Google CEO Says User Data Safe From NSA

Google's chief executive officer is promising Google users that their data is safe from the prying eyes of National Security Agency (NSA) officials. Eric Schmidt made that claim before a large audience at the South by Southwest Interactive conference, which is being held in Austin, Texas.

When asked how he felt after it was revealed that the NSA had worked with Britain's top surveillance agency, the GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) to infiltrate Google's data centers, Schmidt admitted that he was shocked.

"The very fact that they did this was very suspicious to us," Schmidt said.

Google: 2,048-bit Encryption Key to Protecting Data

When asked what other companies should do to protect their data from the government, Schmidt said the key was "to encrypt data more."

Schmidt went on to say that his company has made significant strides towards protecting its users' data from the National Security Agency. "The solution to this is to encrypt data at multiple points of source," Schmidt said. (Source: techhive.com)

"We now use 2048-bit encryption. We switch the [encryption] keys at every session. We're pretty sure that any information that's inside of Google is safe from the government's prying eyes, including the U.S. government's."

Cracking Google's 2,048-bit Key Highly Unlikely

Until recently, Google used 1,024-bit encryption.

Many security experts consider 2,048-bit encryption an important step forward, especially for companies like Google. It represents twice the level of protection offered in the past, though the time to 'crack' such a key would take considerably longer (it would not simply scale on a factor of '2').

Mathematically speaking, a 2,048-bit encryption key is equivalent to a 617-digit number, though the key itself would consist of a series of upper and lower case letters and numbers, all sequenced together. According to digitcert.com, "2048-bit keys are 2^32 (2 to the power of 32) times harder to break ... than 1024-bit keys." Cracking a 2048-bit certificate would take an estimated 2.2 GHz standard desktop computer "4,294,967,296 x 1.5 million years ... Or, in other words, a little over 6.4 quadrillion years [to compute]." (Source: digicert.com)

Of course, it's still possible to speed up processing time using a 50,000 core super computer, such as those offered by Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud ("EC2"). That said, the computing time required would still be astronomical (not to mention extremely costly), and that's besides the fact that Google changes their encryption keys every session.

So in other words, it's not likely going to happen any time soon.

Government, Corporate Leaks a Concern

Although he's clearly leery of government surveillance and admits that Google is generally supportive of an open and free Internet, Schmidt says he also has his concerns about those people, like Edward Snowden, who leak sensitive corporate and government information to the public.

"I don't think we want random people leaking large amounts of data," Schmidt said. "I don't think that serves society." (Source: techhive.com)

What's Your Opinion?

Do you feel comfortable knowing your information is protected by Google's powerful 2,048-bit encryption? Or do you think there are other ways that the NSA could easily pry through and circumvent such defenses? What's your position on those who leak corporate or government information (such as Edward Snowden)? Do you agree with Google CEO Eric Schmidt that people like Snowden are a threat to society?