> So other governments have a backdoor to our government's backdoor... What stops China among others from being able to access this?
Nothing, and that's exactly what China was doing during Aurora and similar operations.
It's worth noting that Google posted incorrect/misleading information on their blog at the time of that incident as well. They claimed that the intrusions were motivated by China wanting to target human rights and freedom of speech activists, positioning them as a villain.[1] It ended with the same crap about pushing for freedom and transparency.
A few months ago it was leaked that the actual motivations behind Aurora were that China was using it to see which of China's spies were being monitored by the US government through the PRISM-like interface[2]:
""What we found was the attackers were actually looking for the accounts that we had lawful wiretap orders on," Aucsmith says. "So if you think about this, this is brilliant counter-intelligence. You have two choices: If you want to find out if your agents, if you will, have been discovered, you can try to break into the FBI to find out that way. Presumably that's difficult. Or you can break into the people that the courts have served paper on and see if you can find it that way."
[3]:
"As Google was responding to the breach, its technicians made another startling discovery: its database with years of information on surveillance orders had been hacked. ...
The most sensitive orders, however, came from a federal court that approves surveillance of foreign targets such as spies, diplomats, suspected terrorists and agents of other governments. Those orders, issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, are classified.
Google did not disclose that breach publicly, but soon after detecting it, the company alerted the FBI, former officials said."
Nothing, and that's exactly what China was doing during Aurora and similar operations.
It's worth noting that Google posted incorrect/misleading information on their blog at the time of that incident as well. They claimed that the intrusions were motivated by China wanting to target human rights and freedom of speech activists, positioning them as a villain.[1] It ended with the same crap about pushing for freedom and transparency.
A few months ago it was leaked that the actual motivations behind Aurora were that China was using it to see which of China's spies were being monitored by the US government through the PRISM-like interface[2]:
""What we found was the attackers were actually looking for the accounts that we had lawful wiretap orders on," Aucsmith says. "So if you think about this, this is brilliant counter-intelligence. You have two choices: If you want to find out if your agents, if you will, have been discovered, you can try to break into the FBI to find out that way. Presumably that's difficult. Or you can break into the people that the courts have served paper on and see if you can find it that way."
[3]:
"As Google was responding to the breach, its technicians made another startling discovery: its database with years of information on surveillance orders had been hacked. ...
The most sensitive orders, however, came from a federal court that approves surveillance of foreign targets such as spies, diplomats, suspected terrorists and agents of other governments. Those orders, issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, are classified.
Google did not disclose that breach publicly, but soon after detecting it, the company alerted the FBI, former officials said."
[1] http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china...
[2] www.cio.com/article/732122/_Aurora_Cyber_Attackers_Were_Really_Running_Counter_Intelligence
[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/chines...