8 ms·

> They may keep up to date with patches, but you have very little knowledge or control of what they collect from you and what they do with it. It's not an omin

by shazow 8y ago

> They may keep up to date with patches, but you have very little knowledge or control of what they collect from you and what they do with it. It's not an ominous mystery. Google is extremely explicit about what they collect from you and what they do with it. https://myaccount.google.com/privacy https://myaccount.google.com/privacy https://policies.google.com/privacy https://policies.google.com/privacy I have not seen any evidence that they violate their own policies, even when I worked there a while ago and had internal knowledge.

13of40 8y ago
If you were an engineer working at Google on one of the services that handles, say, location data from phones, how difficult would it be for you to go into the environment and find a specific person's location history? Also, what logging or other audit trail is there for that access?
- AlexCoventry 8y ago
  FWIW, the ex-googlers I've asked about this claim it would be very hard for an individual to do this surreptitiously. One even claimed that Larry Page would probably get caught if he tried.
- anonuser123456 8y ago
  From the Google people I've talked to, the easiest way to get fired at Google is to inappropriately gain access to user data. And yes there is anaudit trail on accessing that stuff.
- arkem 8y ago
  Google has amazing controls and audit capabilities around access to customer data. When I worked on the security team there the number of people who could access a specific person's data without an audit record and an alert being triggered was zero.
  - 13of40 8y ago
    Is that for someone going through the user interface, or is it a fundamental feature of the database (or whatever)? In other words, is there no case where someone could log into a server and see some PII in a debugger or a direct query without being detected?
    - arkem 8y ago
      This is both for people using tools and people accessing servers and databases directly. Logging into production servers is audited and triggers alarms. There's basically no-one who has "root" level access to a large number of boxes (when I left in 2013 there were only a handful of people who could login to arbitrary boxes and systems were being built so that their access would no longer be necessary). Logging into a server that holds live data would be investigated and so would running a custom query against a production database. The goal was to have it basically impossible for an engineer or admin to directly access data on boxes to force people to use the tools. The tools themselves had a great permission system as well as a way for users to elevate their permissions in emergency (triggering an investigation). It worked well because it was also easy to create dummy databases to develop on (for example by requesting a database extract of your own location data). In my career to date I have yet to see a more privacy conscious / secure approach to handling customer data.
  - shazow 8y ago
    +1 to what arkem said. If I had to trust a company with private data, there is no other company I would trust more to keep it safe from rogue employees and accidental leaks/hacks.
- fouc 8y ago
  I wonder about facebook also, in terms of access/audit trails.
imglorp 8y ago
Okay, so that's the outward intent. The practice is a little different. If they get hacked or an employee does misuse data, the public will probably not find out. Most of the company probably doesn't even know. Eg last week: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/08/google-reportedly-exposed-private-data-of-at-least-hundreds-of-thousands-of-plus-users.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/08/google-reportedly-exposed-pr...
13415 8y ago
We know from the Snowden leaks that there were direct data links between Google and the NSA. Despite their vehement denials and public outrage, I still find it hard to believe that it was possible for the NSA to install such massive surveillance without some complicity from Google. Technically this might have been possible without any Google involvement, I agree with that, but given past involvement of other companies like e.g. AT&T with the NSA, this seems kind of unlikely to me. It just seems more credible to assume that some people in the higher ranks of Google willfully complied, and I wouldn't be surprised if something similar still occurred.
- lern_too_spel 8y ago
  Nothing in Snowden's leaked documents contradicted Google's statements. The New York Times reported the setup correctly from the start, and the rest of the news media picked up on it shortly thereafter. https://www.cnet.com/news/no-evidence-of-nsas-direct-access-to-tech-companies/ https://www.cnet.com/news/no-evidence-of-nsas-direct-access-... Your understanding of PRISM matches Greenwald's incorrect reporting, which was based on a high school dropout's misreading of some slides he found on the SharePoint system he administered. Greenwald could have gotten the story correct if he had bothered to run the documents by an expert first, but instead he made ridiculous errors like thinking that DITU is a government system running inside the companies' networks instead of the FBI's Data Intercept Technology Unit, whose court-ordered wiretaps PRISM actually accesses.
  - 13415 8y ago
    Then again, Google's public statements might not be the best information source to check whether Google did something nefarious or not.
AlexandrB 8y ago
> I have not seen any evidence that they violate their own policies, even when I worked there a while ago and had internal knowledge. Whether Google violates their policies today is the wrong question to ask. Nothing about these policies is long-term legally binding for Google and they can be changed on a whim. While Google includes this language: > We will not reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent. I'm not sure that covers them increasing their own rights to collect, share, and sell data. Remember - nothing lasts forever. One day Google will be in a financially desperate situation and their investors will demand that they do anything they can to stop the losses. Meanwhile they will have a valuable trove of data on millions of people. This is not just hypothetical. When Google decided that Google+ was a priority and only real names should be allowed many were forced to de-annonymize formerly anonymous Youtube and Gmail profiles or be removed from the service. The only real way to assure the security and privacy of data is to not collect it. The only way ensure that the likes of Google/Apple/Facebook won't collect the data is through legislation that gives privacy policies real teeth when they're violated and gives users power to choose to reject changes to these policies in whole or in part.

by shazow 8y ago

13of40 8y ago

If you were an engineer working at Google on one of the services that handles, say, location data from phones, how difficult would it be for you to go into the environment and find a specific person's location history? Also, what logging or other audit trail is there for that access?

AlexCoventry 8y ago
FWIW, the ex-googlers I've asked about this claim it would be very hard for an individual to do this surreptitiously. One even claimed that Larry Page would probably get caught if he tried.
anonuser123456 8y ago
From the Google people I've talked to, the easiest way to get fired at Google is to inappropriately gain access to user data. And yes there is anaudit trail on accessing that stuff.
arkem 8y ago
Google has amazing controls and audit capabilities around access to customer data. When I worked on the security team there the number of people who could access a specific person's data without an audit record and an alert being triggered was zero.
- 13of40 8y ago
  Is that for someone going through the user interface, or is it a fundamental feature of the database (or whatever)? In other words, is there no case where someone could log into a server and see some PII in a debugger or a direct query without being detected?
  - arkem 8y ago
    This is both for people using tools and people accessing servers and databases directly. Logging into production servers is audited and triggers alarms. There's basically no-one who has "root" level access to a large number of boxes (when I left in 2013 there were only a handful of people who could login to arbitrary boxes and systems were being built so that their access would no longer be necessary). Logging into a server that holds live data would be investigated and so would running a custom query against a production database. The goal was to have it basically impossible for an engineer or admin to directly access data on boxes to force people to use the tools. The tools themselves had a great permission system as well as a way for users to elevate their permissions in emergency (triggering an investigation). It worked well because it was also easy to create dummy databases to develop on (for example by requesting a database extract of your own location data). In my career to date I have yet to see a more privacy conscious / secure approach to handling customer data.
- shazow 8y ago
  +1 to what arkem said. If I had to trust a company with private data, there is no other company I would trust more to keep it safe from rogue employees and accidental leaks/hacks.
fouc 8y ago
I wonder about facebook also, in terms of access/audit trails.

imglorp 8y ago

Okay, so that's the outward intent. The practice is a little different. If they get hacked or an employee does misuse data, the public will probably not find out. Most of the company probably doesn't even know. Eg last week: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/08/google-reportedly-exposed-private-data-of-at-least-hundreds-of-thousands-of-plus-users.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/08/google-reportedly-exposed-pr...

13415 8y ago

We know from the Snowden leaks that there were direct data links between Google and the NSA. Despite their vehement denials and public outrage, I still find it hard to believe that it was possible for the NSA to install such massive surveillance without some complicity from Google. Technically this might have been possible without any Google involvement, I agree with that, but given past involvement of other companies like e.g. AT&T with the NSA, this seems kind of unlikely to me. It just seems more credible to assume that some people in the higher ranks of Google willfully complied, and I wouldn't be surprised if something similar still occurred.

lern_too_spel 8y ago
Nothing in Snowden's leaked documents contradicted Google's statements. The New York Times reported the setup correctly from the start, and the rest of the news media picked up on it shortly thereafter. https://www.cnet.com/news/no-evidence-of-nsas-direct-access-to-tech-companies/ https://www.cnet.com/news/no-evidence-of-nsas-direct-access-... Your understanding of PRISM matches Greenwald's incorrect reporting, which was based on a high school dropout's misreading of some slides he found on the SharePoint system he administered. Greenwald could have gotten the story correct if he had bothered to run the documents by an expert first, but instead he made ridiculous errors like thinking that DITU is a government system running inside the companies' networks instead of the FBI's Data Intercept Technology Unit, whose court-ordered wiretaps PRISM actually accesses.
- 13415 8y ago
  Then again, Google's public statements might not be the best information source to check whether Google did something nefarious or not.

AlexandrB 8y ago

> I have not seen any evidence that they violate their own policies, even when I worked there a while ago and had internal knowledge. Whether Google violates their policies today is the wrong question to ask. Nothing about these policies is long-term legally binding for Google and they can be changed on a whim. While Google includes this language: > We will not reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent. I'm not sure that covers them increasing their own rights to collect, share, and sell data. Remember - nothing lasts forever. One day Google will be in a financially desperate situation and their investors will demand that they do anything they can to stop the losses. Meanwhile they will have a valuable trove of data on millions of people. This is not just hypothetical. When Google decided that Google+ was a priority and only real names should be allowed many were forced to de-annonymize formerly anonymous Youtube and Gmail profiles or be removed from the service. The only real way to assure the security and privacy of data is to not collect it. The only way ensure that the likes of Google/Apple/Facebook won't collect the data is through legislation that gives privacy policies real teeth when they're violated and gives users power to choose to reject changes to these policies in whole or in part.