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0 pointspbhjpbhj2y ago0 comments

Wouldn't a Pixel phone be vulnerable to USA giving Google a 'national security letter' saying to make your phone remotely accessible with a personalised update, say? Google seem like they could - and if paid, would - readily do that whilst other companies could hide behind lack of resources or whatever.

I just assumed that USA three letter agencies paid larger companies upfront to implement back doors; seems to fit with past form. Why would they not do that. Indeed it always struck me the debacle with Huawei where USA government smeared then to prevent their equipment being used in UK was so that USA-manufactured equipment with USA-controlled backdoors would be implemented instead ... it might only have been financial protectionism but it just seemed too big a protest.

/tinfoilwrappedforfreshness

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AdamJacobMuller2y ago

Google could likely refuse this on the basis that rolling a personalized update for a single user would be an undue burden on them.

The particulars and thus validity would be for a court to hash out.

fsflover2y ago

According to Snowden't documents, Google is collaborating with NSA, so I think your point is moot.

px432y ago

No, according to the Snowden documents, the NSA spun up the MUSCULAR program specifically because Google was refusing to play nice. This was where they dug up dark fiber between Google data centers to tap into the information being sent between them. Within a month after the MUSCULAR leak, Google was encrypting all comms between data centers, which in theory, killed all the MUSCULAR taps.

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