The company is using the National Security Agency's words against it

Jun 5, 2014 09:13 GMT  ·  By

You can’t exactly say that Google doesn’t have a sense of humor. Between its doodles, the Easter Eggs and other jewels hidden within its service, you wouldn’t expect Google to refrain from mocking the NSA, right?

If you said no, then your answer the correct one, because if you look closely in the code for the brand new “End-to-End” Chrome extension that Google is working on, you’ll find the dig, although you may not notice it at first.

“SSL added and removed here :),” reads one line inside the code. This is a direct reference to one of NSA’s famous files in which it is described how the agency managed to infiltrate the connection between Google and Yahoo data centers outside the United States.

The file from the NSA is more like a doodle, written and drawn by hand, with an explanation about how the program works. Users, both on desktop and mobile connect to the Google Front End Server and are protected by SSL. This data should be encrypted as it enters Google’s data centers, but the NSA removes the SSL before it does, making traffic inside the cloud appear in clear text.

The entire thing is quite ironic since the NSA was working to get around one of the most popular forms of encryption and Google is now using its own words in the code behind a tool that is supposed to secure emails even more by making end-to-end encryption accessible to average Internet users.
The NSA file indicates how Google's data centers were breached
The NSA file indicates how Google's data centers were breached
Google has been offering SSL protection to users since it was launched, although the option didn’t become default until later on. Nowadays, anyone using Gmail is protected by this encryption standard, making the messages complete gibberish until they reach the destination.

“End-to-End” is a project that Google has developed and which is currently in the alpha stage. The company is inviting everyone to take a look at the code and check for bugs or security issues, going as far as to include it into the regular bounty program.

In recent months, discussion about the importance of encryption has become more important due mainly to the NSA scandal. It wasn’t long ago, after all, that media reports based on Edward Snowden’s files indicated that the National Security Agency was trying not only to crack all encryption out there, but also to create backdoors in the code deployed by various sources in order to make its life even easier.

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