What if Marissa Mayer went to jail?

Dai SuganoWednesday at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer presented her company’s side of fighting the National Security Agency over requests to have a look-see at the data of Yahoo users. It’s a tough fight, said Mayer, and one that takes place necessarily in private. Mayer was asked why tech companies had not simply decided to tell the public more about what the U.S. surveillance industry was up to. “Releasing classified information is treason and you are incarcerated,” she said.

Go directly to jail?

No.

How would that work, exactly? Would black helicopters — silent black helicopters — land at Yahoo Intergalactic HQ and take Marissa Mayer away in chains? Wouldn’t that defeat the […]

By |September 12th, 2013|2013, Breaking News, Government, Internet, Privacy and Security|52 Comments
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Eisenhower, Snowden and the military industrial complex

eisenhower-farewellFifty-two years ago, three days before he left office and retired from Washington, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed the nation on television with what he called “a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts…” This came to be called Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex speech and was unlike any other address by Eisenhower or, indeed, by any of his predecessors. You can read the entire speech (it isn’t very long) here, or even watch it here, but I’ve also included below what I believe to be the most important passage:

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares […]

By |August 14th, 2013|2013, Government, history, Privacy and Security, Technology|57 Comments
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Fulfilling customer requirements is a weapon at IBM

ibm-300x158There are several new data points this week in the ongoing cratering of IBM as an IT vendor. The state of Pennsylvania cancelled an unemployment compensation system contract that was 42 months behind and $60 million over budget. Big Blue has been banned from the Australian state of Queensland after botching a $6.9 million SAP project that will now reportedly cost the people of Queensland $A1.2 billion to fix. That’s some botch. Credit Suisse analyst Kulbinder Garcha says IBM has a cash flow problem and downgraded the stock. At IBM’s Systems & Technology Group, management announced to employees a one week mandatory furlough at the end of […]

By |August 7th, 2013|2013, Companies, Government|130 Comments
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Is cyber insurance AAA for data or another back door?

GMCtowA few days ago I promised “tomorrow” a column about the future of data security. Then, just as the electrons were flowing on that DefCon column, I bought on eBay a 1978 GMC Royale motorhome in Bismarck, North Dakota that Channing and I have been trying to bring home ever since. We’ve so far broken down in Fargo, North Dakota (air suspension leak) and Brookings, South Dakota (ignition failure), but are now back on the road headed for California. We met Rick, the tow truck driver who used to be a rodeo bull rider, and Wayne Westerberg, the RV mechanic who gave up his Friday night to get us back on the road. Try Googling […]

By |August 4th, 2013|2013, Banks, Business, Finance, Government, Internet, Privacy and Security|46 Comments
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The origins of DefCon

malk+bunnyThis week we have the DefCon 20 and Black Hat computer security conferences in Las Vegas — reasons enough for me to do 2-3 columns about computer security. These columns will be heading in a direction I don’t think you expect, but first please indulge my look back at the origin of these two conferences, which were started by the same guy, Jeff Moss, known 20 years ago as The Dark Tangent. Computer criminals and vigilantes today topple companies and governments, but 20 years ago it was just kids, or seemed to be. I should know, because I was there — the only reporter to attend Def Con 1.

In those days there […]

By |July 30th, 2013|2013, Computing, Government, Internet, Privacy and Security|18 Comments
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