Comment by mef
12 years ago
By releasing the documents in this order, they give government officials just enough rope to hang themselves by prompting them to defend themselves by making statements about what they do and do not do, and then releasing new documents directly contradicting those statements.
In a weird way, it actually motivates them to tell the "whole truth" because they don't know what documents will be released later so they don't know what lies to tell.
Yea, but as collateral damage, the rope hung the tech companies and damaged their brands by who knows how much.
They deserve to have their brands damaged.
They didn't do their due diligence in encrypting data going through leased fibers -- they should have had the foresight to realize what a phenomenally bad thing this was. They didn't, hence why I'll never trust them again.
Do you also blame your car company when a thief breaks into it? Do you never trust banks again if a bank robbery happens? They were working on it, but full-on encryption everywhere within your internal network is expensive, and one tends to not imagine that buried dark fiber is dug up and tapped by one's own government.
Let's say that they encrypted everything, and then you learn the NSA had kidnapped the children of one of their network engineers and forced him to turn over some keys. Again, whose brand deserves to be damaged here, the company, or the immoral nation state with vast military industrial resources at its disposal?
Why do I sometimes get the feeling that people specifically want to hate on these companies when the real outrage should be for the government spooks.
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Supposedly the US government is tapping fiber they own. Would you fault someone for not having security between rooms in their home?
They also gave the NSA and co. front-door access, and probably knew about the back-door access, but couldn't do anything about it.
It may be the case that the tech companies need to have their brands damaged for the greater good, at this point. If it turns out that G and Y are operating in an environment (USA) where a rogue government endangers consumers and prevents legit business from being done, G and Y need to either remove themselves from that environment or fall.