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Google engineers issue 'fuck you' to NSA over surveillance scandal

Google engineers issue 'fuck you' to NSA over surveillance scandal

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Two Google engineers recently took to Google+ to give blistering public critiques of the ongoing NSA surveillance scandal.

Both posts come in the wake of last week’s Washington Post story that outlined the NSA’s clandestine interception of Google and Yahoo user information in a project codenamed MUSCULAR, in alleged conjunction with the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). The report, based on documents released by Edward Snowden, detailed how data is collected by the agencies, coupled with a diagram showing that now-notorious smiley face.

Brandon Downey, a security engineer with Google, was livid, saying:

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… But after spending all that time helping in my tiny way to protect Google -- one of the greatest things to arise from the internet -- seeing this, well, 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 British security tech based in Switzerland, followed up Downey’s screed by sending his own "giant Fuck You" to the NSA and GCHQ, stating how the traffic channels both agencies used in their intercepts are now encrypted.