Google taps NSA and the whole world knows

Google has called on the NSA to help it ward off cyber-attacks, the Washington Post has reported.

Google has cited sophisticated attacks on its servers, originating from China and aimed at stealing its corporate secrets, as one of the prime reasons for its departure from the PRC.

This story says it is probably seeking help from the NSA to defend against future threats rather than investigate the earlier breaches.

Nothing says privacy alert more than the biggest holder of personal internet data hooking up with the world's biggest electronics surveillance agency. As you'd expect, Google says it won't share personal search information or access to email accounts. As you'd expect, EPIC has filed an FOI request with NSA.

But I'm more struck by the story itself. One of Google's quaint ironies is that it's intense secrecy. And the NSA is hardly known for issuing press releases. I'm guessing the leak is from Google. The only explanation is the obvious one - it's a warning to would-be hackers, including (especially?) the Chinese.

But a line in a John Markoff story in the New York Times also caught my attention.

A number of computer security consultants who worked with other companies that experienced attacks similar to those of Google have stated that the surveillance system was controlled from a series of compromised server computers based in Taiwan. It is not clear how Google determined that the attacks originated in China.

Good question. What did Google know about the attacks and when did they know them?