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The world’s largest Internet search company and the world’s most powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the name of cybersecurity.

Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter. The objective is to better defend Google — and its users — from future attack.

Google and the NSA declined to comment on the partnership. But sources with knowledge of the arrangement, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information without violating Google’s policies or laws that protect the privacy of Americans’ online communications. The sources said the deal does not mean the NSA will be viewing users’ searches or e-mail accounts or that Google will be sharing proprietary data.

The partnership strikes at the core of one of the most sensitive issues for the government and private industry in the evolving world of cybersecurity: how to balance privacy and national security interests. On Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair called the Google attacks, which the company acknowledged in January, a “wake-up call.” Cyberspace cannot be protected, he said, without a “collaborative effort that incorporates both the U.S. private sector and our international partners.”

But achieving collaboration is not easy, in part because private companies do not trust the government to keep their secrets and in part because of concerns that collaboration can lead to continuous government monitoring of private communications. Privacy advocates, concerned about a repeat of the NSA’s warrantless interception of Americans’ phone calls and e-mails after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, say information-sharing must be limited and closely overseen.

“The critical question is: At what level will the American public be comfortable with Google sharing information with NSA?” said Ellen McCarthy, president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, an organization of current and former intelligence and national security officials that seeks ways to foster greater sharing of information between government and industry.

On Jan. 12, Google took the rare step of announcing publicly that its systems had been hacked in a series of intrusions beginning in December.

The intrusions, industry experts said, targeted Google source code — the programming language underlying Google applications — and extended to more than 30 other large tech, defense, energy, financial and media companies. The Gmail accounts of human rights activists in Europe, China and the United States were also compromised. So significant was the attack that Google threatened to shutter its business operation in China if the government did not agree to let the firm operate an uncensored search engine there. That issue is still unresolved.

Google approached the NSA shortly after the attacks, sources said, but the deal is taking weeks to hammer out, reflecting the sensitivity of the partnership. Any agreement would mark the first time that Google has entered a formal information-sharing relationship with the NSA, sources said. In 2008, the firm stated that it had not cooperated with the NSA in its Terrorist Surveillance Program. Hard money training.

Remembrance services are being held in the United States to mark the eighth anniversary of the hijacked plane attacks of 11 September 2001.

Nearly 3,000 people died when the four planes crashed in New York, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field.

Thousands of people gathered in a square near the Ground Zero site in New York, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed.

President Barack Obama will speak at the Pentagon site.

Americans have been encouraged to contribute to a national day of service.

US soldiers in Afghanistan completed a 9.11km (5.5 mile) run to mark the day.

‘Sacrifices of thousands’

Moments of silence are being observed at the sites.

President Obama will join defence secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon, where 184 people died, to meet members of victims’ families and lay a wreath.

U.S. government Web sites — including those of the White House and the State Department — have been under attack since the Fourth of July, along with financial and commercial sites like Yahoo Finance and the New York Stock Exchange, cybersecurity experts said Wednesday.

The Department of Homeland Security, which is one of the targets, according to a security expert, confirmed that the attacks were taking place.

Web sites in South Korea, including the president’s, were targets of the same attack, said Jose Nazario, manager of security research at Arbor Networks in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The Washington Post said it, too, had been attacked.

There is some indication that the attack comes from China, Nazario said, but he added that he could not be certain of the origin. Even if it is coming from China, it would be difficult to determine whether officials or individual hackers were responsible.

He said the attack was of moderate size, involving “a few tens of thousands” of infected computers “around the world.”

“We measured a peak of 25 megabits/second” in data transmission, he said, calling it “about the size of a big PowerPoint presentation, well in the garden variety of what we see.”

But other cybersecurity experts said that even if the current attack was not particularly worrisome, it was a window into potentially more serious problems.

Jim Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said that the attack was simple and primitive but that the fact that it worked on some agencies shows the government is still “disorganized.”

Some parts of the government were able to “beat this off,” while others haven’t, he said.