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Could NSA be spying on technology companies to help competitors compete?

8 points by loceng ↗ HN
It's more likely to be an employee who might take advantage of this, though it makes me wonder if your company's technology-related emails safe then being talked about or other data shared online.

6 comments

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jka
Such as, for example, to help U.S.-based social networks and telecommunications providers to succeed in the face of competitors which might be more difficult to extract intelligence and data from?

I think it's plausible -- spy agency's incentives are to access as much communications as possible, and to be able to break into communications, and both of those would be massively helped by having big service players on your side (preferably ones which have lax internal controls and engineering policies).

I definitely remember a lot of skepticism about privacy and safety of information regarding data placed 'in the cloud' when the concept first appeared - it would certainly seem rational to keep your plans and designs outside of cloud systems if you worry about these kind of possibilities.

loceng
Yeah, that's unfortunate. I wonder if there's much of a business built around providing this solution for companies, "ready made."
junto
I seem to remember a German wind turbine company applying for a patent and finding out that an American company had shortly beforehand registered the same thing. I can't remember the details of who the companies were though.
loceng
With NSA surveillance it makes it a much more real of a possibility..