A security technologist talks about a backdoor in Gmail

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419Eater is my life Joined: 11 Dec 2009 Posts: 316

quote:
...In order to comply with government search warrants on user data, Google created a backdoor access system into Gmail accounts. This feature is what the Chinese hackers exploited to gain access.
link: ..... http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/23/schneier.google.hacking/index.html

Not, that I am surprised, though it's nice to read it black on white ...

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

Here's his source - an anonymous insider.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9144221/Google_attack_part_of_widespread_spying_effort?taxonomyId=13&pageNumber=1

Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 2:51 pm

I would be wary of this information - is the very best Gmail could come up with an open door? Anonymous tipsters crop up the whole time in hoaxes, and that's what I'll regard this as until there's evidence to the contrary, myself.

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 7:09 am

Bruce Schneier is a professional acquaintance of mine. My own inclination is to give credence to what he says on this. He has a pretty large network of friendly sources as a result of his computer security work over the years.

He isn't perfect, but this isn't the sort of thing he tends to get off base about.

*shrug* FWIW, coming from someone you know nothing (or next to nothing) about. Smile

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:11 am

Interesting, but to be honest I don't think Chinese spies will be too interested in sorting through pictures of Nigerian criminals balancing on one leg while juggling fire torches from our baiter accounts.

Although, if it is true, for those who use gmail extensively it is a bit of a cause for concern...

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 1:32 pm

Interesting but not surprising. Although I doubt the Chinese just peeked at subject lines. They have probably got a very sophisticated intelligence gathering capability and IT warfare capacity ... we just don't know how good it is ... yet.

The US is the world's worst eavesdropper of all forms of telecommonucations on the planet and we help them do it with bases in OZ. I don't blame them at all ... it's just the way things are.

As far as lads and this news goes ... meh. I doubt the average lad knows how to crack into Google but with the sums of money involved in this crime, it's only a matter of time before they move onto it.

Mass mailouts are cheap, exploit the law of large numbers and bring in windfall sums of monbey already. Why bother changing a winning formula and risk drawing big player attention onto themselves?

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