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Comment by xcnm3 | Hacker News Reader

Given the close relationship between Google and the NSA, I suggest they are removed from the IETF until further notice. I would trust Microsoft more than the snake oil Google produces.

No surprise they've opted for a binary protocol rather than ASCII, anything to reduce transparency

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Microsoft has been just as cooperative with the NSA as Google. They have access to Bing and Skype.

> No surprise they've opted for a binary protocol

Independent of the reasons behind doing so, I too have a problem with that. I you're interested, I've opened an issue on it [0].

[0] https://github.com/http2/http2-spec/issues/169

A Microsoft employee is the editor on this document.

Also, how is binary protocol used to "reduce transparency" ? Its simply a different way of encoding, and once this takes off there will be a vast set of tools for analyzing http/2.0. The purpose of binary is to reduce data transmitted.

What close relationship between Google and the NSA are you referring to?

Google providing direct access to their servers and infrastructure. Every Google service was open to the NSA; GMail, Google Drive, Google Talk, you name it.

And the evidence for this is?

Please read the leaked information from Edward Snowden. I don't wish to paraprase the last few weeks of news for someone.

It's a rhetorical question. None of the leaks provide any evidence that Google actively cooperates with the NSA in any way. No evidence of equipment at Google data centers, no evidence of any kind of remote access for the NSA, other than the already existing legal channels.

The claim that Google had foreknowledge of PRISM, or worked with the NSA to build some kind of firehose for them is unsupportable given what we know, and is pure speculation on your part.

Thus, the claim of close cooperation with the NSA is frankly, ad hominem.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Given what's come out about the NSA, it's much more plausible to assume that Google is cooperating with them.

FYI, Microsoft joined PRISM first:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-...

If we really want to get into the FYIs here, PRISM is not some network intrusion tool designed to siphon data away form large companies, it's just a stupid database where governmental agencies can throw their data obtained by either NSA letters, or a standard bench warrant.

Much like IAFIS is a standard database operated by the FBI.

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