Security quotes of the week

Put another way, having the career of the beloved CIA Director and the commanding general in Afghanistan instantly destroyed due to highly invasive and unwarranted electronic surveillance is almost enough to make one believe not only that there is a god, but that he is an ardent civil libertarian.

In part it is because encryption with customer controlled keys is inconsistent with portions of their business model. This architecture limits a cloud provider's ability to data mine or otherwise exploit the users' data. If a provider does not have access to the keys, they lose access to the data for their own use. While a cloud provider may agree to keep the data confidential (i.e., they won't show it to anyone else) that promise does not prevent their own use of the data to improve search results or deliver ads. Of course, this kind of access to the data has huge value to some cloud providers and they believe that data access in exchange for providing below-cost cloud services is a fair trade.

The concept is simple enough. We need to make abuse of the patent and copyright enforcement system so painful that even the most dedicated corporate executive masochist will think twice before pulling the trigger on their attacks.

Threats and the filing of takedowns, lawsuits, and other actions in the absence of strong and verifiable evidence of significant wrongdoing, not just haphazard shotgun barrages based on mere suspicion and wishful thinking, must trigger significant financial penalties and perhaps other serious sanctions as well.

How about a fine of a million dollars per false attack? Or 1% of gross earnings? And perhaps a five year prohibition against more filings?

If these sound draconian, or unrealistic, that's OK -- consider these to be the outer bounds starting points for discussion.