Secret service using our computers?

[haide...@gmail.com]

See article below:

I just wanted to check that google compute isn't donating processing
time to the secret service, I've got no problems with helping decode
protein mappings, but i'd rather not help the secret service. Google
won't be donating/selling processing time to them will they?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6098-2005Mar28_3.html

In the meantime, the agency is looking to partner with companies in the
private sector that may have computer-processing power to spare, though
Lewis declined to say which companies the Secret Service was
approaching. Such a partnership would not endanger the secrecy of their
operations, Lewis said, because any one partner would be given only
tiny snippets of an entire encrypted message or file.

[bast...@gmail.com]

You should feel safe; it would be very difficult to attempt decryption
of encrypted messages over a distributed computing network with an
architecture similar to that of Google Compute. This is simply because
it would take super-computers a good chunk of time to decrypt one
message; imagine the amount of time it would take to decrypt one on a
regular computer!

The fact that Google Compute displays progress, downloads new packets,
and sends away completed ones shows that it is working on something
that is feasible for standard computers.

Have no fear, the secret service/NSA isn't hijacking your computer.
Yet.