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IBM Distances Itself From the NSA and Its Spy Activities

Posted by samzenpus on from the we-don't-even-know-those-guys dept.

An anonymous reader writes "NSA surveillance has raised concerns among customers globally about the safety of their data from U.S. government spying. More organizations, companies and countries are looking for ways to distant themselves from the NSA activities to safeguard the information of internet users. IBM is the latest to fall into the category of companies that do not want to be associated with the NSA spy activities."

7 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. But they can't tell you by bob_super · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "IBM promised to challenge the U.S national security via court procedures if ordered to provide information and data from an enterprise client through a gag order which prohibits them from discussing the order with the client."

    Sure, I've got THOUSANDS of lawsuits already in secret court against the big bad abusive government!
    Nope, can't give you details. It's secret, you know.
    Just trust me...

  2. Nothing new for IBM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Regarding World War II and Hitler, their spokesperson said "I know NOTHING!"

  3. Let's assume for a moment I believe them by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because it's, frankly, moot whether they tell the truth or whether they're lying through their teeth. The moment the US government says "gimme", they'll have to roll over. It's not like due process or any outdated junk like that still held a drop of water.

    It's nothing personal, nothing "evil", just business. The government wants something from us, we could fight it but the outcome will be that we hand over what they want, we have higher expenses and we have a government grumpy at us that can make our life miserable so... why bother fighting?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Let's assume for a moment I believe them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Qwest found out what happens when you challenge the NSA--you mysteriously lose government contacts. And then your CEO goes to prison.

    2. Re:Let's assume for a moment I believe them by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You don't fight. You go another direction.

      You don't fight for commercial products to be free from backdoors. Another regime can always come in and force people to put them in, later. You build a healthy computing ecosystem resistant to back doors. And that means Open Source and Free Software.

      Many eyes may not catch all the back doors, but many eyes are still better than only spying eyes.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Let's assume for a moment I believe them by Frobnicator · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Qwest found out what happens when you challenge the NSA--you mysteriously lose government contacts. And then your CEO goes to prison.

      And if IBM truly does want to distance itself from these government agencies, that is exactly what they should be doing proactively.

      The article has the headline IBM Distances itself from the NSA and its Spy Activities. If IBM were truly distancing itself, the article would have had a list of billions, nay, trillions of dollars worth of contracts that IBM was cancelling, along with an announcement that IBM would no longer make bids on NSA projects, and they would prohibit their products from being used as the backend as far as allowed by law.

      Instead IBM has released a very specific bullet list of things they didn't do. For example, one of the bullet points is "IBM has not provided client data ... under the program known as PRISM." Which is a wonderfully worded statement. They might have provided other data under PRISM. They might have provided client data outside of PRISM. But in that specific program, that specific data was not provided.

      Sorry Robert C Weber, Senior VP at IBM, your words are too much like a lawyer's wiggling for my tastes. Does IBM really want to distance itself? In that case, actually distance yourself by terminating existing contracts and refusing to bid for future contracts.

      --
      //TODO: Think of witty sig statement
  4. Even with the best of the intentions by gmuslera · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... they are tied to a country which government can require them to put backdoors in software and hardware, and not to tell anyone about that. The only way to really get clean is really open the source/specifications of everything (including propietary firmware) and let people, companies and countries really be able to check that claims. Until then, you can't decide whether they are telling the truth or not. We already learned what happens when you put blind trust in something even bigger than IBM.