NSA Broke Into Links Between Google, Yahoo Datacenters

[Recursion]

A summary via Slashdot (emphases mine):

barlevg writes

"The Washington Post reports that, according to documents obtained from Edward Snowden, through their so-called 'MUSCULAR' initiative, the National Security Agency has exploited a weakness in the transfers between data centers, which Google and others pay a premium to send over secure fiber optic cables. The leaked documents include a post-it note as part of an internal NSA Powerpoint presentation showing a diagram of Google network traffic, an arrow pointing to the Google front-end server with text reading, 'SSL Added and Removed Here' with a smiley face. When shown the sketch by The Post and asked for comment, two engineers with close ties to Google responded with strings of profanity."

The Washington Post report is also summarized at SlashBI. Also in can't-trust-the-government-not-to-spy news, an anonymous reader writes:

"According to recent reports, the National Security Agency collects 'one-end foreign' Internet metadata as it passes through the United States. The notion is that purely domestic communications should receive greater protection, and that ordinary Americans won't send much personal information outside the country. A researcher at Stanford put this hypothesis to the test... and found that popular U.S. websites routinely pass browsing activity to international servers. Even the House of Representatives website was sending traffic to London. When the NSA vacuums up international Internet metadata, then, it's also snooping on domestic web browsing by millions of Americans."

Well, there you go. For the record: the layer 2/layer 3 man in the middle attack I had posited as a hypothetical technical possibility that was absurdly expensive and practically impossible and not really something to worry about not only exists, it was announced via a Post-It note with a smiley face.

[BlueStreak]

1. Un-freaking-believable

[Recursion]

4. Completely. This is a much more sophisticated attack than I had thought possible

Even with this I find it hard to believe they pulled it off.

[BlueStreak]

5. You think Google has a priority on security?

I don't. They have their heads in the clouds. And that attitude has produced some amazing stuff. But it is very difficult to be a dreamer and also highly competent at all the mundane real world stuff.

[penultimate]

2. I wonder how much of this could be part of a big mindfuck too

make everyone think that they can see everything, thus causing changes in behaviors that may limit coordination and perhaps even cause slip ups.

[steve2470]

3. thanks for this, eye opening nt

[eridani]

6. This needs to get around more. n/r

[joshcryer]

7. Thanks for the kick.

Definitely needs exposure.

[Fumesucker]

8. You say that like it's a bad thing

Last edited Mon Nov 4, 2013, 07:53 AM - Edit history (1)

Not to worry, there will be someone along momentarily to explain why either Obama was totally ignorant of the NSA snooping or it is one of his eleven dimensional chess moves to support the 99%.



ETA: I forgot to mention one other possibility, Obama is/was simultaneously ignorant of NSA spying *and* it is one of his eleven dimensional chess moves to support the 99%.