Bits and Bytes

David Ignatius agrees with me, though he probably doesn't know it :-).  As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, Ignatius thinks that the paradoxical and unfortunate result of the Snowden disclosures may be an increase in cyber authoritarianism.  He adds to the political analysis the very real concern that the most effective defenders of network integrity (like the NSA) are now politically disable from helping others.  What NATO country would want NSA help today, much less a less-allied country? Meanwhile, Google settled the antitrust case against it in Europe.  No fines.   No finding of wrongdoing.  Just a promise to give more prominence to its competitors in the structure of search results.   Looks to me like Google dodged the bullet. Finally, Bruce Schneier has a typically thoughtful and nuanced review of recent Snowden disclosures relating to CSEC (the Canadian NSA).  His conclusion is that, at least in this case, there is less to the disclosure than seems to have been made in the press.  The hack involves a proof of concept Wi-Fi tracking program that CSEC ran in some Canadian airports.