You are on page 1of 23

Plan

The United States federal government should substantially


curtail its domestic surveillance through backdoors that
bypass encryption technology.

1AC Cyber Adv


NSA backdoors in encryption standards destroys cybersecurity
makes the US vulnerable to hackers
Sasso, technology correspondent for National Journal, 14 (Brendan, "The NSA
Isn't Just Spying on Us, It's Also Undermining Internet Security", April 29 2014,
National Journal, www.nationaljournal.com/daily/the-nsa-isn-t-just-spying-on-us-it-salso-undermining-internet-security-20140429)
Bolstering the nations defenses against hackers has been one of the Obama
administrations top goals. Officials have warned for years that a sophisticated
cyberattack could cripple (decimate) critical infrastructure or allow thieves to make
off with the financial information of millions of Americans. President Obama pushed Congress
to enact cybersecurity legislation, and when it didnt, he issued his own executive order in 2013. The cyber
threat to our nation is one of the most serious economic and national security
challenges we face, Obama wrote in a 2012 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. But critics argue that the
National Security Agency has actually undermined cybersecurity and made
the United States more vulnerable to hackers. At its core, the problem is the
NSAs dual mission. On one hand, the agency is tasked with securing U.S. networks
and information. On the other hand, the agency must gather intelligence on foreign
threats to national security. Collecting intelligence often means hacking encrypted
communications. Thats nothing new for the NSA; the agency traces its roots back to code-breakers
deciphering Nazi messages during World War II. So in many ways, strong Internet security
actually makes the NSAs job harder. This is an administration that is a vigorous defender of
surveillance, said Christopher Soghoian, the head technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Surveillance at the scale they want requires insecurity. The leaks from
Edward Snowden have revealed a variety of efforts by the NSA to weaken cybersecurity
and hack into networks. Critics say those programs, while helping NSA spying, have
made U.S. networks less secure. According to the leaked documents, the NSA
inserted a so-called back door into at least one encryption standard that
was developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The
NSA could use that back door to spy on suspected terrorists, but the vulnerability
was also available to any other hacker who discovered it. NIST, a Commerce
Department agency, sets scientific and technical standards that are widely
used by both the government and the private sector. The agency has said it would
never deliberately weaken a cryptographic standard, but it remains unclear whether the agency was aware of the
back door or whether the NSA tricked NIST into adopting the compromised standard. NIST is required by law to

The revelation that NSA somehow


got NIST to build a back door into an encryption standard has seriously damaged
NISTs reputation with security experts. NIST is operating with a trust deficit right
now, Soghoian said. Anything that NIST has touched is now tainted. Its a
particularly bad time for NIST to have lost the support of the cybersecurity
community. In his executive order, Obama tasked NIST with drafting the
cybersecurity guidelines for critical infrastructure such as power plants and
phone companies. Because its an executive order instead of a law, the cybersecurity standards are entirely
voluntary, and the U.S. government will have to convince the private sector to comply. The Snowden leaks
werent the first to indicate that the NSA is involved in exploiting commercial
security. According to a 2012 New York Times report, the NSA developed a worm,
consult with the NSA for its technical expertise on cybersecurity.

dubbed Stuxnet, to cripple Iranian nuclear centrifuges. But the worm, which
exploited four previously unknown flaws in Microsoft Windows, escaped the Iranian
nuclear plant and quickly began damaging computers around the world . The NSA and
Israeli officials have also been tied to Flame, a virus that impersonated a Microsoft update to spy on Iranian
computers. Vanee Vines, an NSA spokeswoman, said the U.S. government is as concerned as the public is with the
security of these products. The United States pursues its intelligence mission with care to ensure that innocent

the NSA relies on the


same encryption standards it recommends to the public to protect its own classified
networks. We do not make recommendations that we cannot stand behind for protecting national security
users of those same technologies are not affected, she said. According to Vines,

systems and data, she said. The activity of NSA in setting standards has made the Internet a far safer place to
communicate and do business.

But due to concern over the NSA damaging Internet


security, the presidents review group on surveillance issues recommended that the
U.S. government promise not to in any way subvert, undermine, weaken, or make
vulnerable generally available commercial encryption. Encryption is an essential
basis for trust on the Internet; without such trust, valuable communications would
not be possible, the group wrote in its report, which was released in December. For the entire
system to work, encryption software itself must be trustworthy. The White
Houses cybersecurity coordinator said that disclosing security flaws "usually makes sense." In response to the
report, the administration adopted a new policy on whether the NSA can exploit zero-daysvulnerabilities that
havent been discovered by anyone else yet. According to the White House, there is a bias toward publicly
disclosing flaws in security unless there is a clear national security or law enforcement need. In a blog post

Michael Daniel, the White Houses cybersecurity coordinator, said that


disclosing security flaws usually makes sense. Building up a huge stockpile of undisclosed
Monday,

vulnerabilities while leaving the Internet vulnerable and the American people unprotected would not be in our

But Daniel added that, in some cases, disclosing a


vulnerability means that the U.S. would forego an opportunity to collect crucial
intelligence that could thwart a terrorist attack, stop the theft of our nations
intellectual property, or even discover more dangerous vulnerabilities. He said that the
national security interest, he said.

government weighs a variety of factors, such as the risk of leaving the vulnerability un-patched, the likelihood that

But privacy advocates


and many business groups are still uncomfortable with the U.S. keeping
security flaws secret. And many dont trust that the NSA will only exploit the
vulnerabilities with the most potential for intelligence and least opportunity for
other hackers. The surveillance bureaucracy really doesnt have a lot of selfimposed limits. They want to get everything, said Ed Black, the CEO of the
Computer & Communications Industry Association, which represents companies
including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Sprint . Now I think people dealing with that bureaucracy
have to understand they cant take anything for granted. Most computer networks are run by
private companies, and the government must work closely with the private
sector to improve cybersecurity. But companies have become reluctant to
share security information with the U.S. government, fearing the NSA
could use any information to hack into their systems. When you want to go
into partnership with somebody and work on serious issuessuch as cybersecurity
you want to know youre being told the truth, Black said. Google and one other
cybersecurity firm discovered Heartbleeda critical flaw in a widely used Internet
encryption toolin March. The companies notified a few other private-sector groups
about the problem, but no one told the U.S. government until April. Information you
share with the NSA might be used to hurt you as a company, warned Ashkan Soltani, a
anyone else would discover it, and how important the potential intelligence is.

technical consultant who has worked with tech companies and helped The Washington Post with its coverage of the
Snowden documents. He said that

company officials have historically discussed cybersecurity

issues with the NSA, but that he wouldnt be surprised if those relationships are now
strained. He pointed to news that the NSA posed as Facebook to infect computers
with malware. That does a lot of harm to companies brands, Soltani said. The NSAs
actions have also made it difficult for the U.S. to set international norms
for cyberconflict. For several years, the U.S. has tried to pressure China to scale
back its cyberspying operations, which allegedly steal trade secrets from U.S.
businesses. Jason Healey, the director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the
Atlantic Council, said the U.S. has militarized cyber policy. The United States
has been saying that the world needs to operate according to certain
norms, he said. It is difficult to get the norms that we want because it
appears to the rest of the world that we only want to follow the norms
that we think are important. Vines, the NSA spokeswoman, emphasized that the NSA would never
hack into foreign networks to give domestic companies a competitive edge (as China is accused of doing). We do
not use foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf ofor give
intelligence we collect toU.S. companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom
line, she said. Jim Lewis, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed that NSA
spying to stop terrorist attacks is fundamentally different from China stealing business secrets to boost its own
economy. He also said there is widespread misunderstanding of how the NSA works, but he acknowledged that

there is a trust problemjustified or not. He predicted that rebuilding trust


with the tech community will be one of the top challenges for Mike Rogers, who was
sworn in as the new NSA director earlier this month. All the tech companies are in
varying degrees unhappy and not eager to have a close relationship with NSA, Lewis
said.

The risk of a cyber-attack is high nowtheyll target critical


infrastructure
Burg, Principal US & Global Cybersecurity Leader, 14
David, Michael Compton Principal, Cybersecurity Strategy & Operations, Peter
Harries Principal, Health Industries, John Hunt Principal, Public Sector, Mark Lobel
Principal, Technology, Entertainment, Media & Communications, Gary Loveland
Principal, Consumer and Industrial Products & Services, Joe Nocera Principal,
Financial Services, Dave Roath Partner, Risk Assurance, "US cybercrime: Rising
risks, reduced readiness Key findings from the 2014 US State of Cybercrime
Survey", June 2014, co-sponsored by The CERT Division of the Software Engineering
Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, CSO magazine, United States Secret Service,
www.pwc.com/us/en/increasing-it-effectiveness/publications/assets/2014-us-stateof-cybercrime.pdf
The risks and repercussions of cybercrime In this 12th survey of cybercrime
trends, more than 500 US executives, security experts, and others from the public
and private sectors offered a look into their cybersecurity practices and state of risk
and readiness to combat evolving cyber threats and threat agents. One thing is very
clear: The cybersecurity programs of US organizations do not rival the
persistence, tactical skills, and technological prowess of their potential
cyber adversaries. Today, common criminals, organized crime rings, and nationstates leverage sophisticated techniques to launch attacks that are highly targeted
and very difficult to detect. Particularly worrisome are attacks by tremendously skilled threat actors that
attempt to steal highly sensitiveand often very valuableintellectual property, private communications, and other

the US Director of
National Intelligence has ranked cybercrime as the top national security threat,
higher than that of terrorism, espionage, and weapons of mass destruction .1
strategic assets and information. It is a threat that is nothing short of formidable. In fact,

Underscoring the threat, the FBI last year notified 3,000 US companiesranging from small banks, major defense

The United States


faces real [cybersecurity] threats from criminals, terrorists, spies, and malicious
cyber actors, said FBI Director James B. Comey at a recent security conference.2 The
playground is a very dangerous place right now. Nation-state actors pose a particularly
pernicious threat, according to Sean Joyce, a PwC principal and former FBI deputy
director who frequently testified before the US House and Senate Intelligence committees. We are
seeing increased activity from nation-state actors, which could escalate
due to unrest in Syria, Iran, and Russia, he said. These groups may target
financial services and other critical infrastructure entities. In todays volatile
cybercrime environment, nation-states and other criminals continually and rapidly
update their tactics to maintain an advantage against advances in security
safeguards implemented by businesses and government agencies. Recently, for instance,
contractors, and leading retailersthat they had been victims of cyber intrusions.

hackers engineered a new round of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that can generate traffic rated at a
staggering 400 gigabits per second, the most powerful DDoS assaults to date.

Cyber-attack causes military lash out and leads to nuclear war


Robert Tilford 12, Graduate US Army Airborne School, Ft. Benning, Georgia,
Cyber attackers could shut down the electric grid for the entire east coast 2012,
http://www.examiner.com/article/cyber-attackers-could-easily-shut-down-theelectric-grid-for-the-entire-east-coa ***we dont agree with the ableist language
a cyber attack that can take out a civilian power grid, for example could also
cripple (decimate) the U.S. military. The senator notes that is that the same power grids that
supply cities and towns, stores and gas stations, cell towers and heart monitors also power every
military base in our country. Although bases would be prepared to weather a short power
outage with backup diesel generators, within hours, not days, fuel supplies would run out, he said. Which
means military command and control centers could go dark. Radar systems that
detect air threats to our country would shut Down completely. Communication between
commanders and their troops would also go silent. And many weapons systems would be
left without either fuel or electric power, said Senator Grassley. So in a few short hours or
days, the mightiest military in the world would be left scrambling to maintain base
functions, he said. We contacted the Pentagon and officials confirmed the threat of a
cyber attack is something very real. Top national security officialsincluding the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs, the Director of the National Security Agency, the Secretary of Defense, and the CIA Director have said, preventing a
cyber attack and improving the nations electric grids is among the most urgent priorities of our country (source:
Congressional Record). So how serious is the Pentagon taking all this? Enough to start, or end a war over it, for sure. A cyber attack today
against the US could very well be seen as an Act of War and could be met with a
full scale US military response. That could include the use of nuclear
weapons, if authorized by the President.
To make matters worse

Cyber-attacks could shut down the power grid for years


Daly, columnist @ The Daily Beast, 13

Michael, "U.S. Not Ready for Cyberwar Hostile Hackers Could Launch", Feb 21 2013,
www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/21/u-s-not-ready-for-cyber-war-hostilehackers-could-launch.html
If the nightmare scenario becomes suddenly real ...

If hackers shut down much of the electrical grid

and the rest of the critical infrastructure goes with it ... If we are plunged into chaos and suffer more
physical destruction than 50 monster hurricanes and economic damage that dwarfs the Great Depression ... Then

we will wonder why we failed to guard against what outgoing Defense Secretary Leon
Panetta has termed a cyberPearl Harbor. An aggressor nation or extremist group
could use these kinds of cybertools to gain control of critical switches, Panetta said in a
speech in October. They could derail passenger trains or, even more dangerous, derail passenger
trains loaded with lethal chemicals. They could contaminate the water supply in
major cities or shut down the power grid across large parts of the country .
And Panetta was hardly being an alarmist. He could have added that cybersecurity experts
such as Joe Weiss of Applied Control Solutions suggest a full-on cyberattack
would seek not simply to shut down systems, but wreck them , using
software to destroy hardware. Some believe we could then be sent into chaos not
just for days of even weeks, but for months. The mother of all nightmare
scenarios would see electric, oil, gas, water, chemical , and transit, our entire
essential infrastructure, knocked out as we sought to replace equipment
that can take more than a year to manufacture and is in many cases no longer made in
the U.S. Lights would stay out. Gas stations would be unable to pump and would have nothing to pump anyway.
There would be no heat, no fuel, in many places no running water, no sewage treatment, no garbage, no traffic
lights, no air-traffic control, minimal communication, and of course, no Wi-Fi. Neighborhoods around chemical plants
could become Bhopals.

Three internal links


1. Backdoorssurveillance means a dangerous cyber attack is
inevitableits only a matter of time
Seneque, ICT professional with a particular focus on UNIX
Architecture & Design, 14
Gareth, holds a degree in Philosophy/Politics from the University of Sydney, Alex
Comninos, an independent researcher focusing on information and communications
technology and politics, a Doctoral Candidate at Justus-Liebig University in Giessen,
Germany at the Department of Geography, where he is conducting doctoral
research on the challenges and constraints of the use of user-generated geographic
information systems in Egypt, Libya, and North and Sudan in 2010 to 2011, "Cyber
security, civil society and vulnerability in an age of communications surveillance",
2014, Justus-Liebig University Giessen and Geist Consulting,
giswatch.org/en/communications-surveillance/cyber-security-civil-society-andvulnerability-age-communications-sur
The relevance of Snowdens disclosures to cyber security The scope and reach of
the NSAs surveillance is important. The NSAs surveillance posture is as has been
repeated by General Keith Alexander, and is reflected in the NSA slide in Figure 1 to "collect it all":32
from undersea cable taps, to Yahoo video chats, to in-flight Wi-Fi, to virtual worlds
and online multiplayer games like Second Life and World of Warcraft. The NSA has at least three different

programmes to get Yahoo and Google user data. This shows that they try to get the same data from multiple
mechanisms.33 With the GCHQ under the MUSCULAR programme it hacked into the internal data links of Google

In addition to
highlighting the NSAs massive institutional overreach and global privacy invasion,
Snowdens disclosures also highlight the many points at which our data is
insecure, and the vast numbers of vulnerabilities to surveillance that exist
throughout our digital world. However, while the NSA is the largest threat in the
surveillance game, it is not the only threat. Governments all around the world are
using the internet to surveil their citizens. Considering the rate of technological
change, it is not unforeseeable that the methods, tools and vulnerabilities
used by the NSA will be the tools of states, cyber criminals and low-skilled
hackers of the future. Regardless of who the perceived attacker or surveillance
operative may be, and whether it is the NSA or not, large-scale, mass
surveillance is a growing cyber security threat. It has also been disclosed that the NSA
and GCHQ have actively worked to make internet and technology users around the world
less secure. The NSA has placed backdoors in routers running vital internet
infrastructures.35 The GCHQ has impersonated social networking websites like LinkedIn in order to target
system administrators of internet service providers.36 The NSA has been working with the GCHQ
to hack into Google and Yahoo data centres .37 The NSA also works to undermine
encryption technologies, by covertly influencing the use of weak algorithms and
random number generators in encryption products and standards .38 The NSA in its
own words is working under the BULLRUN programme to "insert vulnerabilities into
commercial encryption systems, IT systems, networks, and endpoint
communications devices used by targets" and to influence policies, standards and
specifications for commercial [encryption] technologies. 39 The NSA is also
believed to hoard knowledge about vulnerabilities rather than sharing
them with developers, vendors and the general public,40 as well as even
maintaining a catalogue of these vulnerabilities for use in surveillance and
cyber attacks.41 None of these activities serve to make the internet more secure.
In fact, they do the very opposite. As US Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren commented:
When any industry or organisation builds a backdoor to assist with electronic
surveillance into their product, they put all of our data security at risk. If a
backdoor is created for law enforcement purposes, its only a matter of
time before a hacker exploits it, in fact we have already seen it happen." 42
and Yahoo34 for information that it could mostly have gotten through the PRISM programme.

2. Norm Building curtailing backdoor encryption allows the


US to create cyber-security norms
Sasso 4/30/14 (Brendan, technology correspondent for National Journal, "How The
NSA Undermines Cybersecurity to Protect You",
www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2014/04/how-nsa-undermines-cybersecurityprotect-you/83482/, accessed: 8/25/15)
Bolstering the nations defenses against hackers has been one of the Obama administrations top goals. Officials
have warned for years that a sophisticated cyberattack could cripple critical infrastructure or allow thieves to make
off with the financial information of millions of Americans. President Obama pushed Congress to enact cybersecurity
legislation, and when it didnt, he issued his own executive order in 2013. The cyber threat to our nation is one of
the most serious economic and national security challenges we face, Obama wrote in a 2012 op-ed in The Wall
Street Journal. But critics argue that the

National Security Agency has actually undermined cybersecurity and

made the United States more vulnerable to hackers. At its core, the problem is the NSAs dual
mission. On one hand, the agency is tasked with securing U.S. networks and information. On the other hand, the

Collecting intelligence often


means hacking encrypted communications. Thats nothing new for the NSA; the agency traces its
agency must gather intelligence on foreign threats to national security.

roots back to code-breakers deciphering Nazi messages during World War II. So in many ways, strong Internet
security actually makes the NSAs job harder. This is an administration that is a vigorous defender of surveillance,
said Christopher Soghoian, the head technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union. Surveillance at the scale
they want requires insecurity. The leaks from Edward Snowden have revealed a variety of efforts by the NSA to
weaken cybersecurity and hack into networks. Critics say those programs, while helping NSA spying, have made
U.S. networks less secure. According to the leaked documents, the NSA inserted a so-called back door into at least

NSA
could use that back door to spy on suspected terrorists, but the vulnerability was
also available to any other hacker who discovered it . NIST, a Commerce Department agency,
one encryption standard that was developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The

sets scientific and technical standards that are widely used by both the government and the private sector. The
agency has said it would never deliberately weaken a cryptographic standard, but it remains unclear whether the
agency was aware of the back door or whether the NSA tricked NIST into adopting the compromised standard. NIST

revelation that
NSA somehow got NIST to build a back door into an encryption standard has
seriously damaged NISTs reputation with security experts. NIST is operating with a trust deficit right
is required by law to consult with the NSA for its technical expertise on cybersecurity. The

now, Soghoian said. Anything that NIST has touched is now tainted. Its a particularly bad time for NIST to have

Obama tasked NIST with


drafting the cybersecurity guidelines for critical infrastructure such as power plants and
lost the support of the cybersecurity community. In his executive order,

phone companies. Because its an executive order instead of a law, the cybersecurity standards are entirely

Snowden leaks
werent the first to indicate that the NSA is involved in exploiting commercial
security. According to a 2012 New York Times report, the NSA developed a worm, dubbed Stuxnet, to cripple
voluntary, and the U.S. government will have to convince the private sector to comply. The

Iranian nuclear centrifuges. But the worm, which exploited four previously unknown flaws in Microsoft Windows,

The NSA and Israeli


officials have also been tied to Flame, a virus that impersonated a Microsoft update to spy on
Iranian computers. Vanee Vines, an NSA spokeswoman, said the U.S. government is as concerned as the
public is with the security of these products. The United States pursues its intelligence mission
with care to ensure that innocent users of those same technologies are not
affected, she said. According to Vines, the NSA relies on the same encryption standards it recommends to the
escaped the Iranian nuclear plant and quickly began damaging computers around the world.

public to protect its own classified networks. We do not make recommendations that we cannot stand behind for
protecting national security systems and data, she said. The activity of N SA

in setting standards has


made the Internet a far safer place to communicate and do business . But due to concern
over the NSA damaging Internet security, the presidents review group on surveillance issues recommended that
the U.S. government promise not to in any way subvert, undermine, weaken, or make vulnerable generally
available commercial encryption. Encryption is an essential basis for trust on the Internet; without such trust,
valuable communications would not be possible, the group wrote in its report, which was released in December.
For the entire system to work, encryption software itself must be trustworthy. In response to the report, the

NSA can exploit zero-daysvulnerabilities


that havent been discovered by anyone else yet . According to the White House, there is a bias
administration adopted a new policy on whether the

toward publicly disclosing flaws in security unless there is a clear national security or law enforcement need. In a
blog post Monday, Michael Daniel, the White Houses cybersecurity coordinator, said that disclosing security flaws
usually makes sense. Building up a huge stockpile of undisclosed vulnerabilities while leaving the Internet
vulnerable and the American people unprotected would not be in our national security interest, he said. But Daniel
added that, in some cases, disclosing a vulnerability means that the U.S. would forego an opportunity to collect
crucial intelligence that could thwart a terrorist attack, stop the theft of our nations intellectual property, or even
discover more dangerous vulnerabilities. He said that the government weighs a variety of factors, such as the risk
of leaving the vulnerability un-patched, the likelihood that anyone else would discover it, and how important the
potential intelligence is. But privacy advocates and many business groups are still uncomfortable with the U.S.
keeping security flaws secret. And many dont trust that the NSA will only exploit the vulnerabilities with the most
potential for intelligence and least opportunity for other hackers. The surveillance bureaucracy really doesnt have
a lot of self-imposed limits. They want to get everything, said Ed Black, the CEO of the Computer &
Communications Industry Association, which represents companies including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Sprint.

Now I think people dealing with that bureaucracy have to understand they cant take anything for granted. Most
computer networks are run by private companies, and the government must work closely with the private sector to
improve cybersecurity. But companies have become reluctant to share security information with the U.S.
government, fearing the NSA could use any information to hack into their systems. When you want to go into
partnership with somebody and work on serious issuessuch as cybersecurityyou want to know youre being told
the truth, Black said. Google and one other cybersecurity firm discovered Heartbleeda critical flaw in a widely
used Internet encryption toolin March. The companies notified a few other private-sector groups about the
problem, but no one told the U.S. government until April. Information you share with the NSA might be used to hurt
you as a company, warned Ashkan Soltani, a technical consultant who has worked with tech companies and helped
The Washington Post with its coverage of the Snowden documents. He said that company officials have historically
discussed cybersecurity issues with the NSA, but that he wouldnt be surprised if those relationships are now
strained. He pointed to news that the NSA posed as Facebook to infect computers with malware. That does a lot of

The NSAs actions have also made it difficult for the


U.S. to set international norms for cyberconflic t. For several years, the U.S. has tried to
pressure China to scale back its cyberspying operations , which allegedly steal trade secrets
harm to companies brands, Soltani said.

from U.S. businesses. Jason Healey, the director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, said the
U.S. has militarized cyber policy. The

United States has been saying that the world needs


to operate according to certain norms , he said. It is difficult to get the norms that we
want because it appears to the rest of the world that we only want to follow the
norms that we think are important. Vines, the NSA spokeswoman, emphasized that the NSA would
never hack into foreign networks to give domestic companies a competitive edge (as China is accused of doing).
We do not use foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf ofor give
intelligence we collect toU.S. companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom
line, she said. Jim Lewis, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed that NSA
spying to stop terrorist attacks is fundamentally different from China stealing business secrets to boost its own
economy. He also said there is widespread misunderstanding of how the NSA works, but he acknowledged that
there is a trust problemjustified or not. He predicted that rebuilding trust with the tech community will be one of
the top challenges for Mike Rogers, who was sworn in as the new NSA director earlier this month. All the tech
companies are in varying degrees unhappy and not eager to have a close relationship with NSA, Lewis said.

3. Trustthe plan rebuilds trust with the private-sector key


to cyber-security
Zezima, reporter @ The Washington Post, 15
Katie, "Obama signs executive order on sharing cybersecurity threat information",
Feb 12 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/02/12/obamato-sign-executive-order-on-cybersecurity-threats/
Obama signed an executive order Friday that urges companies
to share cybersecurity-threat information with one another and the federal
government. Obama signed the order, which is advisory in nature, at the first White House summit on
PALO ALTO, Calif. President

Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection at Stanford University here. The summit, which focused on public-private
partnerships and consumer protection, is part of a recent White House push to focus on cybersecurity. Obama said
the prospect of cyberattacks are one of the nation's most pressing national security, economic and safety issues.
The specter of a cyberattack crippling the nation's air traffic control system or a city with a blackout is real, and
hacks such as the one on Sony Pictures last year are "hurting America's companies and costing American jobs." He
also said they are a threat to the security and well-being of children who are online. "Its one of the great paradoxes
of our time that the very technologies that empower us to do great good can also be used to undermine us and

The
order the president signed here encourages the development of central
clearinghouses for companies and the government to share data and creation of
centers where data can be shared across specific geographic regions. Obama
pushed for collaboration between the public and private sectors. "Theres only
one way to defend America from these cyber threats, and that is through
government and industry working together, sharing appropriate
inflict great harm," Obama said before a cheering, friendly audience here at Stanford's Memorial Auditorium.

information as true partners," he said. MasterCard chief executive Ajay Banga


praised Obamas executive action but said that eventually we need a real
legislative solution. An executive action can only take you this far. Rather than fight
this in individualized groups, theres some merit in joining hands and doing it together, Banga said. Obama's
order is part of a broader White House effort to beef up the nation's cybersecurity
infrastructure, something the administration wants to push on Capitol Hill. Last month
Obama proposed legislation that would shield companies from lawsuits for sharing threat data with the
government. Last month he proposed legislation that would shield companies from lawsuits for sharing threat data
with the government. Obama said shortly after he took office he realized that cybersecurity is "one of the most
serious economic national security challenges that we face as a nation" and made confronting them a priority.
Obama has signed other executive orders, including one that calls for the creation of voluntary standards to bolster
the security of computer networks in critical industries and a framework for cybersecurity and another last year to
protect consumers from identity theft. So far nothing has been able to stem the tide of attacks such as the one

privacy groups and Silicon Valley


companies have said they would oppose the legislation Obama proposed last month
unless reforms are first made to the NSA's surveillance program . In an interview
with Re/Code, Obama acknowledged tensions with Silicon Valley after the NSA disclosures. "The Snowden
disclosures ... were really harmful in terms of the trust between the
government and many of these companies, in part because it had an impact
on their bottom lines," Obama said. The president also said that there should be a "public conversation"
against Sony or others against retailers including Home Depot. Both

about encryption and said he likely leans more toward strong data encryption than law enforcement, but is

U.S. government
surveillance activities have been seen as a potential liability for tech companies that
operate globally. Seventy to 80 percent of the user bases for a lot of these companies are the foreigners who
sympathetic to them because of the pressure they are under to keep people safe.

get very little protection under our system, explained Julian Sanchez, a senior fellow focused on technology and
civil liberties at the Cato Institute. If they dont display some push back, they know they wont do very well with

In December of 2013, major tech companies including Apple, Google,


Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo joined together in the Reform Government
Surveillance coalition, urging the President and Congress to impose restrictions and
oversight measures on U.S. spying programs. The President agreed in principle to
some limits on spying programs, including the bulk collection of domestic phone records, during a
speech last year. But progress on reforms has been too slow for some privacy
advocates, as the administration urged for legislative action that has yet to
succeed. Tech companies, meanwhile, have taken some measures into their own
hands by strengthening and expanding their deployment of encryption to
secure users' online activities setting up a conflict between the companies
and law enforcement who warn that such actions may make it harder for
them to pursue crime and terrorism which increasingly includes a digital
component. I think its fair to say that changes on the technology front have outpaced governmental and
those markets.

legislative efforts, said Andrew Crocker, a legal fellow at civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

1AC Tech Adv


The NSA is compelling US tech companies to build backdoors
into their encryption standardsbecause consumers wont
purchase insecure products, theyre switching to foreign
markets
Clark, economic scholar, 14 (Thomas G. Clark, economics scholar, blogger
on economics, politics, and philosophy, university level English tutor, former
administrator in public and private industries, How NSA overreach has done more
damage to the US economy that Osama Bin Laden could ever have dreamed of,
Thomas G. Clark, Another Angry Voice Blog,
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/2014/01/nsa-overreach-worse-thanterrorism.html)//chiragjain
Ever since the Edward Snowden leaks started it has become more and more obvious that the NSA and their Five
Eyes partners (the spooks in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) have been making a concerted effort to
monitor and control the entire Internet. They've engaged in vast data stealing exercises designed to sweep up and
store the private communications data of virtually everyone; the NSA have employed a team of some 850,000 NSA
staff and private security contractors to trawl this ocean of stolen data for whatever they can find; they've damaged
international relations by snooping on dozens of heads of state; they've used their snooping powers to spy on
companies like the Brazilian oil company Petrobras (surely motivated by industrial espionage, rather than their

undermined encryption technology endangering the security of financial transactions; and they've compelled
countless US based technology companies to violate the privacy of their own
customers and to build backdoors into their products to enable NSA snooping . In
stated justification of "fighting terrorism"); they've

order to compress what they've been doing into a single paragraph, I've obviously left out a lot of the nefarious
activities orchestrated by the NSA and carried out by their mercenary army of hundreds of thousands of private
sector spooks and their Five Eyes collaborators. But even so, the above paragraph is more than enough to
demonstrate that the security services in the US, and the other Five Eyes collaborator states, are running
dangerously out of control. The fact that the NSA and their Five Eyes collaborators feel entitled to trawl the Internet
for whatever they can find, which is then stored in vast data centres and subjected to algorithmic analysis without
the need for any kind of judicial warrant, demonstrates that something fundamental has changed in the relationship
between the state and the citizen. Due process has been abandoned, and as far as the security services are
concerned, we are all assumed to be guilty. They don't have to be able to show probable cause, they don't have to
apply for a warrant from a judge, they just steal our data and use it as they see fit, with no democratic oversight at
all over many of their data stealing operations. The fact that the US state employs a staggering 850,000 NSA staff
and private sector contractors to trawl this ocean of stolen data should be alarming to anyone with the brains to
think through the logical implications of such a vast mercenary army. You would have to be a hopeless idealist to
imagine that there are no "bad apples" at all amongst all these hundreds of thousands. If we assume that just 4% of
them (one in every 25) are the kind of people that would use their access to enormous surveillance powers to do
things like steal commercially confidential information to order, blackmail people, cyber stalk people, wage petty
vendettas against old adversaries ... that would mean a rogue army of some 34,000 thieves, stalkers and
blackmailers with access to the NSA's vast caches of stolen data and their extraordinary surveillance capabilities.
The fact that the NSA have been using their powers to engage in industrial espionage against various countries
such as Germany, Russia, China and Brazil illustrates that "the few bad apples" narrative, although useful from an
illustrative point of view, isn't actually the main concern. The main concern is that the NSA itself is corrupt to the
core. Instead of using their powers to maintain the rule of law and to "fight terrorism" they're actually intent on
using their unprecedented espionage capabilities in order to undermine global competition for the benefit of US

the spy agencies have deliberately


compromised the encryption technology used to keep our financial transactions
safe, and that they have awarded themselves the power to hack into bank accounts
anywhere in the world and simply erase money out of existence, or invent fictional
transactions. They have undermined the integrity of the financial system in
based corporations. One of the most worrying revelations is that

order to build themselves snooping capabilities that would have blown the minds of the East German Stasi or the

the most damning element of all (from an American perspective) is the


extraordinary amount of damage the NSA have done to the reputation of US
technology companies, by compelling them to breech the privacy of their own
customers and infecting their products with spyware. This trashing of the reputation
of countless US based technology companies comes with an enormous price tag. It
has been estimated that the reputational damage inflicted on US technology
companies by their own government could amount to $180 billion, as millions of
customers are turned off the idea of investing in buggy, insecure and spyware
laden products from US companies. If you add the estimated $180 billion in reputational damage to
Soviet KGB. Perhaps

American companies to the staggering cost of running the NSA and employing an army of 850,000 spooks, the cost

One of the worst things about having trashed the


reputation of their own technology sector, is the fact that the technology sector is
one of the few parts of the US economy that is healthy and productive . The
US financial sector is a gigantic, virtually unregulated and desperately unstable
hotbed of corruption and reckless gambling and US manufacturing power has
been in decline since the neoliberals came to power in the 1980s and allowed short-term
profiteers to asset strip US productivity. The US economy is in decline, but that
decline has been offset by a remarkable period of exponential growth in the US
technology sector. Any American with a reasonably comprehensive view of how their economy is
of this folly is absolutely enormous.

structured must be absolutely aghast at the damage inflicted on the technology sector by the power crazed spooks
that considered their mission to infect everything they could with spyware as far more important than the long term

Not only does it look like the NSA's overreach is going to


cost the US economy vastly more than any terrorist attack ever has, it also looks set
to crush US ambition of controlling the Internet, as ever more people realise
that the Americans can no longer be trusted to control the fundamental
infrastructure of the Internet. Any non-US corporation with the slightest regard for
data security is going to move away from reliance upon the US technology
sector as soon as possible, and any nation that values its own industries is surely
going to approve of efforts to wrest control of the Internet away from the US.
The sheer scale of NSA data theft is driving the development of new highly
encrypted technology. It is only a matter of time before spook proof browsers and
encrypted communications become commonplace, because there is an undeniable
market demand for such things. The most terrible thing from a US perspective is
that US technology companies will be completely cut off from entry into this
new market because everyone is now aware of how the US intelligence agencies
have forced US technology companies to infect their own products with spyware
and invade the privacy of their own customers. Nobody is ever going to believe US
technology companies when they give assurances about privacy, meaning that the
next wave of secure communications tech nology is going to arise outside the US.
success of the US technology sector.

The NSA have been using their surveillance powers to engage in industrial espionage in order to benefit US
corporations. This is a clear demonstration that they see it as their mission to help US corporations by fair means or

they have inflicted such an


extraordinary amount of damage on the most vibrant sector of the US economy must
foul. Given that this is one of their core objectives, the fact that

go down as one of the most spectacular own goals in history. They built a vast data stealing operation in order to
help US corporations, but in doing so inflicted more damage on the US economy than Osama Bin Laden could ever
have dreamed of. The NSA have used their scaremongering narratives about the threat of terrorism to justify the
slaughter of their own golden goose, yet they would have us believe that they are not responsible. They would have
everyone believe that Edward Snowden is the guilty party; that he alone is responsible for the damage to the US
technology sector. But their case is a ludicrous one. There is clearly something dreadfully wrong with the way things
are set up if just one man (out of some 850,000 spooks) can single handedly wipe an estimated $180 billion off the
value of the US technology sector simply by telling the truth.

Software-defined networks are key to future network


infrastructure generationbut surveillance means
organizations and individuals wont adopt US tech
EIU, February 2014, "Politics, cyber-security, trade and the future of ICT supply
chains", The Economist Intelligence Unit, http://www.maxfeel.org/magazines-list/theeconomist-intelligence-unit-politics-cyber-security-trade-and-the-future-of-ict-supplychains-february-2014_2gsgo.html
software-defined networks (SDNs) is usually expressed in similar terms to most
will allow network operators to improve speed
and efficiency.16 In traditional networks, switches and routers are pre-set with instructions on how to forward
The promise of

innovations in network technology: that is, they

data traffic, and must be manually altered or upgraded; in SDNs; by contrast, the instructions controlling traffic can
be altered through software administered from a remote location. A parallel to the SDN is the software-defined radio
(SDR), which performs a similar function for radio transceivers; remotely delivered software instructions can set, or

SDN and SDR are considered critical to


any future network infrastructure generation, such as the discussions around 5G
broadband mobile technology. The performance of a communications network in years to come will be
alter, its operations, including its frequency range or power output.

determined not just during the physical construction of its infrastructure, but will be managed throughout its

The potential benefits of the


SDN stem from its increased levels of automation and flexibility, which will allow
networks to cope much more easily with fluctuations in traffic volumes, increasing
bandwidth as and when required. It is considered a disruptive technological
advance, and the main potential economic risk is to those companies that manufacture proprietary network
operational lifecycle by an ongoing connectivity to software instructions.

gear, such as Cisco and Huawei. Many industry commentators now expect the commoditisation of network gear and
increased use of generic, standardised hardware, while value increasingly accrues to software and service

this will force many


vendors of network infrastructure to move into software development. Little wonder,
providers. As well as amplifying the existing need to suppress hardware costs,

then, that Huawei showcased its own SDN technology in October 2013: Net Matrix, part of the SoftCom network

The industry
has not yet developed a full set of standardised protocols , so proprietary protocols are still in
use in these SDN trial runs. However, it is very likely that such standards will be
developed over the next few years, representing a significant shift in the
telecoms sector. The advent of software-defined networks will bring new cybersecurity challenges. There are advantages, including the possibility of responding faster and more flexibly to
architecture. Meanwhile, Cisco has announced its Open Network Environment (ONE) SDN strategy.

software-based attacks. Yet, the standardisation of network gear will also make it easier for malware, such as
worms, to navigate across multiple networks, facing fewer barriers like those currently posed by the differing

Just as legitimate alterations to routers and switches can


be remotely administered, so can an attack be managed from any location. Much
work will need to be done to guarantee network security so that
organisations and individuals feel comfortable adopting SDN tech nology, and
specifications of proprietary gear.

this will require co-ordination among industry and government stakeholders. In terms of hardware-based threats,
SDNs will not fundamentally change the risks: hardware could be compromised during design or at various points in
the manufacturing process, and those in charge of final testing, as well as procurement of gear, will need to
improve their ability to detect vulnerabilities and defend against attacks. Policy responses to SDNs are likely to
focus on similar issues faced in cloud computing: data and communications privacy, standards and interoperability,
and rules on cross-border data flows.

As in cloud computing, there will be sensitivities around

cross-border remote management through software, and how this relates to


different countries legal intelligence activities.

Scenario 1 Econ
Tech sector innovation is necessary for economic growth
cloud-computing affects all organizations
Coviello, Executive Vice President, EMC Corporation, 11
Art, "Can Cloud Computing Save The American Economy?", March 13 2011, Forbes,
www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2011/03/13/can-cloud-computing-save-theamerican-economy/
The American dream is in peril from the confluence of sky rocketing deficits, high
unemployment, and the ticking time bomb of an aging baby boomer generation,
with its coincident increase in the burden of entitlements as a percentage of GDP . For
the first time, the next generation of Americans, our grandchildren, risk having a lower standard of living than we

We will not save


or cut our way back to economic prosperity. The way forward is innovation.
America must innovate its way out of economic stagnation and back to economic
growth. As has been the case for the last 150 years, Americans have always responded well in a crisis and yet
enjoyed. It is not a problem that can be remedied with tax increases and budget reductions.

again, we are well positioned to lead the world out of this one. Want proof? American businesses systemically and
culturally react fast. Two years after the economic downturn began the United States was generating 97% of its
economic output with only 90% of the labor. This sort of gain in productivity ultimately translates into increased
economic activity, the ability to pay down debt and a higher standard of living for those of us who are employed.

productivity gains
from working harder can only take us so far. Innovation and technology can and
must take us the rest of the way, creating new jobs and new industries. Our so
called information economy, for example, is ripe for innovation. Today, all
organizations are dependent on information technology. What makes me
optimistic about the future is that we have not even begun to scratch the surface of
all that can be accomplished by actually applying information technology
pervasively. We have spent trillions of dollars worldwide for the computers to create
and process information, networks to move it around and the hardware to store it.
But we are at a point where we spend 60 to 70% of IT budgets just to maintain
those systems and infrastructures. No wonder progress in applying IT is so slow. This is the
technology equivalent of every organization in the world, big or small, investing the
capital and human resources to build and operate their own electricity producing
power plants. But instead, picture a world where software platforms are available
online and easily customizable. Picture a world where compute power is generated
off site, available in quantities when and where you need it. And picture a world
where information is safely stored, efficiently managed and accessible, when and
where you need it. These are cloud infrastructures. The economies of scale,
flexibility and efficiency they offer will not only save organizations massive amounts
of capital and maintenance costs but emancipate them to apply and use
Unfortunately it does not directly address the issue of unemployment. The fact is that

information as never before. An unbelievable opportunity to raise productivity while


creating unprecedented opportunities for businesses and workers. Now picture a healthcare system where a doctor has medical records at his fingertips, can see x-rays with the click of a mouse, is able to
learn and apply the latest diagnostic and surgical technique from anywhere in the world. Think of the efficiencies in
hospital supply chains, the delivery of prescription drugs, the processing of billing and insurance claims, reductions
in fraud, and the application of best practices for cost controls. The capacity for improvement is endless. As a

But for us to seize the


opportunity before us its imperative that we move from isolated centers of
excellence to connected systems of excellence. Pick any industry and systemic improvements like
these are available. A new age of innovation and technology advancement is within our
grasp an opportunity for job creation, greater productivity and economic growth.
The time for cloud computing is now. We need government and industry to
accelerate broad scale adoption of cloud infrastructures so we can reap the rewards
of a true information based economy . As I said at the outset, Americans respond well in a crisis. It is
matter of fact, these innovations are already being applied in isolated pockets.

the nature of our society: egalitarian, free, open and competitive that make us the most adaptive, inventive and
resilient country in the world.

Time again for us to lead.

US economic growth is vital to prevent multiple scenarios for


conflict escalation and extinction
Haas, CFR president, 2013
(Richard, The World Without America, 4-30-13, http://www.projectsyndicate.org/commentary/repairing-the-roots-of-american-power-by-richard-n-haass)
The most critical threat facing the United States now and for the
foreseeable future is not a rising China, a reckless North Korea, a nuclear Iran, modern terrorism, or
climate change. Although all of these constitute potential or actual threats, the biggest challenges facing the
US are its burgeoning debt, crumbling infrastructure, second-rate primary and secondary schools, outdated
immigration system, and slow economic growth in short, the domestic foundations of
American power . Readers in other countries may be tempted to react to this judgment with a dose of schadenfreude,
Let me posit a radical idea:

finding more than a little satisfaction in Americas difficulties. Such a response should not be surprising. The US and those
representing it have been guilty of hubris (the US may often be the indispensable nation, but it would be better if others pointed this
out), and examples of inconsistency between Americas practices and its principles understandably provoke charges of hypocrisy.
When America does not adhere to the principles that it preaches to others, it breeds resentment. But, like most temptations, the
urge to gloat at Americas imperfections and struggles ought to be resisted. People around the globe should be careful what they
wish for.

Americas failure to deal with its internal challenges would come at a steep

price. Indeed, the rest of the worlds stake in American success is nearly as large as that of the US itself. Part of the reason is
economic. The US economy still accounts for about one-quarter of global output. If US growth accelerates,
Americas capacity to consume other countries goods and services will increase,
thereby boosting growth around the world . At a time when Europe is drifting and Asia is
slowing, only the US (or, more broadly, North America) has the potential to drive global economic
recovery . The US remains a unique source of innovation. Most of the worlds citizens communicate with mobile devices based
on technology developed in Silicon Valley; likewise, the Internet was made in America. More recently, new technologies developed in
the US greatly increase the ability to extract oil and natural gas from underground formations. This technology is now making its
way around the globe, allowing other societies to increase their energy production and decrease both their reliance on costly
imports and their carbon emissions. The US is also an invaluable source of ideas. Its world-class universities educate a significant

the US has long been a leading example of what


market economies and democratic politics can accomplish . People and governments
around the world are far more likely to become more open if the American model is
perceived to be succeeding. Finally, the world faces many serious challenges, ranging from
percentage of future world leaders. More fundamentally,

the spread of weapons of mass destruction, fight climate change, and


a functioning world economic order that promotes trade and investment to
regulating practices in cyberspace, improving global health, and preventing armed
conflicts. These problems will not simply go away or sort themselves out . While Adam
Smiths invisible hand may ensure the success of free markets, it is powerless in the world of
geopolitics . Order requires the visible hand of leadership to formulate and realize
global responses to global challenges. Dont get me wrong: None of this is meant to suggest that the US
the need to halt
maintain

can deal effectively with the worlds problems on its own. Unilateralism rarely works. It is not just that the US lacks the means; the
very nature of contemporary global problems suggests that only collective responses stand a good chance of succeeding. But

multilateralism is much easier to advocate than to design and implement. Right now there
is only one candidate for this role: the US. No other country has the necessary
combination of capability and outlook. This brings me back to the argument that the US must put its
house in order economically, physically, socially, and politically if it is to have the resources
needed to promote order in the world. Everyone should hope that it does: The alternative to a
world led by the US is not a world led by China, Europe, Russia, Japan, India, or any other
country, but rather a world that is not led at all . Such a world would almost certainly be characterized
by chronic crisis and conflict. That would be bad not just for Americans, but for the vast majority of the
planets inhabitants.

Scenario 2 Warming
US broadband leadership is fine now, but eroding
competitiveness will stagnate innovation that collapse the
economy and the internet of things
Wilson et al 14
Phil, Director, Technology, Media and Telecommunications @ Deloitte, United
States expands global lead in mobile broadband How policy actions could enhance
or imperil Americas mobile broadband competitiveness,
http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedStates/Local
%20Assets/Documents/TMT_us_tmt/us_tmt_mobile_index%20_090214.pdf
Thus far, the United States has benefited
tremendously from its leadership position in mobile broadband. However, the future
could be different from the past for better or worse. Deloittes Mobile Communications National
Past performance is no guarantee of future success

Achievement Index can serve as a useful tool for estimating future rankings under different policy scenarios.
Although the Mobile Communications National Achievement Index demonstrates a nations past and present
positioning in mobile broadband, it can also be used on a forward-looking basis to help policymakers understand
how mobile broadband performance might evolve under different policy scenarios. As illustrated in Exhibit 4,
different policies are likely to affect U.S. performance in distinct ways, resulting in shifting key performance
indicator (KPI) values that collectively result in a different index score. For example, policies that affect broadband
supply will indirectly have an impact on pricing, affordability, and usage.

Supply restrictions will

necessarily lead to higher

equilibrium pricing per unit of use and lower equilibrium usage. This in turn
affects the potential for industry returns, reducing investment levels and innovation. Two contrasting index
scenarios provide a useful picture of how U.S. supply policy can affect Americas ability to defend its mobile
broadband leadership position By considering two supply scenarios a favorable scenario in which U.S. policy
actions and timing are sufficient and supportive to meet Americas supply needs and an unfavorable scenario in
which policy actions are insufficient or unsupportive we can project plausible outcomes in U.S. mobile broadband
global competitiveness over the coming decade.29

A growing

index score

edge favoring the United

States over other countries would indicate the United States is achieving exceptional global
performance growth by innovating and capturing value from the growing consumer and business uses
of mobile broadband. A declining edge would indicate just the opposite, reducing the
motivation and incentive for mobile broadband investment to flow into the U nited
States and into the mobile broadband industry. Even if Americas lead is reduced but not lost,
other countries might be able to overtake the United States in certain mobile
broadband segments by capitalizing on their inherent advantages. For example, a country
with a strong public health system could use that advantage to lead innovation in the area of mHealth and capture
a disproportionate share of performance growth in that segment. These two divergent policy directions would have
substantial but opposite effects on the industrys ability to meet demand effects that can be quantified using the
mobile broadband key performance indicators. By assuming other countries continue their current mobile
broadband actions and trends, we can isolate the influence of U.S. policy actions and estimate Americas ability to
fend off global competitors in mobile broadband under both scenarios. Scenario 1: A favorable and supportive policy

spectrum of suitable quantity


and quality is made available to wireless carriers in a timely manne r: Much or all
approach enables sufficient mobile broadband supply In this first scenario,

available spectrum is auctioned off within the next three to five years, helping to ensure that the total amount of
spectrum is sufficient to consistently meet demand over the decade. Spectrum bands are of sufficient quality,
accounting for factors such as frequency range, block size, national coverage, and international alignment. Shared
spectrum contribution to supply is properly accounted for, factoring in impairments from sharing constraints.
Terms and conditions for spectrum access and use are market-oriented, with limited regulatory restrictions.
Outcome: Mobile broadband spectrum supply matches demand, enabling the United States to strengthen and

Under these conditions, U.S. policy provides spectrum that


responds to mobile broadband supply needs, creating commercial incentives and
investment returns that promote continued innovation and expansion in the use of mobile
extend its mobile broadband lead

broadband. The additional supply allows wireless carriers to continue offering robust and compelling service to
consumers and businesses. Available performance levels (e.g., data speeds, capacity, reliability, coverage, and
latency) spur additional investment and innovation by wireless carriers and across the broader mobile ecosystem.
Many mobile ecosystem companies participate in and contribute to this growth opportunity, spanning areas such as
network infrastructure and operational support systems, devices, operating systems, and applications.

Consumer and business uses grow as service performance remains strong and
ecosystem innovation creates compelling new offerings, manifested in new devices,
applications, and services. The wireless ecosystem and industries with embedded
wireless solutions (e.g., automotive telematics, mHealth, and mCommerce) gain from
the strong home field advantage of U.S. mobile broadband leadership . The United
States enjoys export advantages from the resulting innovations and new business
models and is able to capture a growing share of global value in the respective market
segments. As illustrated in Exhibit 5, these combined performance improvements would likely position the United
States to sustain its lead in the near term and within a decade even extend its lead to nearly match the levels of the
early 2000s. Scenario 2: An unfavorable or insufficient policy approach results in the mobile broadband market

sufficient spectrum is not made


available to wireless carriers in a timely manner: The total amount of spectrum lags demand
being throttled by supply shortages In this second scenario,

auctions are further delayed and allocated spectrum is insufficient. Spectrum bands are of lesser quality (e.g.,
higher frequencies, smaller blocks, limited national coverage, and less international alignment than in scenario 1).

shared spectrum is incorrectly assumed to


boost supply nearly as much as exclusive spectrum. Terms and conditions for spectrum access and use are
A substantial amount of new spectrum is shared, and the

restrictive and prescriptive, limiting the ability of market mechanisms to alleviate supply shortages. Outcome:

Demand exceeds supply, mobile broadband performance suffers, and the U.S. leadership
position erodes In this scenario, the policies enacted and executed in the United States are not sufficient to meet
mobile broadband supply needs, leading to a shortfall relative to rising demand. Mobile broadband becomes less
robust and reliable as localized performance issues (e.g., reduced speeds, increased latency and outages) increase
in both geography and time. Wireless carriers must focus their efforts and resources on alleviating the spectrum
and supply shortfalls, siphoning investments away from new products and services. Prices rise in order to keep
demand from exceeding supply, dampening consumer and business use of mobile broadband and limiting
purchases of the latest generation devices and applications. Ecosystem investment and innovation in the United
States are reduced as investors pursue opportunities in more attractive countries and industries. Wireless

ecosystems and mobile-enabled industries in other countries gain advantages over U.S. companies in innovation
and exports. U.S. exports suffer. As shown in Exhibit 6, the United States would likely maintain its leadership
position for the next few years thanks to momentum from current capabilities and performance levels. However,
mobile broadband supply and performance shortfalls would soon begin to take their toll, causing the U.S. lead to
shrink over the latter half of this decade. By 2020 the U.S. lead would be modest at best, with increasing challenges
from competing countries that are gaining ground with positive trends in their mobile broadband performance. The
United States would become just one of several targets for global investment in mobile broadband and would risk

Supply shortages leading to the Scenario 2 outlook


are plausible, as U.S. government actions to avoid a shortage appear to be falling
behind Significant progress has been made by the U.S. government to avoid a supply shortage, but the collective
set of completed and planned actions appears to be falling behind relative to the objectives and timetable
losing its leadership position to other countries.

established in the 2010 National Broadband Plan.32 The FCC and NTIA continue to pursue a variety of initiatives to
re-allocate commercial or federal spectrum on an exclusive or shared basis, with the most notable action being the
pending auction to re-allocate broadcast TV spectrum. However, the United States appears to be substantially
behind schedule in achieving the stated 2015 objective. As illustrated in Exhibit 7, current plans indicate that
approximately 225265 MHz of spectrum will be newly classified, auctioned, or planned for auction for mobile
broadband use through 2015, which at the lower range estimate is roughly three-fourths of the National Broadband
Plan 2015 goal. As important, 100 MHz of spectrum or approximately one-fourth of the total 395435 MHz planned
or identified to date is stipulated as shared-use, which due to the inherent nature of sharing will not be equivalent in
supply value to exclusively licensed spectrum. It is also worth emphasizing the complexity of U.S. spectrum
allocations, most of which reflect decisions made during the twentieth century, and the time delays that can result
in making spectrum available after it has been designated for commercial use. Reclaiming or sharing spectrum for
mobile use is especially difficult and time-consuming, with some federal agencies indicating that it will take up to a
decade to move their operations out of the designated bands.37 Developing economies have fewer challenges in
this regard, and thus have the potential to make progress at the expense of the United States. Whether viewed
from the U.S. or global perspective, Scenario 2 is a disconcerting yet plausible outlook. U.S. mobile broadband
leadership is by no means assured.How policy actions could enhance or imperil Americas mobile broadband

If the U.S. lead in mobile broadband is eroded or lost, it could result in


substantial damage to U.S. economic development and tech nology
leadership Applying industry-specific multipliers to estimate the U.S. economic
impact of reduced capital expenditure by carriers , a mobile broadband spectrum supply
shortage could result in a direct loss of $67 billion in GDP and 344,000 jobs
through 2022.38 However, the indirect and induced impacts of a mobile broadband supply
shortage on other industries might be more significant. Mobile business
applications are already used extensively in nearly every industry and are becoming
increasingly indispensable for standard business activities . Further, even as human use
of mobile data continues to expand, it pales in comparison to anticipated growth in
the "Internet of Things much of which will be wirelessly enabled . Bullish industry
competitiveness 17

forecasts include an estimate of 26 billion installed Internet of things units by 2020, impacting the global supply
chain, and a prediction of 24 billion connected devices globally by 2016, resulting in a $1.2 trillion impact to North
American economies from revenues, cost reductions, or service improvements.39 If the United States mobile
broadband position becomes diminished and weak, it could create opportunities for other countries to gain traction
in areas of the mobile-enabled Internet of Things. Other countries, by tapping into their unique assets or
characteristics such as a higher population density or a leading public infrastructure could overtake the United
States in specific industries or applications such as telematics. mHealth, mCommerce, or mLogistics. Scale this

it is likely the collective impacts of conceded


leadership in mobile broadband would be substantial for the United States and its
economy. Should the United States relinquish its lead in mobile broadband and become just one of several
global players, the economic consequences could be severe . On the other hand, if the
United States retains its leadership position in mobile broadband, it could also become the market
leader in a variety of new industry segments that sprout within the Internet of
Things. In fact, it is not hard to envision a future in which the leading indicators of mobile broadband
effect across all global competitors and industries and

performance are also leading indicators of overall economic performance.

Internet innovation is key to solve climate change better than


any kind of energy production
Crowe 14
Taylor, writes for The Motley Fool focusing on the energy industry, The Internet of
Things: Our Greatest Shot at Battling Climate Change, Feb. 15, 2014,
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/02/15/this-technology-is-our-only-realshot-at-addressin.aspx
Machine to machine communication, or the internet of things, is on the precipice of taking
the world by storm. At its very core, machine to machine communication is the ability to connect
everything, I mean everything, through a vast network of sensors and devices which can communicate with
each other. The possibilities of this technological evolution span an immensely wide spectrum; ranging from
monitoring your health through your smartphone, to your house knowing where you are to adjust lighting and
heating.
The way that

the internet of things could

revolutionize our lives can be hard to conceptualize all at once.

have an immense
impact: Energy consumption. Not only could this technology make turning the lights
on easier, but it could be the key to us effectively managing anthropogenic
carbon emissions.
So today lets focus on one place where machine to machine communication could

Regardless of your thoughts and opinions on climate change and the scope of how much carbon emissions affects
the global atmosphere, we all can agree on one thing: Emitting less carbon is a good thing, especially if it can be
done without impeding economic growth. For years, the battleground for the climate change debate has been on
the energy generation side, pitting alternative energy options like wind and solar against fossil fuels. The problem

even under the most ambitious outlooks


for alternative energy growth, we will never be able to get carbon emissions below
the threshold many think is required to prevent significant temperature
changes over the next century.
with fixating on this side of the argument, though, is that

Does that mean there's no shot at significantly reducing carbon emissions? No -- we're just
focusing on the wrong side of the energy equation, and that is where machine to machine
communications comes into play. Lets look at how the internet of things can mean for carbon emissions, and how
investors could make some hefty profits from it.
Energy consumption's overdue evolution
We humans are a fascinating study in inefficiency. We will sit in traffic on the freeway rather than take the

We oversupply the electricity grid because we don't know


precisely how much demand is needed at any given moment. It's not that we deliberately try to do
alternative route on "slower" roads.

things less efficiently; we just don't always have the adequate information to make the most efficient decision.

When you add all of these little inefficiencies up, it amounts to massive amounts of
wasted energy and, in turn, unnecessary carbon emissions . In the U.S. alone, 1.9 billion
gallons of fuel is consumed every year from drivers sitting in traffic. That's 186 million tons of unnecessary CO2
emissions each year just in the U.S.

Now, imagine a world where every automobile was able to communicate with the
others, giving instant feedback on traffic conditions and providing alternative routes
to avoid traffic jams. This is the fundamental concept of machine-to-machine communications, and it goes
way beyond the scope of just automobiles and household conveniences.
One of the added benefits of this technology is the impact it could have on our everyday energy consumption and
the ultimate reduction in total carbon emissions.

A recent report by the Carbon War Room

estimates that the incorporation of machine-to-machine communication in the energy,


transportation, built environment (its fancy term for buildings), and agriculture sectors could reduce global
greenhouse gas emissions by 9.1 gigatons of CO2 equivalent annually . That's 18.2
trillion pounds, or equivalent to eliminating all of the United States' and India's
total greenhouse gas emissions combined, and more than triple the reductions we can
expect with an extremely ambitious alternative energy conversion program.
Increased communication between everything -- engines, appliances,
allows for instant feedback for more efficient travel routes,
optimized fertilizer and water consumption to reduce deforestation, real-time
monitoring of electricity consumption and instant feedback to generators, and
How is this possible?

generators, automobiles --

fully integrated heating, cooling, and lighting systems that can adjust for human occupancy.
There are lots of projections and estimates related to carbon emissions and climate change, but the one that has
emerged as the standard bearer is the amount of carbon emissions it would take to increase global temperatures by
2 degrees Centigrade. According to the UN's Environment Programme, annual anthropological greenhouse gas
emissions would need to decrease by 15% from recent levels to keep us under the carbon atmospheric levels .

Based on current emissions and the 9.1 gigaton estimate from Carbon War Room's
report, it would be enough to reduce global emissions by 18.6%, well within
the range of the UN's projections.

Warming is real, anthropogenic, and threatens extinction


Richard Schiffman 9/27/13, environmental writer @ The Atlantic citing the Fifth
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, What Leading Scientists Want You to
Know About Today's Frightening Climate Report, The Atlantic,
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/leading-scientists-weigh-inon-the-mother-of-all-climate-reports/280045/
The polar icecaps are melting faster than we thought they would; seas are rising
faster than we thought they would; extreme weather events are increasing. Have a nice
day! Thats a less than scientifically rigorous summary of the findings of the Fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) report released this morning in Stockholm. Appearing exhausted after a nearly two sleepless days fine-tuning
the language of the report, co-chair Thomas Stocker called climate change the greatest
challenge of our time," adding that each of the last three decades has been
successively warmer than the past, and that this trend is likely to continue into
the foreseeable future. Pledging further action to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said, "This
isnt a run of the mill report to be dumped in a filing cabinet. This isnt a political document produced by
politicians... Its science." And that science needs to be communicated to the public, loudly and clearly. I canvassed leading climate
researchers for their take on the findings of the vastly influential IPCC report. What headline would they put on the news? What do they hope people hear

Mann, the Director of the Earth Systems Science


Center at Penn State (a former IPCC author himself) suggested: "Jury In: Climate Change Real,
Caused by Us, and a Threat We Must Deal With." Ted Scambos, a glaciologist and head scientist of the
National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) based in Boulder would lead with: "IPCC 2013, Similar Forecasts, Better Certainty." While the report,
which is issued every six to seven years, offers no radically new or alarming news, Scambos told me, it puts an exclamation point
on what we already know, and refines our evolving understanding of global
warming. The IPCC, the indisputable rock star of UN documents, serves as the basis for global climate negotiations, like the ones that
took place in Kyoto, Rio, and, more recently, Copenhagen. (The next big international climate meeting is scheduled for 2015 in Paris.) It is also arguably
the most elaborately vetted and exhaustively researched scientific paper in
about this report? When I asked him for his headline, Michael

existence. Founded in 1988 by the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization, the IPCC represents the
distilled wisdom of over 600 climate researchers in 32 countries on changes in the Earths
atmosphere, ice and seas. It endeavors to answer the late New York mayor Ed Kochs famous question How am I doing? for all of us. The answer, which

It is now 95 percent likely


that human spewed heat-trapping gases rather than natural variability are the
main cause of climate change, according to todays report. In 2007 the IPCCs confidence level was 90 percent, and in 2001 it
was 66 percent, and just over 50 percent in 1995. Whats more, things are getting worse more quickly than
almost anyone thought would happen a few years back. If you look at the early IPCC predictions back
wont surprise anyone who has been following the climate change story, is not very well at all.

from 1990 and what has taken place since, climate change is proceeding faster than we expected, Mann told me by email. Mann helped develop the
famous hockey-stick graph, which Al Gore used in his film An Inconvenient Truth to dramatize the sharp rise in temperatures in recent times. Mann

Given the current trajectory, we're on track for ice-free


summer conditions in the Arctic in a matter of a decade or two ... There is a similar story with the
cites the decline of Arctic sea ice to explain :

continental ice sheets, which are losing ice and contributing to sea level rise at a faster rate than the [earlier IPCC] models had predicted. But there
is a lot that we still dont understand. Reuters noted in a sneak preview of IPCC draft which was leaked in August that, while the broad global trends are
clear, climate scientists were finding it harder than expected to predict the impact in specific regions in coming decades. From year to year, the worlds

hotspots are not consistent, but move erratically around the globe. The same has been true of heat waves,
mega-storms and catastrophic floods, like the recent ones that ravaged the Colorado Front Range. There is broad agreement that
climate change is increasing the severity of extreme weather events, but were not yet able to
predict where and when these will show up. It is like watching a pot boil, Danish astrophysicist and climate scientist Peter
Thejll told me. We understand why it boils but cannot predict where the next bubble will be. There is also
uncertainty about an apparent slowdown over the last decade in the rate of air temperature increase. While some critics claim that
global warming has stalled, others point out that, when rising ocean temperatures are
factored in, the Earth is actually gaining heat faster than previously
anticipated. Temperatures measured over the short term are just one parameter, said Dr Tim
Barnett of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in an interview. There are far more critical things going on; the
acidification of the ocean is happening a lot faster than anybody thought that it
would, its sucking up more CO2, plankton, the basic food chain of the planet,
are dying, its such a hugely important signal . Why arent people using that as a measure of what is going on?
Barnett thinks that recent increases in volcanic activity , which spews smog-forming aerosols into the air that deflect solar radiation
and cool the atmosphere, might help account for the temporary slowing of global temperature
rise. But he says we shouldnt let short term fluctuations cause us to lose sight of the big picture. The dispute over temperatures underscores just
how formidable the IPCCs task of modeling the complexity of climate change is. Issued in three parts (the next two installments are due out in the spring),
the full version of the IPCC will end up several times the length of Leo Tolstoys epic War and Peace. Yet every last word of the U.N. document needs to be

I do not know of any other area of any complexity and importance at all
where there is unanimous agreement... and the statements so strong, Mike
signed off on by all of the nations on earth.

MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs, Climate Institute in Washington, D.C. told me in an email. What IPCC has achieved is

the IPCCs conclusions tend to be


conservative by design, Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist with the Carnegie Institutions Department of Global Ecology told
me: The IPCC is not supposed to represent the controversial forefront of climate
science. It is supposed to represents what nearly all scientists agree on, and it does
that quite effectively. Nevertheless, even these understated findings are inevitably controversial. Roger Pielke Jr., the Director of the
remarkable (and why it merited the Nobel Peace Prize granted in 2007). Not surprisingly,

Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder suggested a headline that focuses on the cat fight that todays
report is sure to revive: "Fresh Red Meat Offered Up in the Climate Debate, Activists and Skeptics Continue Fighting Over It." Pielke should know. A critic of
Al Gore, who has called his own detractors "climate McCarthyists," Pielke has been a lightning rod for the political controversy which continues to swirl
around the question of global warming, and what, if anything, we should do about it. The publics skepticism of climate change took a dive after
Hurricane Sandy. Fifty-four percent of Americans are now saying that the effects of global warming have already begun. But 41 percent surveyed in the
same Gallup poll believe news about global warming is generally exaggerated, and there is a smaller but highly passionate minority that continues to

For most climate experts, however, the battle is long over at least
when it comes to the science. What remains in dispute is not whether climate change is happening, but how fast things are going
believe the whole thing is a hoax.

to get worse. There are some possibilities that are deliberately left out of the IPCC projections, because we simply dont have enough data yet to model

The scary elephant in the


closet is terrestrial and oceanic methane release triggered by warming. The IPCC projections dont include the possibility
them. Jason Box, a visiting scholar at the Byrd Polar Research Center told me in an email interview that:

some scientists say likelihood that huge quantities of methane (a greenhouse gas thirty times as potent as CO2) will eventually be released from

the threshhold when humans lose control


of potential management of the problem, may be sooner than expected. Box, whose work
thawing permafrost and undersea methane hydrate reserves. Box said that

the latest IPCC


predictions (of a maximum just under three foot ocean rise by the end of the century) may turn out to be wildly
optimistic, if the Greenland ice sheet breaks up. We are heading into uncharted territory he said. We
are creating a different climate than the Earth has ever seen. The head of the IPCC,
Rajendra Pachauri, speaks for the scientific consensus when he says that time is fast running out to avoid the
catastrophic collapse of the natural systems on which human life depends. What
he recently told a group of climate scientist could be the most chilling headline of all for the U.N. report: "We have five minutes
before midnight."
has been instrumental in documenting the rapid deterioration of the Greenland ice sheet, also believes that

The plan restores trust in U.S. companies by prohibiting


attacks on encryption.
Kehl et al. 14 Danielle Kehl, Senior Policy Analyst at the Open Technology
Institute at the New America Foundation, holds a B.A. in History from Yale
University, with Kevin Bankston, Policy Director at the Open Technology Institute at
the New America Foundation, former Senior Counsel and Director of the Free
Expression Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology, former Senior Staff
Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, former Justice William Brennan First
Amendment Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, holds a J.D. from the
University of Southern California Law School, Robyn Greene, Policy Counsel
specializing in surveillance and cybersecurity at the Open Technology Institute at
the New America Foundation, holds a J.D. from Hofstra University School of Law, and
Robert Morgus, Program Associate with the Cybersecurity Initiative and International
Security Program at the New America Foundation, 2014 (Surveillance Costs: The
NSAs Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity, Report by the
Open Technology Institute of the New America Foundation, July, Available Online at
https://static.newamerica.org/attachments/184-surveillance-costs-the-nsas-impacton-the-economy-internet-freedom-and-cybersecurity/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf,
Accessed 07-05-2015, p. 40-41)
The U.S. government should not require or request that new surveillance
capabilities or security vulnerabilities be built into communications technologies and
services, even if these are intended only to facilitate lawful surveillance . There is a
great deal of evidence that backdoors fundamentally weaken the security of
hardware and software, regardless of whether only the NSA purportedly knows
about said vulnerabilities, as some of the documents suggest. A policy statement from the Internet
Engineering Task Force in 2000 emphasized that adding a requirement for wiretapping will make affected protocol
designs considerably more complex. Experience has shown that complexity almost inevitably jeopardizes the
security of communications.355 More recently, a May 2013 paper from the Center for Democracy and Technology
on the risks of wiretap modifications to endpoints concludes that deployment of an intercept capability in...
communications services, systems and applications poses serious security risks.356 The authors add that on
balance mandating that endpoint software vendors build intercept functionality into their products will be much
more costly to personal, economic and governmental security overall than the risks associated with not being able
to wiretap all communications.357 While NSA programs such as SIGINT Enablingmuch like proposals from
domestic law enforcement agencies to update the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to
require digital wiretapping capabilities in modern Internet-based communications services358 may
[end page 40]

aim to
promote national security and law enforcement by ensuring that federal

agencies have the ability to intercept Internet communications, they do so at a


huge cost to online security overall. Because of the associated security risks,
the U.S. government should not mandate or request the creation of surveillance
backdoors in products, whether through legislation, court order, or the
leveraging industry relationships to convince companies to voluntarily insert
vulnerabilities. As Bellovin et al. explain, complying with these types of requirements would
also hinder innovation and impose a tax on software development in addition to
creating a whole new class of vulnerabilities in hardware and software that
undermines the overall security of the products.359 An amendment offered to the NDAA for
Fiscal Year 2015 (H.R. 4435) by Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Rush Holt (D-NJ) would have prohibited

The Lofgren-Holt proposal aimed to prevent


the funding of any intelligence agency, intelligence program, or intelligence related
activity that mandates or requests that a device manufacturer, software developer,
or standards organization build in a backdoor to circumvent the encryption or
privacy protections of its products, unless there is statutory authority to make such a mandate or
inserting these kinds of vulnerabilities outright.360

request.361 Although that measure was not adopted as part of the NDAA, a similar amendment sponsored by
Lofgren along with Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner (D-WI) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), did make it into the
House-approved version of the NDAAwith the support of Internet companies and privacy organizations362
passing on an overwhelming vote of 293 to 123.363 Like Representative Graysons amendment on NSAs
consultations with NIST around encryption, it remains to be seen whether this amendment will end up in the final

legislative efforts are a heartening sign and


consistent with recommendations from the Presidents Review Group that the
U.S. government should not attempt to deliberately weaken the security of
commercial encryption products. Such mandated vulnerabilities, whether required
under statute or by court order or inserted simply by request, unduly threaten
innovation in secure Internet technologies while introducing security flaws that may
be exploited by a variety of bad actors. A clear policy against such vulnerability
mandates is necessary to restore international trust in U.S. companies and
technologies.
appropriations bill that the President signs. Nonetheless, these
are

You might also like