Read this.
The war for power between private enterprise and big government is now officially on. The following is only the surface of what is happening. The InfoCorps…the Googles and others…think that they can win. I’m betting that they are correct. In fact, I think that the war is just now heating up. They are no longer going to play the lobbying/funding/compromise game. Instead, they are simply saying “Fuck you, federal acronym suckers. Dis is business, you incompetent knuckleheads!!!”
Read on.
I mean…really. When was the last time you heard a U.S.-based Big Corps business compare an arm of the U.S. federal government to an “advanced persistent threat” from criminal enterprise and hostile governments?
Microsoft Vows to Combat Government Cyber-Spying
Microsoft is fed up.
After pleading with the U.S. government for more transparency concerning law-enforcement requests for user data and voicing its support for legislation that seeks to curb the National Security Agency’s (NSA) powers, Microsoft is weighing in on the controversy in the starkest terms yet. And the software giant signaled that it will make it tougher for any government to access or intercept user data on its cloud and Web services offerings.
Concerning the classified disclosures provided by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Brad Smith, Microsoft general counsel and executive vice president, expressed concern over the efforts of some governments to “surreptitiously collect private customer data.” Not only are they sidestepping IT security safeguards, he said in company remarks, but in his company’s view they are also circumventing “legal processes and protections.”
—snip—-
Smith likened the NSA’s activities to some of the most aggressive dangers faced by companies with an online presence. “Indeed, government snooping potentially now constitutes an ‘advanced persistent threat,’ alongside sophisticated malware and cyber-attacks,” he stated.
Just as Microsoft fortifies its cloud data centers against hackers and malware, the company is hoping to end government snooping by rolling out stronger user data protections.
Microsoft has vowed to move quickly in expanding its use of encryption in the wake of revelations that the NSA had access to the Internet traffic linking the data centers of major tech companies, including Google and Yahoo. Smith described the move as a “significant engineering effort, given the large number of services we offer and the hundreds of millions of customers we serve.”
According to Smith, Microsoft is instituting the following policies:
- Encryption is on, by default, for data moving between customers and Microsoft
- Customer content will be encrypted as it moves between data centers on all of the company’s “key platform, productivity and communications services”
- Microsoft will use “best-in-class” industry cryptography, including Perfect Forward Secrecy and 2048-bit key lengths.
- All customer data stored by Microsoft will be encrypted. Developers of third-party services running Windows Azure will have a choice but Microsoft will “offer the tools to allow them to easily protect data.”
Microsoft is also “working with other companies across the industry to ensure that data traveling between services–from one email provider to another, for instance–is protected,” said Smith. The company expects to have completed the overhaul by late 2014, although “much of it is effective immediately.”
In addition, Microsoft pledges to “reinforce legal protections for our customers’ data,” alerting customers when the government requests user data and challenging secret orders in court. Further, the company will continue to strive for greater transparency by opening “a network of transparency centers” in Europe, the Americas and Asia, said Smith.
In other words, Microsoft is declaring “cyberwar” on the NSA. Defensive cyberwar so far, but…hey…who’s counting? Sometimes offense is the best defense. Often, actually. Ask Dick Cheney for more on that. I mean…the entire U.S. military is labelled “The Dept. of Defense,” right? How much pure “defense” is that group of offenders really running? By extension, that means that Microsoft is declaring war on the United States, because the NSA and all of the other assorted intelligence/surveillance systems that are acronyming around in the news are now without any doubt whatsoever the dominant, controlling systems of the U.S. government. They know where all the bodies are buried and they control through various forms of blackmail and fear of disclosure. J. Edgar Hoover was an amateur compared to these guys. Bet on it.
I repeat:
Just as Microsoft fortifies its cloud data centers against hackers and malware, the company is hoping to end government snooping by rolling out stronger user data protections.
Translation:
Just as foreign governments fortify their data centers against hackers and malware, they also fortify them against enemy governments.
Same same. Bet on it.
The whole “cyberpunk” worldview…I use Gibson’s name in the title as a shortcut…is based on the concept that once the ultimate form of power changes…once it is no longer Mao Zedong’s “Power comes from the barrel of a gun” but more like “Power comes from the control of information,” vast multinational information systems that are more efficiently run than any form of government will begin to become the real rulers.
Just take a look at the Federal Government’s pathetic attempts at cyberworld work…say the whole Obamacare fiasco or the inability of the NSA to protect its activities and files from attack by a bunch of Generation X-ers sitting around computers smoking dope and eating pizza…and compare that to the ruthlessly efficient workstyle of infocorps like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and the rest. The only surprise is that the infocorps are just now beginning to realize that the feds are in reality simply a computerized version of a paper tiger, just as Mao Zedong realized about the U.S. military way back in the `50s.
Watch.
It’s on.
God help us all.
AG
