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TECHRIGHTS has been anything but a Google critic. However, when there is pretence and deception we should be honest and balanced enough to expand our scope and deal with GNU/Linux backers critically where they deserve it.
This Halloween it is reported that there is exceptionally high demand for masks bearing Edward Snowden's face. He sure helped change the way many of us view the world, and not just the digital world (although most of the documents he leaked address digital means of surveillance). NSA access to Microsoft stuff (all of people's data at Microsoft) is almost automatically implied, as Microsoft was the first company in the PRISM program and perhaps its main facilitator. Snowden showed documents that support these facts. There is no room for spin and no need for speculation; the raw material also eliminates bias that could be attributed to some reporters and their trustworthiness. Putting Microsoft aside (it's the biggest violator of privacy), Google and Yahoo! are in the news right now [1,2] because it is shown that the NSA secretly accessed Yahoo and Google datacentres. That's useful to know. This means that there is yet another reason never to host any sensitive data in the United States and by extension it would be unwise to work with north American Internet companies. They cannot guarantee privacy at all. Amazon, a CIA partner, even makes it very explicit in its terms of agreement.
"NSA access to Microsoft stuff (all of people's data at Microsoft) is almost automatically implied, as Microsoft was the first company in the PRISM program and perhaps its main facilitator."The NSA is not protecting the United States. It does the very opposite. It is destroying the reputation of many strong companies with talented people (hired from all over the world). The NSA is trying to save its own reputation by gagging critics [3], but the crimes speak for themselves and the Swedish Pirate Party accuses the NSA is treating Merkel (head of Europe's largest economy) like she is a terrorist or a paedophile [4]. Well, here in Manchester some acquaintances of mine are organising a CryptoParty [5], helping people to avoid snooping from the NSA and its British offshoots (at least two are known) which spy on Europe.
It's hard to escape surveillance when giants like Google and Yahoo won't tell the truth. They give a false sense of security/privacy. It really boils down to trust and this is why Techrights is hosted by CoPilotCo, which is managed by a guy who is very serious about security. He guards the hardware. He even does Bitcoin Secure Hosting. ⬆
Related/contextual items from the news:
The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials.
By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from among hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans. The NSA does not keep everything it collects, but it keeps a lot.