Chances are if you are an American living inside the United States that the NSA has created a personal file on you, this is nothing new. In fact the NSA has already admitted that of the roughly 321 million Americans living inside the United States that the agency has an official file on 300 million of us. For those of you whom are mathematically challenged that means there is is a 93% likelihood that the United States government has spied on and recorded you.
One of the main tools the United States government uses to spy on its own citizens is hacking. You may think to yourself, but isn’t hacking illegal? Technically yes you are right, but in response to that the government will simply respond “Patriot Act“. Under the Patriot Act, the Constitution and laws which govern every United States citizens literally do not apply to the United States government. You may have heard of a license to kill, well one of the privileges government agencies get to play around with as a result of the Patriot Act is a license to hack; and hack they do.
At the end of last week Google announced that over 1 million Gmail accounts were hacked by US government officials and that this behavior has been occurring for years. You might think these federally sanctioned hacks were aimed at criminals or suspected terrorists but you would be surprised, according to a direct statement from Google these hacks were also targeted against “activists, journalists and policy makers.“ So once again, chances are if you said anything at all about the United States in public or online, and had a Gmail account, you were hacked by the United States Government.
“Since 2012, we’ve warned Gmail users when we suspect they’ve been targeted by state-sponsored attackers. The users that receive these warnings are often activists, journalists, and policy-makers taking bold stands around the world.”
These warnings are much more significant than you realize. Later in the same blog post Google goes on to specify that “these warnings are rare – fewer than 0.1 percent of users ever receive them.” Just stop and think about this for a moment. Google itself admits it allowed the government to hack accounts but that they did try to warn SOME people about it…… The number of people Google warned was only one tenth of one percent of all accounts which had been hacked. Furthermore this “0.1%” of people warned still totaled more than 1 million accounts!
It does not take a mathematical genius to understand how those statistics are frighteningly insane! There is no stopping the United States government and the NSA. For the love of God if you own a Gmail account you need to close it ASAP, don’t even finishes reading this article and do it right now…….. Well maybe finish reading this article because we have a list of email subscribers you need to switch to for your own safety.
Ghostmail. This service allows you to sign up to an encrypted email service. The server is located out of Switzerland and offers free end to end encryption on all emails. The service also has a built in “self destruct mode” which when turned on will automatically delete any message after it has been read; Mission Impossible stye. At no point in signing up for this service are you asked to confirm anything or give away any personal information. Sign Up Here: www.ghostmail.com
ProtonMail. Another service which offers free end to end encryption who’s services are located in Switzerland outside of US laws and jurisdiction. Like Ghostmail, at no point in time are you asked for any personal information. If you are a fan of the Television hit “Mr. Robot” this is Elliot’s email of choice. Sign Up Here: https://protonmail.com/
Tutanota. This is another free encrypted email service that has become quite popular in recent times. It was announced just the other week that Tutanota just surpassed 1 million accounts, becoming the largest online encrypted email service on the internet. Tutanota makes their encryption code open source so security experts can confirm the level of security they will be receiving. Sign up Here: https://tutanota.com/
This article (Have a Gmail Account? Here Is Why You Need To Close It Immediately) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article using a creative commons license with attribution to the author and AnonHQ. Join the conversation at www.anonboards.com
I’m sorry, but I have to comment on this article. I support Anonymous 100% in its noble goals of shutting down ISIS, racists, and other harmful people to the American people and to Democracy. But this article is an exaggeration and not unlike the paranoid crap the Far-Right is putting out. It is hysterical nonsense. I’m very disappointed. I had thought that you – Anonymous – were better than that; that you were different.
You took a very positive step by Google – improving their security through notification of possible targets – and turned it into an hysterical “OMG! Everybody cancel your google account because you are going to get hacked by the NSA! Yes, you!!!!! The other stories that cascaded into this paranoid article use words like “may have been” and “could be”, and quotes stories from a year or more ago about how the NSA LOST its authority to spy on Americans – not OMG!There is no stopping the United States government and the NSA.!!!!!!”
Here is the original story that started it all, from Shane Huntley, Google Security Team, and Jonathan Pevarnek, Jigsaw Engineer. (Note that the 0.1% of Google accounts that were hacked were hacked by Foreign Governments) https://medium.com/jigsaw/the-most-important-gmail-update-you-ll-hopefully-never-see-673b8ffe539e#.n8tn4xf45
You can try to make me sound like tin foil hat fear monger all you want. I directly quoted Google’s own press release and gave the source in the article. Every statistic I presented, including statistics on the NSA is an absolute fact cited by sources included in the article. Those blue words are not in there for show.
The United States government is completely out of control with their spying, this is exactly why Congress had to step in last year and limit some of their power.
Judging by you post I am guessing you are affiliated at least in some way with Google. This post was meant to hurt your bottom line, you can try to discredit me and spin my words however you want. Google had to come out with this statement and try to save face by announcing “new security features” because they knowingly allowed all these hacks to occur in the first place. Google should be ashamed of itself and I hope more people now understand just how much google intentionally compromises peoples security.
I completely agree with Ava. Your “the skying is falling”freakout does nothing but spread fears. And I have NOTHING to do with Google.
I agree with Ava, I am “mathmatically challenged” yet I even know your stats are totally off. When I tell people I still write letters, they ask me…you mean by hand? And yes, I prefer to! I am 38 years old and I love to write letters there is nothing wrong with that. So tech & I don’t look good together but we will. And before tech. -some other thing was always an outrage to privacy and security. Do we really own anything?
Thanks for the information and reiterating your statements to those who oppose you without fraying from your original post.
Your paranoia and accusations are almost comical. No, I am not in any way affiliated with Google and there is no “bottom line” to be hurt. You have no idea how much you are discrediting the Anonymous movement with your baseless accusations and fear-mongering. The credibility of every member of Anonymous will be cast into doubt because of your loose rantings.
Thank you for the links.
If your son, daughter, mom, dad, grandpa, grandma, niece, nephew.. matter fact what if ALL of your loved ones were caught up because of the government and was sentenced to death or to life in prison. Would you still support their act? Would you still support the fact that the government has every right they can proceed with? They can cause a war with other countries, they can arrest you and ruin your whole existence in a blink of an eye. Do you think we were born into this world to suffer? Have you ever stopped to think about others feelings and why they committed the crimes they chose to do? Some turn to gangs for help, some turn to violence for help, drugs, money, matter fact some even turn to sexual activities for help. One thing I do not support is child endangerment or anything that has to do with our children. Why? Because im a single father and I love child dearly. Imagine, you’re poor… just you and your child with barely anything to eat, and you somehow manage to commit a small crime just to feed you and your childs mouth. And the government spied on you and shut you down. How would you feel? How would you react? The one who you strive for is now away from you. See whats wrong with many of you people is the fact that the media, technology, BILLS; They have everyone of you hypnotized for a reason. Why do you think they release something every couple months, some change in a technology yet so simple and similar. Wouldnt you think they have to test these things before giving it out to the public just a couple months after the recent device was released. its all to keep you busy. Why keep you busy? So you dont have a second to stop and look around you to notice whats around you..
From North Korea sending us threats and some take it as a joke, from NINE ELEVEN, to the Pentagon, From natural disasters, to extinction of wild life and human race.. Instead of all the violence that plagues us all, why dont you stop and think for a second and instead of the government using all the hard earned money that they take from us from Courts, Fines, FEEs, EVERYTHING they can tax us with.. it goes to what? Missles and Nukes, Outer Space? Are we benefiting from that? Do we get anything from their experiment? Maybe if they make everyone equal at a certain point, robberies would stop, starvation would stop, criminal activities would stop.. All the violence would stop. But have they ever tried? NOPE, Why? Because they are all one stop ahead of every single person in this planet. And how? The internet. Google themselves. Bing, Microsoft. They are all in it for what reason? FOR THE LOVE OF MONEY. They can careless if your loved one rotts in jail.. they can careless about anything you love as long as they are stable and safe. I am not applying this to the USA but to the whole world system. It isn;t fair anymore, I came to the USA thinking there’s a hope besides my poor country, but in reality… There’s secrets hidden and guess what.. Were all in it for the ride. Hackers this, Criminal that, Trafficking this, Someone stole that.. If government just stops wasting all their time on stopping these so called bad people.. why not stop and look at yourself for once? its been how many DECADES? Yet all these concerns still come up, no matter what you do.. take people away, put them to jail, ruin their whole existence. When deep down The government is the one who makes us all suffer. They are all so powerful right? So put an end to it, instead of throwing us away and revolving in this useless circle of life, why not help us? help us achieve whats right instead of throwing away the key and reading those useless things in that piece of paper about our rights. where are your rights? lol.. I find many of us so busy with life that everyone forgot how to share and how to love one another and appreciate the simple things. I go to a park with my daughter… I see kids playing by themselves while the parent is on their device on FB laughing or Instagram… how about your child? you think they like playing alone? Do you like to play alone? Stop and think about this for a second, and let it sink in.
may I share this comment?
What so if I log in ill be hacked
AnonHQ is not necessarily the Anonymous sect you are talking about, if you read into it ‘anyone can be anonymous’ therefore you can not directly link this article to those who are contributing the efforts you stated above.
It truly bothers me reading all of the comments on Facebook how many people are alright with the government doing illegal things. It does not matter if they do this for “national security.” The government must operate under the same laws and constitution every other citizen of that country operates under or else what is the point of having laws or the constitution!?
The federal employees who perform these illegal hacks are citizens of the United States first and foremost and must be held accountable to the same laws that govern everyone else in society!
We have a lot of laws and regulations compared to other nations. I actually feel guilty living in a free country. Have you lived overseas? traveled much? You might want to consider a wider worldview. I do not want to live in the U.S. forever, however, there are things I am oblligated to at this point. I am useless to anyone if I am unable to take care of myself but thats my own buisness. Not an excuse.
I have to agree with you as I have faced a similar situation while I was a studying and off-hand affiliated with an activist group. Although the threat wasnt there but the idea that my account had been hacked was alarming. I am not an American hence it became all the more scary and made me very uneasy as I lost hold of my account for more than a week.
All my contacts were on Google and it was really uneasy facing a week ban.
I wasnt affiliated with any religious group or hippy movement.
I decided to leave America soon thenafter. I have suffered on my career prospects but at least I feel safe and in control.
Dont get me wrong but spying on someone should be treated like a crime.
I rarerly use gmail and prefer physical exchange of information. It does add to the karma.
We are using machines at a breakneck pace and it is primarily the reason of most of the sufferings.
I dont imoly that you shouldnt use email but use it as a support rather ad the foundation. And dont build too high on the support, lest you don’t care of the fall.
I have to agree with you as I have faced a similar situation while I was a studying and off-hand affiliated with an activist group. Although the threat wasnt there but the idea that my account had been hacked was alarming. I am not an American hence it became all the more scary and made me very uneasy as I lost hold of my account for more than a week.
All my contacts were on Google and it was really uneasy facing a week ban.
I wasnt affiliated with any religious group or hippy movement.
I decided to leave America soon thenafter. I have suffered on my career prospects but at least I feel safe and in control.
Dont get me wrong but spying on someone should be treated like a crime.
I rarerly use gmail and prefer physical exchange of information. It does add to the karma.
We are using machines at a breakneck pace and it is primarily the reason of most of the sufferings.
I dont imoly that you shouldnt use email but use it as a support rather than the foundation. And dont build too high on the support, lest you don’t care of the fall.
I agree with you and appreciate the information. Any idiot knows that Google and Facebook are using our personal info against us, but no one listens because they don’t read the fine print when they sign up. But then, no one, like Available, is actually affiliated with anonymous, so her opinion is mute. Keep up the good work
If someone lives outside the US is there any similar dangers?
I discovered that Google works closely with the US state department so I’ve been questioning my google account ever since.
Yes even outside the United States you still are. I site for example the FBI and their active work against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The FBI is a domestic law enforcement agency that literally has no jurisdiction outside of US boarders. Yet this does not stop them from engaging in state affairs half a world away.
I agree
the countries national leaders are corrupt and do not care one little bit about the population at large except as to how we can continue to benifit them or not and have made this nation the foretold babylon in revelations chapters 17 & 18
Oh, here comes the bible stories!!! Geez! Go back to sleep all of you!! Wake up and quit polluting the world and your mind! Move to the hills if need be with your am radio’s and await… The answer to all the worlds problems is population control… And the governments in every country, illegally or legally have to track the general populous somehow…may as well be tracking the bad asses through their computers…
You’re a fucking idiot
Do you realize how what you suggest is overly exaggerated ? Only people who do what the government describe should follow your advice. Because it is not a “gmail account”. It is a “Google account”, giving you access to a lot of services that I bet your suggestions don’t have an alternative for it. Plus, if the government reads this article or something else, he can discover those alternatives you proposed and start hacking them ! I am definitely keeping my so-called “gmail account”, and I recommend everybody who has one to do it.
Let me say up front that I also see you as a tinfoil hat wearing fear-mongering crazy righteous. And I have nothing at all to do with Google.
Don’t follow Anonymous anymore if you feel you that way.
I think you vastly misinterpreted what the 0.1% means.
It is 0.1% of ALL users. All of them, INCLUDING the ones not hacked. It may very well be that 99% of the accounts hacked by governments are warned about it, because we’re not given a percentage of total accounts hacked.
Shame on you. Get your statistics right.
I have read and re-read the original press release by google: https://security.googleblog.com/2016/03/more-encryption-more-notifications-more.html
It is a bit ambiguous you are right. Perhaps it does mean 0.1% of ALL accounts as you say. But it also does not say how many accounts were hacked that did not receive this notification. 0.1% of account received this message but how many TOTAL accounts were hacked. Google admits to 1 million, this is not in dispute, but who knows how many they are omitting? Google does not address this in the press release.
I read it as 1 million accounts have been notified they have been hacked, this is why multiple news agencies have reported this statistic. This is also why Google is now announcing updated security features. Then when addressing the hacked accounts Google says 0.1% have been notified of a hack. These may be two separate announcements/statistics as you speculate or they may be joined together. Again Google never clarifies either way.
The FBI has announced they tracked the Syrian Electronic Army through gmail recently. Do you think google tipped of the Syrian Electronic Army they were being investigated by the FBI? I sure don’t and I think the same can be said about many other people who were not “reporters and activists”. I think Google only let the normal safe people who did nothing wrong know of these notifications.
So there is some truth to your statement and very well may be right, but my statements have not been proven wrong at the same time. The only answers are going to come from Google themselves….
But either way Google openly admits it compromised the privacy of at least 1 million people, most of which who did nothing other then express their opinions. Find 1 single person who has been hacked/compromised in the same manner on Tutanuto email…you wont find anyone. People really need to understand their rights and make an informed switch of service.
No, it’s not “ambiguous”, it’s really really obvious what it means. You just have to actually read it properly. They say several things:
1. That some of their users have been targeted
2. That they alert users that they suspect have been targeted
3. That the total number of users who receive these alerts is less than 0.1%
It’s really clear to someone reading it properly that Google is saying they alert *all* users that they suspect of being targeted, not just *some*. They say “warned Gmail users when we suspect they’ve been targeted”, not “we might sometimes warn you if we feel like it, but sometimes we just ignore it.” They say “fewer than 0.1% of users”, not “fewer than 0.1% of users who have been targeted”.
Government intrusion into their citizens’ privacy is bad, etc, but let’s not go around spreading misinformation and telling people things are hard facts that the people responsible to have openly admitted when we’re actually entirely misrepresenting what they said.
Of course Google could be misrepresenting their actions, and it could be true that they don’t always alert people, but that’s totally different from your original claim, which is that they are definitely only alerting some of those people, and it would be based purely on suspicion rather than on an admission from Google themselves, as you originally claimed.
Haha! Atleast im safe
Lmao! at the tinfoil thing
If what you say is true, the government has access to any account you have and closing your gmail account makes me think you have something to hide.
You should only delete accounts you wish not to use anymore.
whether or not you have something to hide is irrelevant. that’s like saying you don’t care about the freedom of speech because you have nothing to say
You shouldn’t use things you don’t have full and positive control over for “important” things (for relative values of “important”, mind…) because others may access it and use it against you at *ANY* time. And we’re not just talking about the Government misusing it.
I read all the comments currently posted as of 3-29-2016. I worked with email servers that sent and received 100’s of millions of emails per day. I have been doing that work for about 15 years now. Anytime I write something like that in a comment someone normally makes some wise crack but it just so happens to be the truth.
Here’s basically in a nutshell what I think about this subject. Everything I say is based on personal experience and not something I read.
In general email is nearly the most INsecure form of communication there is. Email was never designed to be used the way it is today. Without giving a history lesson, it was meant for some good ol boys and girls to pass messages back and forth when there were ten or twenty “email servers” online. So email’s foundation was/is built on sand.
I have seen account after account get hacked. When I would try to back trace the hacker more times than not the hackers ending ip was from China. Keep in mind that it is simple to use proxies to make it seem you’re from China. Many times when my back trace turned into a quest I was able to make connections between the China hacker and a USA government IP. how? I would have to write a book to explain. Oh, and these accounts that would get hacked were just normal people with normal emails. Keep in mind that I ran these servers and had access to everything if I wanted to look. These accounts that got hacked were not breaking laws or talking about breaking laws. Not even close. Ask me why they would want to hack into a regular person’s account…… I do not have a clue.
To be fair many accounts get hacked into by people I don’t think are the government. Most of the time it seems they do it to have a server to send out spam. Yet, in the certain accounts that I could tack back to a gov ip no spam was sent. Why? You tell me.
Unless an email is encrypted or sent through and encrypted tunnel it can be read by anyone who has access to the wire it passes through. Doing it is first grade hacking. Oh, gov makes sure they have access. Why would they? You tell me.
The longer an email sits on a server the higher the odds are that someone you don’t want to read it will.
Like it or not, it may seem like tin foil hat stuff but the gov does read or at least has access to……a lot of email. Why would they want to read my email about aunt sally’s new grandchild? I do not know but they do.
Does this article read like the sky is falling? Maybe. But if you could be in my seat you might never send another email. I hardly ever send email unless it’s business related and the worst secret I have is occasionally I pick my nose. I just don’t like the idea of strangers reading my emails.
Don’t get me started on the gov and forums and such. They scan these places constantly and most of the time they don’t even try to hide their ip. They run bots constantly looking for certain words and phrases and that is a bonafide fact.
What email reminds me of is the old phone party lines, if you’re old enough to remember those.
btw, i have a gmail account. i just accept that it is not private. To the commenter who thinks one needs to have something to hide in order to be upset…….. I have nothing to hide but I just don’t like the idea of anyone reading my private thoughts. So I just never put anything private in electronic communication because it’s the only way to avoid strangers reading it.
Keep sending your emails and pretend they are secure but I took the red pill many years ago.
I’m not closing down my Gmail I LOVE IT!
Why close it down? What have i got to hide NOTHING!
No one like mother no place like home true/false
Thanks for doing what you do….
Apathy is so dangerous….one day you wake up and wonder where your freedoms went.
I’d like to reply to this. The Patriot Act MAY be “allowing” the Constitution to “not apply” to the Feds, but this is a patent LIE told by the Government people.
Per Marbury v. Madison, any action, whether it be law, EO, or ruling, if it runs counter to the clear reading of the Constitution, as Amended, it’s VOID as far as the Law actually is concerned. The Constitution does not delegate authority to any of the three branches to exempt themselves from the Constitution. The Constitution does not delegate authority to any of the three branches to modify the Constitution except as provided in Article V of the same- which is to say that it’s by the Amendment process either by way of Congress or a Constitutional Convention of the States coming up given modifications to the Constitution and the States RATIFYING it.
Per John Bad Elk v. US, any actor within the Government not acting within their authority under Law (remember this and the previous statement…) are not acting as Officials within the same, but as Civilians under the eyes of the Law with all that which this entails.
Simply put, any actions of this nature are felonies outright. The Patriot Act is void for the purposes here as it’s VOID on this subject.
From what I have observed, people on the internet don’t help/care about anyone unless they get paid.
Now this might disgust you, but I hope you understand my reasoning. I believe the citizens and government should work together. I don’t like getting spied on, even Amazon suggestions make me uneasy, but I’m willing to work with the government. There IS a silver lining, it’s called common sense, don’t go calling the government your enemy, or your friend, jut work with who you can, there are good people in the government.
300 million! What. Even pre-schoolers??? And how many public servants are needed to keep track? And do they surveil themselves? This seems quite silly.
RT: Why Google May Be More ‘Evil’ than the NSA | Think Tank
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1th0L3jXN0
Then there is the issue of Gmail constructing psychological profiles of people based on their email:
All communication was subject to deep linguistic analysis;
conversations were parsed for keywords, meaning, and even tone;
individuals were matched to real identities using contact information stored in a user’s Gmail address book;
attached documents were scraped for intel — that info was then cross-referenced with previous email interactions and combined with stuff gleaned from other Google services, as well as third-party sources…
Eric Schmidt’s terrifying quote:
We don’t need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.
– Google – Rise of the Don’t Be Evil Empire
http://rebelpundit.com/google-rise-of-the-dont-be-evil-empire/
________
Google stealth downloading audio listeners onto every computer that runs Chrome
Google Chrome Listening In To Your Room ….., and transmits audio data back to Google
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2015/06/google-chrome-listening-in-to-your-room-shows-the-importance-of-privacy-defense-in-depth/
Just Be Evil: The unauthorized history of Google
https://www.corbettreport.com/just-be-evil-the-unauthorized-history-of-google/
There is ample reason to drop Gmail regardess of percentages off the mark or not, and frankly some of the comments are useful idiots or shills. Righteous is right, and the truth about Google is worse than most can imagine. Disregard such warning and get fucked over by your evil Google master, useful idiots….
The irony when anonymous talks of hacking being illegal
Thank you for this article. Keep up the good job!
Anonymous is a group, an idea, run by the intelligence agencies.
Anonymous is a trap designed to bait individuals into committing illegal activities.
Which individuals? We The People. ..the ones they are afraid of.
Those whom wish to stay truly “anonymous” ARE intelligence agencies.
WE THE PEOPLE, on the other hand, are INDIVIDUALS WITH IDENTITIES… And an individual with an identity CAN change corruption in government and corporations, not by hacking, but by upholding the constitution; TAKE THEM TO COURT.
Why plan a “Man in The Middle” attack?! when you can Be the man in the FRONT: (I know that sounds cheesy, but seriously)
File a lawsuit. Press charges. Collect signatures to get a bill passed. BE the change.
Criminal hacking = JAIL. Martin Luther King taught us to protest PEACEFULLY, to challenge authority LEGALLY, and to uphold the constitution of this great land so that it may now and forever BE just that, a great land!
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead
if the government was to put built in cameras on all smart tv’s and then say nobody can watch tv unless we can see who you are. and with all the couch potatoes in in the world. they would agree. i say this because a lot of people could care less that the FBI and NSA are spying on them.
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