What Would Make These Google Employees Offer Someone 'A Giant F*** You'
Members of Google's security team blast the NSA in personal blog posts, saying "F*** these guys".
By Sadho Ram — 07 Nov 2013, 07:01 PM — Updated over 10 years ago
Two Google Engineers Recently Took To Google+ To Give Blistering Public Critiques Of The Ongoing NSA Surveillance Scandal
The revelations that the NSA has seemingly managed to infiltrate and spy upon individuals are bad enough for most of us, but some members of the Google tech team that work specifically on how to keep hackers out of its system are really none too pleased.
businessinsider.com.au
Writing in a post yesterday, and reported by The Desk today, Google account security employee Mike Hearn expressed his displeasure at the news that the NSA had managed to circumvent security in place designed to stop people from intercepting data and breaking into their systems.
The Leaks Show That NSA And GCHQ Tapped Into The Cables That Linked Google And Yahoo Data Centres Outside The US And Scooped Up Data Flowing Through Them
Hearn and Brandon Downey, who are engineers at Google, have written on their Google+ page that tactics used by NSA and GCHQ make them very angry.
“The packet capture shown in these new NSA slides shows internal database replication traffic for the anti-hacking system I worked on for over two years,” Hearn wrote.
“We designed this system to keep criminals out . There’s no ambiguity here. The warrant system with skeptical judges, paths for appeal, and rules of evidence was built from centuries of hard won experience [...] Bypassing that system is illegal for a good reason.”
"F*ck these guys," wrote Downey, who is a network security engineer. Hearn, who works on user account security, added Wednesday, "I now join (Downey) in issuing a giant F*ck You to the (NSA and GCHQ) people."
![Google security technicians Michael Hearn of Zurich (left) and Brandon Downey of Mountain View, California (right). [Photos: Google Plus / Twitter]](https://images.says.com/uploads/story_source/source_image/205686/5853.png)
Google security technicians Michael Hearn of Zurich (left) and Brandon Downey of Mountain View, California (right). [Photos: Google Plus / Twitter]
Image via matthewkeys.netThe Sketch Illustrating How The NSA And GCHQ Intercept Data From Google And Yahoo
The Programme Under Which NSA Hacked Into Google Is Codenamed ‘Muscular’. It Has Been Described As “Unusually Aggressive”
The programme, codenamed ‘Muscular’, has been described as “unusually aggressive” and has contributed to the speedy deterioration of relations between the US government and the country’s tech giants.
theguardian.com
While Google has declined to comment publicly on the revelation, Hearn's post has been widely circulated by other staff at Google, suggesting a groundswell of anger inside the company over the actions of GCHQ and the NSA.
The fiber-optic networks connecting Googles' sites can run at speeds more than 200,000 times faster than a typical home Internet connection. Photograph: EPA
Image via guim.co.uk