Two Google network security engineers have openly lashed out at the US NSA’s, accusing the organisation of intercepting communication on cables connecting Google’s data centres.
Mike Hearn, one of the engineers, said infrastructure designed to safeguard against criminal behaviour had been undermined by the UK GCHQ and US government.
"In the absence of working law enforcement, we therefore do what internet engineers have always done – build more secure software," Hearn added.
The latest remarks come in the wake of recent reports that the US spying agency accessed data links used by Google and Yahoo to transfer emails among other data to data centres overseas.
Both of them have worked on developing an anti-hacking system, designed to keep criminals out.
"When it works, it represents as good a balance as we’ve got between the need to restrain the state and the need to keep crime in check. Bypassing that system is illegal for a good reason," he said.
He added: "I now join [Downey] in issuing a giant F*** You to the people who made these slides. I am not American, I am a Brit, but it’s no different – GCHQ turns out to be even worse than the NSA."
The other Google engineer Brandon Downey said that he spent the last ten years keeping Google’s users safe and secure from "many diverse threats".
"But even though we suspected this was happening, it still makes me terribly sad. It makes me sad because I believe in America," he said.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently described NSA snooping on data centres as ‘outrageous’.
