There's no former in NSA
Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors
131–140 of 465 posts
Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
All these 3-letter acronyms exists to further American interests - for a long time that was primarily the military/industrial complex followed by oil/gas. We're now just seeing the focus switch to supporting big tech as a priority.
It's still distressing to see those intelligence agencies further entrench themselves into fields perfectly suited for a surveillance state. Their reputation makes trusting that they won't abuse it difficult. It may suit national interest, but it bodes poorly for the public interest.
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Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Amazon does have devices listening in every home. No, they don’t. It’s a choice people make, and most aren’t buying Kindle, Echo or other near useless spying device like that.
This is why I keep one of each in my home. By having an Echo, Google Assistant, and an iPhone, I figure I'm able to give everyone access to my data, making it worth less. ( )
Imagine with so much data, US still has so many problems and don't have "Minority report" yet... go figure...
sarcasm.
Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors
#134Here in Germany I used to work for a company that swore off Amazon and other US cloud vendors because of things like this: the relationships between them and the government are too tight. They didn’t want German user data being compromised. It could have been FUD to do things on premises or what not but it seemed to make sense at the time and now with this...
Are you sure you didnt spell "China cloud" and "Huawei" wrong? /s Just because we (Germans, Europeans) are culturally closer to Americans and share certain values does not mean that we should have a double standard on our external affairs. We are kicking out Huawei. When will we kick out Amazon, Google, Apple and Cisco?
There needs to be EU based options before any of them could be replaced.
Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors
#135> For those keeping score, not only does Amazon own the The Washington Post and oversees the CIA’s Commercial Cloud Enterprise, it now has on its powerful board of directors the most visible figure from the NSA who illegally spied on Americans for the better part of a decade. This sounds tinfoil hat crazy, but here we are. Not so crazy now. Man in a position to have reams of compromising intel on the current presiden…
>figure from the NSA who illegally spied on Americans I like the way you included just 'Americans', may be because it's just the domestic spying which is against U.S. law, may be because you thought 'spied on Americans' hits harder for an American reader than just 'spied on everyone'. But, for someone outside USA or China; there's absolutely no difference between U.S. tech or Chinese Tech w.r.t Privacy, what U.S. doe…
America won't arrest you on your vacation here just because you criticized the country on social media. I'd take American hegemony over Chinese hegemony any day of the week.
Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors
#136Here in Germany I used to work for a company that swore off Amazon and other US cloud vendors because of things like this: the relationships between them and the government are too tight. They didn’t want German user data being compromised. It could have been FUD to do things on premises or what not but it seemed to make sense at the time and now with this...
Are you sure you didnt spell "China cloud" and "Huawei" wrong? /s Just because we (Germans, Europeans) are culturally closer to Americans and share certain values does not mean that we should have a double standard on our external affairs. We are kicking out Huawei. When will we kick out Amazon, Google, Apple and Cisco?
Though I completely agree that the double standard is ridiculous, the reasoning behind it likely involves the complicated arrangement between Germany and the US military. China doesn't still have 30,000 troops "occupying" Germany.
Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors
#137Whoever is running Amazon's PR is either really good and has determined this won't matter, or is really really incompetent. Based on how the PR for HQ2 in NYC went, I'm suspecting the latter.
Will it matter? The sheep (myself included) will still shop on Amazon.
It isn't just about customers, but also vendors and employees.
Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors
#138How can an ostensibly consumer and business targeted company company allow someone so anti-consumer on the board? Why doesn't anyone have the balls to say "this guy shouldn't be on our board because if we have someone in cahoots with the spooks on our board people will buy less dragon dildos and .223 fuel filters and the sketchy SAAS providers will use less AWS for their crap because their customers will be worried a…
Super curious about this as well, Amazon has advertised their "we're not an ad business" to me before when looking into whether they were reselling my shopping data. This man plays the person to not only sell it but also use it against me.
This is ridiculous. That board position was clearly given with the intention of getting more strategic advice on how to win more three-letter agencies business, it’s clear as sun (on a normal day that’s not today in California).
Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors
#139How can an ostensibly consumer and business targeted company company allow someone so anti-consumer on the board? Why doesn't anyone have the balls to say "this guy shouldn't be on our board because if we have someone in cahoots with the spooks on our board people will buy less dragon dildos and .223 fuel filters and the sketchy SAAS providers will use less AWS for their crap because their customers will be worried a…
What does he bring to the table that makes this something you'd want to do any ways? Is it a reward for something he's done in the past?
Yes, he led the NSA, so he knows the right people to call/peddle influence on behalf of Amazon.
Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors
#140> For those keeping score, not only does Amazon own the The Washington Post and oversees the CIA’s Commercial Cloud Enterprise, it now has on its powerful board of directors the most visible figure from the NSA who illegally spied on Americans for the better part of a decade. This sounds tinfoil hat crazy, but here we are. Not so crazy now. Man in a position to have reams of compromising intel on the current presiden…
> who illegally spied on Americans
And this guy lied to Congress about it. And unlike plain folks who would have been prosecuted and jailed for this, he wasn't even indicted.