Thought my connection to Google was almost always under the HTTPS protocol... can someone explain to me how the NSA has broken SSL encryption to possibly THE largest internet company in the world?
I wouldn't trust Microsoft - the world's largest Trojan.
I guess you are saying that Google willingly allows the NSA to decrypt the data? What would Google have to gain there? Because they certainly have a lot to lose.
Knowing what web sites you go to, if you are otherwise interesting, is worth knowing even if they can't read the bits. Pen registers do that with phones, and that's valuable enough that there are legal protocols about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_register
Just because you can't eat the whole enchilada doesn't mean the beans aren't worthwhile.
A good argument can then also be that you should never trust emails outside your own provider? If you are sending to an @gmail to @gmail, you should be covered a bit better?
The burden of proof being so low here on HN on matters like this is alarming.
not even a little bit.
> Also, they are US-based, and have to comply with US cryptography laws
unless you're talking about sending encryption software to iran, huh?
Well, a little bit. The NSA is the largest employer of Mathematicians in the world, and excluding Universities, they own that title by a very large margin.
What are all of those elite nerds researching? Cryptography.