It has been my assumption that Facebook's and Google's core network and security teams are each a large crowd of embedded spies working for various intelligence agencies.
Think about it: You're a NSA/Mossad/MI5 NetOps operative. You can have access to a lot of information without risking your life, get paid by your agency AND google/facebook. What's not to like?
Wouldn't work well. Way too many of these companies key employees are not US citizens and many aren't in the USA at all.
Google, for example, has a large security team in Switzerland, with quite a few German and British employees. The NSA sees itself as a military organisation, it is bound by military rules.
> The NSA sees itself as a military organisation, it is bound by military rules.
What rules would that be? In the military, actively seeking (and using) information you have no right/classification to see is a serious offence. According to articles I've read, not a single NSA employee was disciplined for e.g. spying on their SOs or Exs.
Also: If the NSA doesn't have Swiss and German citizens working for it, it's not a very good intelligence agency. And we know for a fact that it is, at least as far as reach is concerned.
Why would that matter? Intelligence agencies have turned foreign nationals before. And in the case of a US/British cross-over, those intelligence agencies have intelligence sharing agreements.
They do. In fact, there goal is to find fresh college grads who are just good enough to potentially get hired in these firms then send them into the firms as spies.
