3 ms·

It is certainly in the interests of the government and its spying agencies for the big monopolies to be successful. It must be a comforting thought to them to k

It is certainly in the interests of the government and its spying agencies for the big monopolies to be successful. It must be a comforting thought to them to know that if they bug just Apple and Microsoft, at a stroke they have over 90% of the population under effective surveillance.

higherpurpose 12y ago
It's a shame Apple became so cooperative with the government recently. They agreed to "share cyberthreat info" which could mean zero-days, and maybe much more, which we know how the government will want to use first (hint: not for security). My guess is Tim Cook agreed for the same reason Microsoft agreed to do the same thing long ago, and now again with the new program - to get government contracts, such as the one where Apple Pay will be used to get federal services and with the plan to use Passbook or whatever as driver license in the future. Apple actually announced this in the very same day they announced it will share cyber info with the government, so it's not even trying to hide it. I doubt Steve Jobs would've compromised the same way. As we've seen from the leaked Snowden charts, Apple only entered PRISM after Steve Jobs died. As for Microsoft, I won't even waste my breath. They would sellout anyone for an extra million dollars. They only fight against this stuff when it seems to be publicly damaging them, because they don't want to lose billions of dollars in revenue from abroad because of this issue. So they would have no problem giving US authorities data from abroad, as long as it's still secret. Once it gets public they will "fight hard" against the practice.
- JohnLen 12y ago
  Test
- sseveran 12y ago
  I believe Microsoft was one of the few companies to challenge the NSA in the early 2000s. If I recall correctly Ballmer thought that the NSLs would eventually become public and Microsoft needed to be on the right side of history by challenging them.
prawn 12y ago
At times, I have wondered if the government's murkiest depths are organised enough to have fostered growth and developments in these companies of the future. You know, get their tentacles in sooner rather than later.

higherpurpose 12y ago

It's a shame Apple became so cooperative with the government recently. They agreed to "share cyberthreat info" which could mean zero-days, and maybe much more, which we know how the government will want to use first (hint: not for security). My guess is Tim Cook agreed for the same reason Microsoft agreed to do the same thing long ago, and now again with the new program - to get government contracts, such as the one where Apple Pay will be used to get federal services and with the plan to use Passbook or whatever as driver license in the future. Apple actually announced this in the very same day they announced it will share cyber info with the government, so it's not even trying to hide it. I doubt Steve Jobs would've compromised the same way. As we've seen from the leaked Snowden charts, Apple only entered PRISM after Steve Jobs died. As for Microsoft, I won't even waste my breath. They would sellout anyone for an extra million dollars. They only fight against this stuff when it seems to be publicly damaging them, because they don't want to lose billions of dollars in revenue from abroad because of this issue. So they would have no problem giving US authorities data from abroad, as long as it's still secret. Once it gets public they will "fight hard" against the practice.

JohnLen 12y ago
Test
sseveran 12y ago
I believe Microsoft was one of the few companies to challenge the NSA in the early 2000s. If I recall correctly Ballmer thought that the NSLs would eventually become public and Microsoft needed to be on the right side of history by challenging them.

prawn 12y ago

At times, I have wondered if the government's murkiest depths are organised enough to have fostered growth and developments in these companies of the future. You know, get their tentacles in sooner rather than later.