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It's worth pointing out the companies in question were communications companies, and if anyone in the world has foreign signals intelligence agencies that is ex

It's worth pointing out the companies in question were communications companies, and if anyone in the world has foreign signals intelligence agencies that is exactly what they're going to be targeting, not for economic reasons but to maintain future capability. The CEO that was surprised by this revelation is simply incompetent or lying. (Or both). If you work on satellite ground stations you're in the game and need to act appropriately.

poulson 13y ago
What makes satellite communication special? Is it okay to monitor the CEO of every communication company? If so, is it any different for non-US governments to monitor the CEO's of US tech companies?
- fidotron 13y ago
  I would bet that foreign countries (at least China, Russia, Israel and France) are at least trying to, and any competent CEO of an international communications company should be taking reasonable measures to protect their own and their clients confidentiality. Arguing the rights or wrongs of the agency action misses the point: it's inevitable that someone is going to try it, so take counter measures. This is why in the fuss over the NSA we shouldn't ignore the fact that Google, Facebook etc. are encouraging bad security practices by creating giant repositories of everyone's information. It just happens, this time, to be the NSA, but it could be any government, or even organised crime, and the only ways to stop all of them are by acting prudently in the first instance.
Zigurd 13y ago
16 employees, including engineers were targeted. No prizes for guessing how one becomes a cooperating company in PRISM and similar programs if the CEO says "No."
sentenza 13y ago
So even though the US is allied to the state I am a citizen of, should I ever work for any sort of communications company, I'll be fair game for US intelligence services. Got it. For practical purposes, the alliance is worthless then.
- colechristensen 13y ago
  Though it seems states used to act more publicly ashamed of it, espionage has been a part of the interactions between states allied or not since the beginning of time. Suggesting otherwise is incredibly naïve as is supposing military alliance with the United States is worthless.
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    How many senior managers of US telecom firms do you suppose the German sigint service owns?
  - sentenza 13y ago
    Games on the big board are irrelevant compared to the intelligence service of a nation state ripping your life appart because they want your access credentials to do some industrial espionage. Because this is what this is. A nation state coming down with all his power on some of us worthless pawns because we work in otherwise harmless infrastructure businesses. How is that being compensated for by the abstract benefits of an allegiance in "the war of the systems" or some other bullshit.

poulson 13y ago

What makes satellite communication special? Is it okay to monitor the CEO of every communication company? If so, is it any different for non-US governments to monitor the CEO's of US tech companies?

fidotron 13y ago
I would bet that foreign countries (at least China, Russia, Israel and France) are at least trying to, and any competent CEO of an international communications company should be taking reasonable measures to protect their own and their clients confidentiality. Arguing the rights or wrongs of the agency action misses the point: it's inevitable that someone is going to try it, so take counter measures. This is why in the fuss over the NSA we shouldn't ignore the fact that Google, Facebook etc. are encouraging bad security practices by creating giant repositories of everyone's information. It just happens, this time, to be the NSA, but it could be any government, or even organised crime, and the only ways to stop all of them are by acting prudently in the first instance.

Zigurd 13y ago

16 employees, including engineers were targeted. No prizes for guessing how one becomes a cooperating company in PRISM and similar programs if the CEO says "No."

sentenza 13y ago

So even though the US is allied to the state I am a citizen of, should I ever work for any sort of communications company, I'll be fair game for US intelligence services. Got it. For practical purposes, the alliance is worthless then.

colechristensen 13y ago
Though it seems states used to act more publicly ashamed of it, espionage has been a part of the interactions between states allied or not since the beginning of time. Suggesting otherwise is incredibly naïve as is supposing military alliance with the United States is worthless.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  How many senior managers of US telecom firms do you suppose the German sigint service owns?
- sentenza 13y ago
  Games on the big board are irrelevant compared to the intelligence service of a nation state ripping your life appart because they want your access credentials to do some industrial espionage. Because this is what this is. A nation state coming down with all his power on some of us worthless pawns because we work in otherwise harmless infrastructure businesses. How is that being compensated for by the abstract benefits of an allegiance in "the war of the systems" or some other bullshit.