A year ago, the NSA had easy access to spy on people by the internet. They had found holes in software and in the encryption of some of the largest companies. The NSA wasn’t shy about exploiting them. The NSA would routinely strong arm companies for data without a warrant for the data. After last year’s Edward J. Snowden’s revelation, many of the top companies have gone out of their way to make it harder for the NSA to get this data.
According to the NY Times, companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and Microsoft are beefing up their security. They are racing each other to see who can be the most protected and in the fastest time. They are very aware of the holes in their security that were exploited previously. They have added encryption to make it extremely difficult for anyone to hack their data. In fact, Microsoft will have a 2,048-bit encryption out for all of their products by the end of the year.
The Telecommunications companies have been doing similar things over the last year. These companies are more likely to push back against governmental requests (from all companies) and fight to keep the customer’s information and data private. If you want information, then you will need a warrant to to get it.
I would hope these companies took this stance because they believe that privacy should be protected even when people have nothing to hide. But it appears the motivation for many of the companies was financial (which is something companies need to examine). Confidence in those products and companies have been affected by the Snowden scandal (no matter what you think of Snowden).
It appears much of the pressure to change and beef up security is coming from other countries. These large companies are loosing business all over Asia and Europe and South America. I personally find it very sad that our citizens didn’t make a huge commotion about these leaks and security problems to cause these companies to react. The United States is suppose to be the example of freedom and privacy.
Stay Geeky My Friends!
