Google enhances encryption technology for email
Google enhances encryption technology for email
Associated PressBy EILEEN SULLIVAN | Associated Press – 3
hrs ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Google has enhanced the encryption
technology for its flagship email service in ways that will make it harder for
the National Security Agency to intercept messages moving among the company's
worldwide data centers.
Among the most extraordinary disclosures in documents
leaked by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden were reports that the NSA
had secretly tapped into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and
Google data centers around the world.
Google, whose executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, said in
November that he was outraged over the practice, didn't mention the NSA in
Thursday's announcement, except in a veiled reference to "last summer's
revelations." The change affects more than 425 million users of Google's
Gmail service.
Yahoo has promised similar steps for its email service by
this spring.
Google and other technology companies have been outspoken
about the U.S. government's spy programs. The companies are worried more people
will reduce their online activities if they believe almost everything they do
is being monitored by the government. A decline in Internet use could hurt the
companies financially by giving them fewer opportunities to show online ads and
sell other services.
"Your email is important to you, and making sure it
stays safe and always available is important to us," Nicolas Lidzborski,
Gmail's security engineering lead, wrote in a blog post.
Lidzborski said that all Gmail messages a consumer sends
or receives are now encrypted.
"This ensures that your messages are safe not only
when they move between you and Gmail's servers, but also as they move between
Google's data centers — something we made a top priority after last summer's
revelations," Lidzborski wrote.
The NSA has said it only focuses on targets with foreign
intelligence value.
A secret Jan. 9, 2013, accounting indicated that NSA
sends millions of records every day from Yahoo and Google internal networks to
data warehouses at the NSA's Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters, according to
documents released by Snowden and obtained by The Washington Post last year.
The NSA's principal tool to exploit the Google and Yahoo
data links is a project called MUSCULAR, operated jointly with the agency's
British counterpart, GCHQ. NSA and GCHQ are copying entire data flows across
fiber-optic cables that carry information between the data centers of the
Silicon Valley giants, the Post reported.
President Barack Obama has promised to consider changing
some of the surveillance programs that Snowden disclosed. But the type of
surveillance Google is trying to prevent by improving its encryption technology
is not among the reforms Obama has discussed.
Google and other technology companies provide information
to the NSA and other government agencies when required by a court order.
"Google is making it tougher for the government to
spy on its customers without going through Google," said Chris Soghoian, a
senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union.
"There are still ways for NSA to spy on the bad
guys," Soghoian said. "But this will prevent them from spying on 500
million people at once."
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