[Vision2020] NSA Popping the Technology Bubble

Wed Aug 6 15:53:07 PDT 2014

By all means Scott, let's kill the messenger.

Nonsense!

Our government did this and it's on them. Bad analogy to legitimate company secrets.

Sunil

Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 14:40:07 -0700
From: paul.rumelhart at gmail.com
To: scooterd408 at hotmail.com
CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] NSA Popping the Technology Bubble

I thank Snowden for catching them with their hands in the cookie jar.  He doesn't bear responsibility (in my opinion) for the pushback our country is seeing from foreign interests based on what was released, responsibility resides with those who thought it was a good idea in the first place.

They could have followed the rules and only spied on people involved in an actual investigation who weren't US citizens in-country, but they had to go completely overboard.  That's their real problem, as I see it.  They decided that they couldn't know who was a terrorist so they felt they had to assume that everyone was one and act accordingly.

Paul

On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 2:06 PM, Scott Dredge <scooterd408 at hotmail.com> wrote:

Does Eric Snowden get any thanks as well for this supposed $180B in lost revenue?  Seems he should at least get partial credit for getting the word out.  It's not unprecedented that entire companies have gone belly up when their secrets have been revealed to the outside world as well.  This is why Apple plays their cards so close to the vest.

Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 13:09:12 -0700
From: paul.rumelhart at gmail.com
To: vision2020 at moscow.com

Subject: [Vision2020] NSA Popping the Technology Bubble

An estimated $180B in lost revenues to US technology firms, with more on the way.  Thank you, NSA.
Paul

From: http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/NSA-US-data-revenue/2014/08/06/id/587145/

NSA Popping the Technology Bubble

            Wednesday, 06 Aug 2014 08:24 AM

            By Patrick Watson

Whatever you think about Edward Snowden, there is no doubt his 
revelations from inside the National Security Agency (NSA) rocked the 
technology sector. The consequences are still unfolding more than a year
 later — and a new independent report says much more is coming.

U.S. technology leaders like Microsoft (MSFT), Cisco (CSCO) and 
International Business Machines (IBM) are in a nearly impossible 
position. They have to tolerate whatever secret "requests" the U.S. 
government makes, both for legal reasons and because Uncle Sam is a huge
 customer.

At the same time, they need overseas revenue to meet their growth 
targets, and it is practically impossible to convince foreign leaders 
that their sensitive data is safe and secure in American hands.

Cisco, for example, openly admitted last year that Snowden was a big 
reason for the firm's 10 percent revenue drop. The situation hasn't 
improved since then. Qualcomm (QCOM), IBM, Microsoft and others all 
blame the "Snowden effect" for lost business in China.

Even some U.S. allies are turning their backs on our technology firms. 
The German government cancelled a data services contract with Verizon 
(VZ) in June because it no longer trusts the company to protect its 
network from NSA spying.

Brazil awarded a $4.5 billion contract for fighter jets to Sweden's Saab
 instead of Boeing (BA), which had fought hard to win the job.

Last week, the New America Open Technology Institute released a report 
outlining the economic damage of NSA spying. They make an important 
point that many observers overlook. The perception that U.S. companies cooperate with the NSA is just as important as the reality.

Whether these companies knew what NSA was doing or cooperated really 
doesn't matter. What matters is that a good portion of the world is 
rightly suspicious of them. Regaining the lost trust will take years, 
even decades.

Meanwhile, foreign competitors wasted no time exploiting this new perception.
 In some cases, their own governments are pushing them along with "data 
localization" requirements. Brazil, Germany, Russia, India, Greece and 
others are moving to require private data stay within their borders.

The once-open Internet is fragmenting into smaller pieces that cannot 
operate with the global scale U.S. leaders envisioned. Our government's 
insane drive to penetrate every network in the world is making the world
 slam the door in our face. 

One could argue that this is a small cost if it protects the United 
States from terrorism. We can't know if it does or not. We can know that
 the direct costs to the U.S. economy are enormous and growing. The 
technology sector is our crown jewel — and now most of the world is 
looking elsewhere. 

The result will be slower growth for U.S. tech companies, especially the
 cloud-computing segment. Some estimates peg the amount of lost revenue 
at as much as $180 billion during the next three years.

The NSA might be good enough to find the proverbial needle in a 
haystack. Unfortunately, it looks like they will use it to pop our own 
homegrown bubble. 

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