Published via T: 2014-01-02 17:36:38
Early this month, Microsoft declared that ”government snooping potentially now constitutes an ‘advanced persistent threat,’” a statement that became ironic this weekend, given that, early this month, Microsoft likened government surveillance to “sophisticated malware and cyber attacks.”
My Two Cents
Nice to see Microsoft defining the NSA as an Advanced Persistent Threat!! This article even compares them to Chinese Hackers. As both the NSA and Chinese Hackers impact US Citizens, they are quite different. At least the NSA ostensibly wears the White Hat and tries to protect us from harm. Chinese Hackers which seek to gather sensitive intelligence and exploit US corporate interests, these two groups are at different ends of the spectrum.
Interesting side note, the US Government has been Microsoft's biggest customer for many years. So many angles to the NSA snooping stories. Almost every one of them as bad as any of our most paranoid fears. Now almost 6 months after the first Snowden releases, collection of metadata is child's play compared to Prism, XKeyscore, Tempora, Dropout Jeep, TAO and more is to come. The current releases allegedly comprise only 1% of the treasure trove of data / documents pilfered by Snowden and in the hands of The Guardian.
