There seems to be no evidence that public money is being spent on national cyber-defense, i.e. counter measures - at least there have been no links suggesting the NSA, CIA or GCHQ are working on patches.
This leaves private industry, e.g. Microsoft et al, solely responsible for defending citizens.
As there is no disclosure by the spies, Microsoft cannot patch without knowledge of the vulnerabilities - at least until there is a leak or potential leak that promts a reluctant disclosure.
This leaves one wondering is tax money being spent solely to make us less safe ?
Could Wannacries NHS (UK) devastation have been averted if academic security researchers had responsibly disclosed the potential for this vulnerability ? Surely the UK Health Minister should have been more properly briefed on the dangers to patients that his decision not to patch Windows could have ?
If these agencies come crying for more tax dollars we should seriously enquire if they have any plans to make us safer rather than continuing to backdoor their own citizens.
Surely laws being passed in the UK and USA to curtail security research the danger to the public can only increase.
Without whistleblowers and journalists such as Wikileaks we would far more at risk from cyber-attacks !
I say Wikileaks as we know journalists are being targeted by Nation State actors to hack the identities of their sources. and Wikileaks is a fine exemplar of decent Op-Sec.
This leaves private industry, e.g. Microsoft et al, solely responsible for defending citizens.
As there is no disclosure by the spies, Microsoft cannot patch without knowledge of the vulnerabilities - at least until there is a leak or potential leak that promts a reluctant disclosure.
This leaves one wondering is tax money being spent solely to make us less safe ?
Could Wannacries NHS (UK) devastation have been averted if academic security researchers had responsibly disclosed the potential for this vulnerability ? Surely the UK Health Minister should have been more properly briefed on the dangers to patients that his decision not to patch Windows could have ?
If these agencies come crying for more tax dollars we should seriously enquire if they have any plans to make us safer rather than continuing to backdoor their own citizens.
Surely laws being passed in the UK and USA to curtail security research the danger to the public can only increase.
Without whistleblowers and journalists such as Wikileaks we would far more at risk from cyber-attacks !
I say Wikileaks as we know journalists are being targeted by Nation State actors to hack the identities of their sources. and Wikileaks is a fine exemplar of decent Op-Sec.