Comment by throwaway478484
6 months ago
If Google’s services can respond to queries, they must be able to read them.
If A uses a cereal box cipher and B has a cereal box cipher, B can can make sense of encoded messages A sends them, A can ask about the weather, and B can reply with an encoded response that A can decode and read. B is able to read A’s decoded query, and B knew what the weather was, and responded to A with that information.
Security is not magic.
What do you think fully homomorphic encryption is, then?
This is pointless, but I'll try anyway.
Yes, they can read both. But it's just gobbledygook to them. If you send them a "nonsense" query, they can reply with a "nonsense" response which is actually carefully computed to be something you can make sense of. But they can't make sense of it other than that it should be a relevant to the query you sent them.
The thing that you find magical is not only actually possible but implemented and in use! What a day for you! Enjoy it, this is a rare event :-D