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posted by janrinok on Sunday February 15 2015, @06:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the surprise-surprise dept.

The New York Times reports that President Obama met yesterday with the nation’s top tech executives and company officials on a host of cybersecurity issues and the threats posed by increasingly sophisticated hackers amid a deepening estrangement between Silicon Valley and the government. “What has struck me is the enormous degree of hostility between Silicon Valley and the government,” says Herb Lin. “The relationship has been poisoned, and it’s not going to recover anytime soon.”

American firms are increasingly concerned about international competitiveness, and that means making a very public show of their efforts to defeat American intelligence-gathering by installing newer, harder-to-break encryption systems and demonstrating their distance from the United States government. “In some cases that is driving them to resistance to Washington,” says Obama’s cybersecurity coordinator, Michael Daniel. “But it’s not that simple. In other cases, with what’s going on in China,” where Beijing is insisting that companies turn over the software that is their lifeblood, “they are very interested in getting Washington’s help.”

Silicon Valley execs have also been fuming quietly over the government’s use of zero-day flaws. “The government is realizing they can’t just blow into town and let bygones be bygones,” says Eric Grosse, Google’s vice president of security and privacy. “Our business depends on trust. If you lose it, it takes years to regain.”

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday February 15 2015, @03:59PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Sunday February 15 2015, @03:59PM (#145299)

    It should be no surprise that private businesses act threatened by the US federal government.

    As a general principle, this is a good thing. I have no love of the federal government, but private businesses need to see the government as a threat, or they will have no motivation to obey the law. After all, a corporation is a legal fiction, and is thus supposed to be subservient to government.

    If you don't like government policy, you can vote and lobby accordingly. If you don't like the policies of a private business (assuming you even know about them, which often you don't because they're all confidential trade secrets), you can choose not to interact with that business, but that doesn't spare you from any policies that affect even those who don't interact with them. Even being a stockholder isn't necessarily going to get you what you want - if you own 100 shares, and George Soros owns 100,000 shares, who is management going to listen to?

    As far as regulatory compliance costs go, that's part of the cost of being in any business, and those in that business voluntarily chose to enter that industry. If you're not willing to pay it, then you shouldn't be in that business. The demise of a business in an otherwise strong industry is not all that big a deal - somebody else buys up the assets, those who became unemployed get re-hired, and life goes on.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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