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Google security engineers to NSA: ‘F**k you’

In the wake of revelations that the NSA hacked into Google and Yahoo servers, engineers lash out on social media.

 

Joe Kloc

Tech

Posted on Nov 6, 2013   Updated on Jun 1, 2021, 2:30 am CDT

After reading that the National Security Agency tapped into the cloud servers of Google and Yahoo without either company’s knowledge, two Google employees lashed out on, you guessed it, Google+.

“I’m just going to share my thoughts on this,” wrote network security engineer Brandon Downey. “Fuck these guys”.  

“I’ve spent the last ten years of my life trying to keep Google’s users safe and secure from the many diverse threats Google faces,” Downey added.

“[It’s] just a little like coming home from War with Sauron, destroying the One Ring, only to discover the NSA is on the front porch of the Shire chopping down the Party Tree and outsourcing all the hobbit farmers with half-orcs and whips. “

Mike Hearn, a security technician in the U.K. echoed Downey’s sentiments. Literally:

“I now join [Downey] in issuing a giant Fuck You…In the absence of working law enforcement, we therefore do what internet engineers have always done – build more secure software. The traffic [in the cloud] is now all encrypted and the work the NSA/GCHQ staff did on understanding it, ruined.”

There’s no shortage of people outraged about the NSA’s clandestine infiltration of Google’s servers. But perhaps no one is more annoyed than the engineers whose job it is stop them.

H/T Business Insider | Photo by Robbie Van Arsdale/Flickr

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*First Published: Nov 6, 2013, 4:27 pm CST