Episode 192: Discussion with Michael Sulmeyer and Nicholas Weaver

With the Texas church shooting having put encryption back on the front burner, I claim that Apple is becoming the FBI’s crazy ex-girlfriend in Silicon Valley — and offer the tapes to prove it. When Nick Weaver rises to Apple’s defense, I point out that Apple responded to a Chinese government man-in-the-middle attack on iCloud users with spineless obfuscation rather than a brave defense of user privacy.  Nick asks for a citation. Here it is: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203126 (Careful:  don’t click without a chiropractor standing by.) Nick provides actual news to supplement the NYT’s largely news-free front page story about leak and mole fears at NSA. I gloat, briefly, over hackback’s new respectability, as the ACDC act acquires new cosponsors, including Trey Gowdy, and hacking back acquires new respectability. But not everywhere. Michael Sulmeyer finally gets a word in edgewise as the conversation shifts to the NDAA passes.  He discusses the MGT Act, the growing Armed Services Committee oversight of cyberoperations, and the decision to lift — and perhaps separate — Cyber Command from NSA.  I take issue with any decision that requires that a three-star NSA director argue intelligence equities with a four-star combatant commander. We end with Michael Sulmeyer and I walking through the challenges for DoD of deterring cyberattacks.  We both end up expressing skepticism about the current path.

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The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm.