to introduce facts or procedural/evidentiary arguments not presented to the trial judge, or if they want to overturn the trial court's decision on procedural/evidentiary/factual matters.
This is fantastic news. Hopefully this gets overturned and narrows the scope of the CFAA to where the government can't put people in prison for exposing security flaws on unrestricted areas of the web.
The producers of Warhammer 40k ought to take note.[1]
"Trademark Bullying" has totally gotten out of hand.[2] Brands have a duty to protect their rights, but a letter like this is really all that's necessary. Good on Jack Daniels. There is no reason to send indie publishers to the poorhouse over trifling infringement.
I think it actually started with (A) the DOJ filing a action to compel the company to comply with the national security letter. Then (B) the company replied requesting the letter be invalidated on First Amendment (compulsory non-disclosure of the NSL) and statutory grounds. Then (C) the DOJ files another motion showing why they need the information and asking for the court to force the company to comply with the NSL while the case is pending so they can pursue their investigation.
The court ended up ruling that the non-disclosure provision violated the First Amendment and invalidated the NSL law as a whole.
I think the only law the DOJ was accusing Credo of violating was 18 USC § 2709[1] which requires carriers to turn over subscriber information and prohibits certain disclosure.
But you're correct that the Government argued that the court did not have jurisdiction to rule on the constitutionality of the law. This was because Credo brought its action under a statute that gives a court limited authority to modify or revoke the NSL. However, the court found the constitutional challenge was a necessary part of Credo's claim and allowed it.
Yeah, Credo is sort of a bizarre little company. They created a Super PAC to oppose tea party candidates and to support public financing of campaigns, i.e., outlawing Super PACs (they were a total anomaly in this regard). In 2011, they received one of those so called "national security letters" and just completely stonewalled the FBI. Thank god for this one activist mobile carrier or this case would've probably never happened.
Credo is the latest incarnation of the old Working Assets long-distance firm, if you're old enough to remember them and that helps explain their politics.
Isn't it more plausible that they're intercepting data flowing in and out of Google servers?