Skyway Recommended October 28th to November 3rd

This week: Quantum Computing Interest after NSA Cracking; Tech Giants Bolster Defenses Against Unauthorized Spying; Google Using Barges for Data?; NSA tapped Google and Yahoo Abroad; CEOs Clueless about Technology

Each Monday we’ll pass on links to articles we thought were well worth reading from the previous week, for those who live where we do (British Columbia, Canada), work like we do (high speed business internet), and think about things we do (internet trends, internet privacy, internet censorship, cutting-edge technology, etc.). If you don’t want to wait ’til Monday, we usually tweet and link to these as we come across them…

Mayo615 (David Mayes) | Quantum Computing Takes Center Stage In Wake of NSA Encryption Cracking

In the late 1990′s while I was with Ascend Communications, I participated in the creation of the “point-to-point tunneling protocol” (PPTP) with engineers at Microsoft and Cisco Systems, now an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) industry standard.  PPTP is the technical means for creating the “virtual private networks” we use at UBC, by encrypting “open” Internet packets with IPSEC 128 bit code, buried in public packets. It was an ingenious solution, enabling private Internet traffic that we assumed would last for a very long time.  It was not to be, as we now know.  Read More…

NY Times | Angry Over U.S. Surveillance, Tech Giants Bolster Defenses

Google has spent months and millions of dollars encrypting email, search queries and other information flowing among its data centers worldwide. Facebook’s chief executive said at a conference this fall that the government “blew it.” And though it has not been announced publicly, Twitter plans to set up new types of encryption to protect messages from snoops. Read More…

The Atlantic Wire | Google Could Be Sending Its Data Out to Sea

Rumors have begun swirling around four large, floating barges that have appeared on both the east and west coasts of the United States over the weekend. Signs indicate that the structures, which are four stories tall, are supposedly owned by Google, but the company will not comment on them. Read More…

NY Times | N.S.A. Said to Tap Google and Yahoo Abroad

The National Security Agency and its British counterpart have apparently tapped the fiber-optic cables connectingGoogle’s and Yahoo’s overseas servers and are copying vast amounts of email and other information, according to accounts of documents leaked by the former agency contractor Edward J. Snowden. Read More…

USA Today | How CEOs are clueless about technology

President’s Obama’s fumfering response last weekto the ill-performance of the Affordable Care Act’s online insurance exchange included a discordant repetition of the word “website.” It was as though the word were new in his mouth — and distasteful to him — and as if the flaws and breakdowns in the system might be part and parcel of the peculiar word. Read More…