Whether you consider Snowden a hero or a traitor, one thing is for certain: he revealed what is unquestionably the biggest scandal in US government history: NSA surveillance. While many books such as 1984 have used surveillance as a central theme, the US government says “not so.” Republicans and Democrats alike have both defended it, while promising reforms, but domestically and internationally, it’s not well received. German Prime Minister, Angela Merkel, was exceptionally upset by the incident, as her cellphone was one of the monitored devices.
Calls for Reform
Since the story broke about a year ago, big data companies like Google and Yahoo have had a very fluid response. Recently, they have decided to fight back, and have called for more government regulations preventing data intrusions from government entities.
Several of the larger companies such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and Google have collectively formed the “Reform Government Surveillance” in an attempt to curb the NSA’s warrantless spying. These companies have been hit the hardest in the public eye, and have been accused of giving the NSA a “backdoor into their servers.”
Declining Consumer Confidence
However, they have recently made security changes to prevent the NSA data collection. Some of the steps being taken by cloud providers are moving from HTTP to HTTPS and encrypting other types of data. Providers and tech giants alike are concerned that the NSA intrusion will be felt around the world, eating into their pockets, or that the consumer confidence will plummet and leave them looking for providers they deem guard their information more carefully. One source estimates the damage against cloud service providers at between 22 Billion and 35 Billion in lost revenues, especially from foreign countries.
What Does this Mean for Business?
The logical next question for businesses is the security of their operations. How can they be certain their cloud service provider will be safe from government intrusions? One very effective way to deter surveillance is encryption. Encrypting (and tokenizing) packets and data will make data capturing inconvenient enough that, in many cases, it is simply forgone.
The solution is not to abandon cloud providers, but rather embrace those that are actively making changes to restore privacy concerns. However, if you’re concerned with your privacy or data, we’re here to help. At Cutting Edge Recruiting Solutions, we retain elite IT staff in Fort Lauderdale to help with any of your cloud storage, big data, or encryption. Contact us today to see how we can help!
