Bruce Schneier Points Blame for Google Hack on US Gov.

Well known security expert Bruce Schneier has written an article published in CNN pointing the blame on the US government for the hacking of human rights advocate’s Google accounts.

Schneier says it’s not surprising that Chinese hackers, or hackers from other countries for that matter, engage in attacks on corporate america and customer accounts of interest.

He says that what people are overlooking is it’s the fault of US government legislation that allowed Chinese hackers to take advantage of a backdoor entrance into Gmail accounts.

In the article Schneier explains,

China’s hackers subverted the access system Google put in place to comply with U.S. intercept orders. Why does anyone think criminals won’t be able to use the same system to steal bank account and credit card information, use it to launch other attacks or turn it into a massive spam-sending network? Why does anyone think that only authorized law enforcement can mine collected Internet data or eavesdrop on phone and IM conversations?

In the aftermath of Google’s announcement, some members of Congress are reviving a bill banning U.S. tech companies from working with governments that digitally spy on their citizens. Presumably, those legislators don’t understand that their own government is on the list.

This problem isn’t going away. Every year brings more Internet censorship and control, not just in countries like China and Iran but in the U.S., the U.K., Canada and other free countries, egged on by both law enforcement trying to catch terrorists, child pornographers and other criminals and by media companies trying to stop file sharers.

Schneier’s article bring up several questions, Is there backdoor access to your Gmail account that the US government can use to read your E-mail?

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If there were would you leave Gmail for another, hopefully more secure E-mail provider? Or would you stick with Gmail for the sake of convenience?

And what about government regulations for companies that forces companies to create a backdoor to begin with? Leave your thoughts in the comments.