7 ms·

It's happened before: https://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/google-engineer-spying-fired/ https://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/google-engineer-spying-fir... If a perso

by zabuni 9y ago

It's happened before: https://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/google-engineer-spying-fired/ https://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/google-engineer-spying-fir... If a person has enough access, and they have to, given that someone has to have admin access.

joshuamorton 9y ago
Worth noting that this occurred in 2009 (ie when gmail looked like this: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ZaGO7GjCqAI/SYD3g8LflXI/AAAAAAAAO4I/tH0-Ftb5P2o/s640/gmail-outbox.png https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ZaGO7GjCqAI/SYD3g8LflXI/AAAAAAAAO...).
londons_explore 9y ago
Around 100 people have root @ Google. They get a tshirt with it on. With months of effort researching tripwires and auditing systems, any of them could read your mail. There's a pretty good chance they'd get caught by some auditing or alerting system they were unaware of though. Many of those systems are kept secret from employees for obvious reasons. Any two employees collude to much more easily read your mail. There's probably ~1000 people in that position (not only the gmail team, but anyone who writes any kind of library code used by any of the databases, datastores, or application servers). They would leave audit records though, although they might go unnoticed.
- DINKDINK 9y ago
  >100 people have root @ Google. They get a tshirt with it on. A convenient way to put a target on your back. What benefit does this have to their security? Accountability?
  - md_ 9y ago
    The t-shirts are a bit of jokey swag, not an access control mechanism. ;)
    - DINKDINK 9y ago
      Yes, it’s a “hey everyone this person has the keys to the kingdom, target them” indicator.
- technofiend 9y ago
  That's cool in that it's such a small number. Netflix shared how they do ephemeral access by publishing bless *[1]. It would be cool to see how Google does it as well. Googling for the usual terms doesn't return anything. [1]https://github.com/Netflix/bless https://github.com/Netflix/bless
- singron 9y ago
  It's likely that reading Gmail data and other sensitive actions require significantly less privilege than some Google-wide "root".
  - londons_explore 9y ago
    Access controls are actually fairly locked down. I would guess the access control list for Gmail data is only ~10 people. If any of them were to make use of their access permissions, it would automatically trigger a review of their actions.

by zabuni 9y ago

joshuamorton 9y ago

Worth noting that this occurred in 2009 (ie when gmail looked like this: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ZaGO7GjCqAI/SYD3g8LflXI/AAAAAAAAO4I/tH0-Ftb5P2o/s640/gmail-outbox.png https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ZaGO7GjCqAI/SYD3g8LflXI/AAAAAAAAO...).

londons_explore 9y ago

Around 100 people have root @ Google. They get a tshirt with it on. With months of effort researching tripwires and auditing systems, any of them could read your mail. There's a pretty good chance they'd get caught by some auditing or alerting system they were unaware of though. Many of those systems are kept secret from employees for obvious reasons. Any two employees collude to much more easily read your mail. There's probably ~1000 people in that position (not only the gmail team, but anyone who writes any kind of library code used by any of the databases, datastores, or application servers). They would leave audit records though, although they might go unnoticed.

DINKDINK 9y ago
>100 people have root @ Google. They get a tshirt with it on. A convenient way to put a target on your back. What benefit does this have to their security? Accountability?
- md_ 9y ago
  The t-shirts are a bit of jokey swag, not an access control mechanism. ;)
  - DINKDINK 9y ago
    Yes, it’s a “hey everyone this person has the keys to the kingdom, target them” indicator.
technofiend 9y ago
That's cool in that it's such a small number. Netflix shared how they do ephemeral access by publishing bless *[1]. It would be cool to see how Google does it as well. Googling for the usual terms doesn't return anything. [1]https://github.com/Netflix/bless https://github.com/Netflix/bless
singron 9y ago
It's likely that reading Gmail data and other sensitive actions require significantly less privilege than some Google-wide "root".
- londons_explore 9y ago
  Access controls are actually fairly locked down. I would guess the access control list for Gmail data is only ~10 people. If any of them were to make use of their access permissions, it would automatically trigger a review of their actions.