The Snowden effect at CommunicAsia

Edward Snowden may be somewhere in Russia, but he might as well have been in Singapore waltzing along the halls of CommunicAsia 2014. He was on everyones lips, the NSA spying revelations having shaken the industry to the core over the past year.

Nearly everyone I talked to had a strong opinion, but none of them cared to share them on the record.

Many saw the American spy apparatus as a joke. One software vendor had an augmented reality learning application. If it saw the letters DOG, it would show a video of a dog, for instance.

So what happens if you show it the letters NSA?, I asked. It self destructs, came the answer complete with a chuckle.

Others were more serious. The Australians in particular were fingered in the Snowden files as spying on Indonesia and many were suffering as a result. One chap from down under pointed out that the Indonesian network that was compromised was mainly from an American vendor and it is not difficult to put one and one together to guess how the Australian spy agencies got through the back door.

The Chinese vendors were more vocal and complained of a backlash from the Huawei spying allegations of any Chinese equipment.

To this point one Canadian equipment vendor told me that it was a great time to be Canadian as they were not American and not Chinese. Then after a bit of contemplation he asked me to strike the last bit from the record.

Link:
The Snowden effect at CommunicAsia