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Showing posts with the label Stewart Baker

The Latest Not-So-Subtle Threat to Tech Companies Using Encryption

This time the kneecap-breaker is Stewart Baker, former counsel general of the NSA and assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security (currently counsel with Steptoe & Johnson LLP). Baker claims that Blackberry (AKA RIM) should blame its use of strong encryption for its poor market performance . Specifically: He claimed that by encrypting user data Blackberry had limited its business in countries that demand oversight of communication data, such as India and the UAE and got a bad reception in China and Russia. “They restricted their own ability to sell. We have a tendency to think that once the cyberwar is won in the US that that is the end of it - but that is the easiest war to swim.” Of course, Baker makes no mention of the iPhone snatching up corporate mobile market-share, or tiny changes in the phone market like, I dunno, the implementation of the Android OS. But who cares about little fish like that when the United Arab Emirates is at stake? Baker's s