[ This is a retrospective publication ]

It takes heroes like Edward Snowden to reveal how malicious governments can become. The Snowden revelations during the summer of 2013 showed that not only does everyone have to be wary of internet-based “threats”, but that those threats could be in the form of legally-appointed agencies seeking to catch out anyone who accidentally clicks something they shouldn’t.

Worryingly, despite the big players’ assurances of high levels of security, a post on Ars Technica discusses (and links to) slides created by the NSA, and leaked by Snowden, showing how Google’s international internet traffic was intercepted, analysed and understood – for a variety of its services. Thankfully, more heroes have recently stepped forwards with updates of their own.

My heroes today are +Brandon Downey and +Mike Hearn, who have voiced their contempt for the authoritarian misuse of power with, as we like to call it, the two-fingered salute (this would be one finger in the US…).

Google, too, has a data-collection objective

Let us not forget who Google is and what it does.  Yes, while its employees might be upset that their systems’ security has been brought into question, their employer’s mission “is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”.  So Google, too, has a data-collection objective.

The good thing about the Snowden revelations, if indeed any of them can be “good”, is that it has revealed how much work still needs to be done and how much we assume our data won’t be intercepted and inspected. It’s no longer safe to think like that, and the use of encryption should be mandatory between two end-points.

But now that the larger players are catching up with better security implementations, who is there to help the smaller players? Running a hosting outfit myself, I know how much time is required to stay informed with regards to common exploits and vulnerabilities, as well as implementing working solutions when certain zero-day exploits are revealed. Every internet service provider, hosting company and other entity transacting business via the internet has a responsibility towards safeguarding confidential data. How many take it seriously enough?

It’s time the larger players stepped up and started working collectively in a security community designed to help the smaller players in the market, rather than try to pwn the market itself; if that were to happen, the purpose of the internet would be destroyed and the argument moot.