Tech Giants Playing Hardball or Shadow Boxing?

May 3, 2018

I don’t have a dog in this very confused kennel. “Tech Giants Hit by NSA Spying Slam Encryption Backdoors.” I must admit that I had to read the headline twice. I think the “real news” outfit ZDNet is stating that the US government is spying. Therefore, the “tech giants” want to make it more difficult for the US government to access messages of “tech giants’” customers.

I may be wrong, but “hit,” “slam”, and “backdoors” are words that suggest the US government is a pretty bad outfit.

Okay, what does the “real news” outfit assert? I noted this passage:

A coalition of Silicon Valley tech giants has doubled down on its criticism of encryption backdoors following a proposal that would give law enforcement access to locked and encrypted devices.

I interpret this statement as a “tech giants” refusing to help the US government access encrypted, obfuscated, or otherwise secret content generated, housed, or stored on the giants’ systems.

The problem is that I noted these two developments in the last week or so:

First, Amazon and Google are taking steps to prevent Signal from using these tech giants’ systems as a way to sidestep certain blocking actions. The spoof is up, if Amazon and Google follow through with their anti-Signal message.
Second, Facebook witnessed the departure of an advocate of strong encryption. The individual wanted to beef up encryption, and someone in charge of WhatsApp wanted looser encryption.

These two examples suggest that not all tech giants are hitting back at the US government. On the contrary, I could easily interpret these actions this way:

Amazon wants to become a player in policeware. The Signal move could be similar to one’s high school dreamboat fluttering her / his eyes at a potential prom date.
The Facebook move could be interpreted as the equivalent of Marc Zuckerberg donning a barb wire or hair shirt to demonstrate his willingness to do wear a digital cilice to atone for his alleged data sins.

Could there be cooperation among tech giants and the US government when certain issues such as national security come into play?

What do you think? Hard ball or shadow boxing. Getting hit by a 90 mile per hour pitch can hurt. Getting nailed by a shadow is comparatively tame.

Net net: I am not sure I buy into the “hit back” argument.

Stephen E Arnold, May 3, 2018

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under News, Technology

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.