Google racing to encrypt data transfers in response to NSA surveillance

[Ethnod]

Personally I think this and things like it might be the only good thing to come out of all of these revelations. Better encryption and a higher standard of encryption.

We should not have to worry about who is listening in to everything we do
But now with Googles Cloud storage and other parts of their operations being encrypted by default now the next move I hope will be much better encryption, one where a backdoor has not been given to government agencies

 

 

 

Google is stepping up efforts to encrypt information flowing between its own data centers as a response to surveillance programs waged by the NSA and other intelligence agencies around the world. "It's an arms race," Eric Grosse, Google's vice president for security engineering, tells The Washington Post. "We see these government agencies as among the most skilled players in this game." The disclosure of the security effort, which has been going on for about a year, comes amid reports that the NSA can get around most common encryption methods.

 

Source:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/6/4703018/google-encrypting-data-nsa-government-surveillance

http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/06/google-accelerates-encryption-initiative/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedly

[Ethnod]

Source:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/07/toshiba-quantum-access-networking/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedly

 

Seems pointless to create a topic for this but Toshiba's new tech within Quantum Access Networking could be a breakthrough for private corps and small groups. On a larger scale its not of any use but maybe its a start?

[mgsstar]

Great that Google is increasing the security in order to protect people's information from the NSA.

[Kuzma]

But wait no matter what encryption we have it's easier for them to break since they essentially know which random numbers we can and can't get since they're in our cpus...

[BustinJustin]

I agree that security and privacy are important.  But at the same time, I feel that you shouldn't be worried if you have nothing to hide. And if you have something you want to hide from the government, you shouldn't have/be doing whatever that is.

[LAwLz]

But wait no matter what encryption we have it's easier for them to break since they essentially know which random numbers we can and can't get since they're in our cpus...

No, that's not how it works. You are probably referring to that post about Intel and AMD being able to patch the microcode in CPUs to make it easier to predict random number generators, right? It's just a nonsense tinfoil-hat story that doesn't really make any sense.

 

Anyway, Google most likely had these upgrades (at least RSA 2048) scheduled before the whole PRISM story appeared. I think this smells of "oh this is a perfect opportunity to make good PR". If it is true that the NSA has backdoors to Google servers and such, then it doesn't matter if they got the content encrypted or not since the NSA can see it anyway. Things like this makes me dislike Google, because these things (like upgrading the RSA key and encrypting content on Google Drive) should have been done quite a long time ago.

[GarryElite]

There goes googles speed.