No one wants to go to law school, yet new ones keep popping up
A view of the Claire T. Carney Library at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth campus on April 26, 2013, in Dartmouth, Mass.
Photographer: Kayana Szymczak/Getty Images
This month, the American Bar Association provisionally accredited a new law school at Concordia University. More than 200 law schools are accredited in the U.S. An analysis of data from the ABA itself raises the question whether that list should be getting any longer.
Law schools exist for a lot of reasons, but a pretty important one is to prepare people to be lawyers. By that standard, a large handful of institutions seem to be failing. Last year, 10 law schools were unable to place more than 30 percent of their graduating class in permanent jobs that required passing the bar, according to ABA data. Those job numbers don't include positions that schools fund for their graduates or people who say they are starting their own practice.
At the University of Massachusetts School of Law, the American school with the worst job outcomes by this measure, just 22 percent of people who graduated in 2014 got those types of law jobs.
“We are a work in progress, and we need to improve our bar-pass rate and improve our employment, and I am not embarrassed about that,” says Mary Lu Bilek, the dean of U-Mass Law. Forty-two of the 60 U-Mass Law students who took the bar in February or July 2013 passed the test. The school counted 81 graduates in 2014. Bilek notes that the school's employment numbers have improved in recent years and says she doesn’t think it’s fair to discount people who have opted to do things with their J.D. besides become lawyers.
“The traditional elite jobs aren’t the jobs that our students generally want,” she says. “There’s not room for another law school that wants to have students who want to do that, because there aren’t enough jobs for that.”
Years of a disappointing job market for lawyers have dramatically reduced the number of people interested in getting a law degree. According to the Law School Admission Council, just under 53,000 people are expected to apply to law schools by the beginning of the 2015 academic year, down from more than 100,000 in 2004.
Instead of making more things that fewer and fewer people want to pay for, one thought would be to eliminate some of those things. Are there law schools that should disappear? “Maybe. But how is that going to happen?" asks Al Brophy, a law professor at UNC. "Will it happen because places say voluntarily, ‘hey, we aren’t making money, so we should shut down?’”
Schools will not volunteer for their own demise, Brophy says, partly because so many people—alumni, faculty, staff—have a strong interest in keeping the end at bay. “It is going to take a lot to have schools shut down. What I think we are going to find is that they are going to be able to operate on shoestring budgets.”
Bilek, the U-Mass law dean, says she will continue to focus on preparing students for the careers they want, even if they stray outside the standard path for lawyers.
“I don’t want law schools to get away with pretending students can get jobs that they can’t get,” she says. She also doesn’t want the only measure of a school’s success to be the number of people it places in traditional law firms.
Fast lanes exist, neutrality doesn't, and this is all perfectly legal under the FCC's new rules
Lots of attention was paid this week to a study showing that major ISPs are throttling traffic. At first glance, it seems a clear test case for the FCC's Net neutrality rules, which prohibit blocking, throttling, or creating special "fast lanes" for content. The problem is, this is not the throttling you're looking for, Obi-Wan.
The new rules went into effect a fortnight ago, and aside from scattered accounts of consumers who wrangled price breaks from their cable companies after filing complaints with the FCC about unfair billing practices, and news that Sprint stopped slowing traffic for customers who use a lot of data, very little has changed for Internet users -- or is likely to anytime soon.
Perhaps that frustration explains The Guardian's eagerness to jump on a story, rehashed by others, about a "new" study from Battle for the Net purporting to expose ISPs in the act of deliberately throttling Internet traffic. Except the data isn't new; it was first released by M-Labs in October 2014 and updated in April.
And the "throttling" described is not banned by FCC rules. What M-Labs' measurements demonstrate is the difference in interconnection performance between IP networks and CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) and ISPs in various U.S. cities. For example, in Atlanta, Comcast had median download speeds from GTT of 21.4Mbps during peak hours, while AT&T provided median download speeds of only 0.2Mbps.
Caught in a nefarious act, you might say? Far from it. AT&T makes no bones about it: When a network sends more than twice the traffic it receives, it is required to pay AT&T an interconnection fee, and the company won't upgrade capacity to a CDN with heavy traffic until it is paid. After all, the FCC doesn't require ISPs to upgrade their infrastructures to handle larger volumes of traffic (even though AT&T customers might believe that their hefty monthly tithes entitle them to a network capable of handling the traffic they request).
Apparently GTT's check is lost in the mail, hence the dismal connection to AT&T's network.
Today it's estimated that half of all Internet traffic comes from just 30 providers, including Google, Facebook, and Netflix. And more and more of these large content providers have set up their own CDNs, rather than use a company like Akamai, and signed agreements with multiple ISPs for their CDN connections. Companies like Google, Facebook, and Netflix -- and consumers -- have benefited from these kinds of Internet fast lanes for years.
Of course, as TechDirt says, "When Google and Netflix improve their networks, the benefit goes to everyone. When Comcast sets up tollbooths, the only thing that goes to everyone is increased costs.... Every Internet site has to pay once for bandwidth and then a second time to ‘get access' to end users."
Net neutrality advocates argue that ISPs are holding traffic for ransom, but unfortunately, ISPs are seemingly within their rights to do so when it involves a CDN or peering arrangement. Fast lanes into ISP networks are a fact of life; it's fast lanes within the "last-mile" Internet connecting ISPs and their customers that are now illegal.
The FCC chose to focus on the last-mile Internet, leaving interconnection agreements with ISPs mostly untouched -- although the rules do, for the first time, give the FCC the authority to police disputes about congestion and examine complaints about unfair interconnection pricing on a case-by-case basis.
Consumers, of course, are caught in the middle when interconnection disputes arise -- as they did last year with Netflix. ISPs claim (bandwidth) poverty and argue that large content providers should pay up to add additional network resources. CDNs counter that they already paying for Internet access and for the servers and infrastructure needed to facilitate delivery of their content -- content that users want so much they are willing to pay cable companies through the nose to gain access to it -- so ISPs should be footing the bill for upgrading their own networks.
Frustrating for Internet users? Certainly. But while many agree that ISPs are too big, too powerful, and abuse their monopoly by "throttling" interconnections from CDNs that refuse to pay up, the situation is not likely to change any time soon.
This may sound like Internet traffic being held for ransom, but it's all perfectly legal and has been standard operating procedure for 20 years. CDNs and peering connections came about as a means to deliver content faster and more efficiently to Internet users. By making arrangements to put servers inside an ISP network and set up direct connections to ISPs, large content providers were able to facilitate the delivery of their traffic to users.
As streaming media expert Dan Rayburn commented on his blog, As consumers, we pay ISPs to get a certain level of connection to the Internet, via the last mile the ISPs operate. We do not pay for any kind of "guarantee" to be able to reach a certain website or video service, with a certain level of quality. I get that many consumers think that is what they are paying for, but it isn't.
Suck on them apples.
Still, there is a glimmer of hope that with FCC oversight, ISPs will be more reasonable. Cogent and Level 3, which have long railed against telecoms' shakedowns, threatened to file complaints with the FCC, alleging that ISPs' demands for payments to upgrade interconnection points far exceeded reasonable costs and demonstrated an abuse of market power. Both recently signed new interconnection deals with AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon.
The real problem remains: Consumers have little choice in Internet providers. "In a more competitive market, I suspect the consumer experience would count much more to a provider than the proportionately tiny amount of investment required to manage Internet traffic. When providers shift their priorities towards customers, these kinds of disputes will become extremely rare," commented Stop the Cap!
Meanwhile, in a world where local ISP monopolies may legally opt to "throttle" interconnections, Simon & Garfunkel's advice to "slow down, you're movin' too fast" leaves few Internet users feelin' groovy.
CRIMINALS CONTINUE TO DEFRAUD AND EXTORT FUNDS FROM VICTIMS USING CRYPTOWALL RANSOMWARE SCHEMES
Data from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) shows ransomware continues to spread and is infecting devices around the globe. Recent IC3 reporting identifies CryptoWall as the most current and significant ransomware threat targeting U.S. individuals and businesses.1 CryptoWall and its variants have been used actively to target U.S. victims since April 2014. The financial impact to victims goes beyond the ransom fee itself, which is typically between $200 and $10,000. Many victims incur additional costs associated with network mitigation, network countermeasures, loss of productivity, legal fees, IT services, and/or the purchase of credit monitoring services for employees or customers. Between April 2014 and June 2015, the IC3 received 992 CryptoWall-related complaints, with victims reporting losses totaling over $18 million.
These financial fraud schemes target both individuals and businesses, are usually very successful, and have a significant impact on victims. The problem begins when the victim clicks on an infected advertisement, email, or attachment, or visits an infected website. Once the victim’s device is infected with the ransomware variant, the victim’s files become encrypted. In most cases, once the victim pays a ransom fee, he or she regains access to the files that were encrypted. Most criminals involved in ransomware schemes demand payment in Bitcoin.
Criminals prefer Bitcoin because it's easy to use, fast, publicly available, decentralized, and provides a sense of heightened security/anonymity.
If you believe you have been a victim of this type of scam, you should reach out to your local FBI field office. You may also file a complaint with the IC3 atwww.IC3.gov. Please provide any relevant information in your complaint.
Tips to protect yourself:
Always use antivirus software and a firewall. It's important to obtain and use antivirus software and firewalls from reputable companies. It's also important to continually maintain both of these through automatic updates.
Enable popup blockers. Popups are regularly used by criminals to spread malicious software. To avoid accidental clicks on or within popups, it's best to prevent them from appearing in the first place.
Always back up the content on your computer. If you back up, verify, and maintain offline copies of your personal and application data, ransomware scams will have limited impact on you. If you are targeted, instead of worrying about paying a ransom to get your data back, you can simply have your system wiped clean and then reload your files.
Be skeptical. Don’t click on any emails or attachments you don't recognize, and avoid suspicious websites altogether.
If you receive a ransomware popup or message on your device alerting you to an infection, immediately disconnect from the Internet to avoid any additional infections or data losses. Alert your local law enforcement personnel and file a complaint at www.IC3.gov.
1Ransomware is a type of malware (or malicious software) that blocks access to a computer system or files until a monetary amount is paid.
The Latin Chamber of
Commerce of USA - CAMACOL will be conducting a Business Development Trade
Mission to Panama,City, Panama departing from Miami, on September 27th, and
returning on the 30th, 2015. CAMACOL representatives will fly onboard Copa
Airlines. This is a cost effective business trip thanks to the sponsorship
support of CAMACOL, Copa Airlines and the Panamanian Chamber of Commerce.
Panama Trade Mission Activities Include:
Networking
Breakfasts
Informative Seminars / on "How to do Business with Panama"
Business Networking Luncheons
Business Matchmaking Sessions - One on One pre-scheduled meetings
Social Networking Receptions
Formal Networking Dinner
Guided City Tour (optional)
Registration deadline: September 10th, 2015.
Participation Costs
Airfare: Copa Airlines roundtrip fee: $456.50.
Note: To receive this rate, you must book your ticket by August 25th, after
this date, the rate will vary.
Participants are welcomed to travel to Panama onboard an airline carrier of their choice, as well as depart from the airport destination of
their choice. Hotel: El Panama - Via España, Eusebio A. Morales
111, Panamá, Panamá
Single rooms $100 / Double rooms $105 - U.S. per night, plus taxes (includes
breakfast and internet). For more information: Betty Gradera at (305) 642-3870 ext. 202 ( bettyg@camacol.org )
Proud Sponsors:
COPA AIRLINES CAMACOL
CAMARA
DE COMERCIO, INDUSTRIAS Y AGRICULTURA DE PANAMA
Reserve your tickets!!! Our Domino Tournament will be held
Saturday, August 1st, 2015 at 3PM at the Marlin Stadium located at:
501 Marlins Way, Miami, FL 33125 Ticket price are as follows: Individual tickets - $75.00
Includes: Domino event, Bacardi bar from 3pm - 5:30pm, appetizers, all you
can eat from the Marlins concession stands from 5:30pm to the 7th inning;
nachos, hot dogs, peanuts, popcorn, sodas, bottled water, and the Marlins
game.
Domino Tables - $300.00 (4 players, first come,
first serve)
Includes: Domino event, Bacardi bar from 3pm - 5:30pm, appetizers, all you
can eat from the Marlins concession stands from 5:30pm to the 7th inning;
nachos, hot dogs, peanuts, popcorn, sodas, bottled water, and the Marlins
game.
Sponsorships - $1,000.00
(Sponsorship benefits: one domino table, sponsor recognition in the
following; program, invitational flyer, banners, signage, Marlins
announcement board, email blasts, magazine, etc.)
For more information and to purchase your
tickets,
Edwin Conrado Rivera es un colaborador asiduo de CAMACOL, dónde ha brindado varios Seminarios especializados sobre estos temas. Hoy continua el tema que comenzó en el mes anterior: Siguiendo con la serie de
Desarrollo de Liderazgo Mundial, hoy corresponde al
Tema: La responsabilidad del
lider para “Liderar el Cambio”.
“Liderar el Cambio” – El lider es aquel que aunque tenga
miedo al cambio es el que se enfrenta a sus miedos y camina hacia la
implementación de dichos cambios.
Alguien tiene que hacerlo, y es el lider el que esta llamado a
realizarlo.
Solo quisiera que tengan en consideracion que el
liderazgo mundial comienza en casa. Si
en su casa no tiene liderazgo, como pretende liderar a los de afuera.
Cambiar
es una de las tareas más difíciles que existen pero, no es algo nuevo. En 1513, Nicolás Maquiavelo escribía
estos párrafos sobre este mismo tema:
”…Y a este respecto se debe tener en cuenta hasta qué punto no
hay cosa más difícil de tratar, ni más dudosa de conseguir, ni más peligrosa de
conducir, que hacerse promotor de la implantación de nuevas instituciones.
La causa de tamaña dificultad reside en que el promotor tiene
por enemigos a todos aquellos que sacaban provecho del viejo orden y encuentra
unos defensores tímidos en todos los que se verían beneficiados por el nuevo.
Esta timidez nace en parte al temor de los adversarios, que
tienen la ley de su lado, y en parte también la incredulidad de los hombres,
quienes -en realidad- nunca creen en lo nuevo hasta que adquieren una firme
experiencia en ello.
De ahí nace que, siempre que los enemigos encuentran la ocasión
de atacar, lo hacen con ánimo rebelde, mientras los demás sólo proceden a la
defensa con tibieza, de lo cual resulta un serio peligro para el príncipe y
para ellos.”El Principe, Nicolás Maquiavelo, 1513.
Hoy día hay 4 postulados principales para vencer la resistencia a los cambios:
1.Preparación
a.Establecer un sentido de urgencia – La gente tiene que entender
que los cambios son constantes. Que los mercados estan cambiando diariamente y
que si nos mantenemos haciendo lo mismo, otros presentaran cosas novedosas y diferentes
a nuestros clientes y prospectos.
Diariamente
vemos en los medios de información como las empresas se estan afectando
negativamente por estos cambios, que incluyen, la política y sus luchas de poder, el
valor del dólar y las necesidades de los mercados.
Aún,
cuando todo aparenta estar bien, debemos estar al tanto de todo lo que pasa en
nuestros mercados para que no nos coja desprevenidos y podamos reducir
cualquier impacto negativo que pueda surjir.
b.Desarrollar una poderosa coalición para el cambio. Los
lideres deben enfatizar a suequipo de
directivos a salir de la zona de comodidad y asumir mayor riezgo en el proceso
de dirección, haciendo que la estrategia de cambio de la empresa vaya mas allá
del departamento que tienen a su cargo.
En
un momento de cambio, los líderes deben identificar que
directivos son capaces de trabajar en equipo, y quizas pedir a los que no estan
dispuesto al esfuerzo del cambio, que consideren nuevas oportunidades en otro
puesto o en otra empresa.
Es
responsabilidad del lider no darse el lujo de que sus colaboradores transmitan resistencia
y negativismo sobre los cambios.
2.Liderar
a. Desarrollar una visión y una estrategia para lograrla.Toda
empresa debe reafirmar anualmente su misión, sus valores y validar la visión de
un objetivo ambicioso y retador, que incluya fechas concretas, y una meta que
actualmente no se consiga con los sistemas y procesos actuales.
Una
de las herramientas que sirve para transmitir el sentido y la intensidad del
cambio es “El Plan de Negocios Actualizado”, que indica como sería dicho cambio para los
diferentes departamentos de la empresa.
b.Comunicar la visión y la estrategia. El
proceso de comunicación es contínuo. Siendo la finalidad de la
comunicación el que todas las personas de la empresa puedan responder a dos
preguntas básicas:
1.¿Tiene mi empresa una estrategia para el éxito?
2.¿Cómo aporta mi trabajo para lograr esa estrategia?
3.Involucrar
a.Motivar a las personas a actuar. Los
directivos y todos los empleados deben sentir que su labor es importante para
contribuir al éxito de la estrategia.
Una de la herramientas para este proceso es el “Cuadro de Mando Integral”
(Scorecard), y su despliegue en cascada en toda la organización. Esto permite la desentralización de la
toma de decisiones de una manera coherente y muy poderosa.
Otra
de la herramientas es el diseño de procesos, que traduce los objetivos internos
en mejoras concretas en las distintas faces del proceso. Los sistemas de medicion en los procesos
operativos por medio de “scorecard” y “dashboards”, permiten que los empleados
tengan las referencias concretas para mejorar su trabajo diario.
b.Generar y celebrar beneficios a corto plazo. Uno
de los principales retos del cambio, es como se sostiene después de la fase del
entusiasmo inicial, cuando la visión del cambio que queda por recorrer es
descorazonadora.
En
este punto debe tenerse en cuenta que dependiendo de la tipología de los objetivos, los plazos
son diferentes. Los objetivos que tienen
que ver con las mejoras operativas, tienen plazos menores de 1 año.
Los
que tiene que ver con la gestión de los clientes pueden tener plazos incluso de
2 años y, los que tienen que ver con los procesos de innovación y generacion de
nuevos servicios y productos pueden necesitar plazos mayores.
c.Mantener el esfuerzo. Generar
todavía más cambios. Más
allá de la motivación intrínseca, los empleados deben
recibir parte de los beneficios del cambio vía remuneración variable ligada
al desempeño personal y los objetivos alcanzados relacionados con el proceso de
cambio.
Para
mantener ese esfuerzo es necesario realizar reuniones de revisión estratégicas,
separadas de las reuniones operacionales, en las cuales se maximice el
aprendisaje y la mejora.
4.Proceso de Innovación Constante
a.Institucionalizar la nueva
cultura. El
cambio en las organizaciones es algo que siempre ha sido complejo porque esta
ligado a la naturaleza humana.
Las
empresas que tienen bien aliniados sus procesos con la gente son la que mejores
resultados tendran en las ejecutorias de sus metas y objetivos.
* Edwin Conrado Rivera. El autor de este
artículo es Contador, posee una Maestría en Salud Pública, y cuenta
con más de 25 años de experiencia como “International Trainer and Coach”. Es el autor del libro: La Diabetes: El Árbol de las Enfermedades. Puede ser contactado en edwinconradorivera@gmail.com
Since writing the PGP encryption software in the 1990s, Phil Zimmermann has been a key figure in the internet privacy debate. With that argument heating up again, his perspective is more relevant than ever.
The ruined MacBook was owned by the Guardiannewspaper and held a copy of the files leaked to the paper by by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, or at least it did until it was destroyed with axle grinders and drills following pressure from the UK government (all of this was pure theatre of course; duplicate copies of the files on the machine existed elsewhere).Walk into London's Victoria and Albert museum design, pass the queues admiring the fashionable frocks and rooms full of classical statues, and you'll come to a glass case. Look inside and you'll see the remains of a thoroughly trashed MacBook, and, a little down and to the left, a small, black, unblemished smartphone.
The smartphone is better known as the Blackphone, the handset developed by a company called Silent Circle with the purpose of keeping its customers' conversations as private as possible.
The hard drive and smartphone tell different parts of the same story: how technology is at the heart of the battle over what privacy should, and does, mean in the twenty-first century. The smashed MacBook embodies how governments try (and fail) to contain their secrets (particularly ironic when the secret they want to protect is that they are spying on us) while the smartphone reflects the attempts of individuals to keep their communications private.
The Blackphone is the latest project from Phil Zimmermann. Over the last three decades, Zimmermann has been building encryption technology has ensured the security of countless messages. If you've ever had any secrets held about you on a computer—and everybody has secrets, even things as simple as tax records and credit card numbers—there's a good chance that Zimmermann's technology has helped keep them secret.
At a recent private viewing of the exhibition that features the Blackphone, Zimmermann pondered what the emergence of whistleblowers like Snowden says about the current state of privacy.
"The moral problems with the behaviour of our intel agencies should give us pause, should get us to step back and question, 'What are we getting our intel agencies to do?' We should take another look at this. We should try to restrain them more," he told the audience.
"This has been my motivation for my entire career in cryptography," he says. "The driving force is the human rights aspect of privacy and cryptography and ubiquitous surveillance, pervasive surveillance... We live in a pervasive surveillance society."
As he spoke, the radio of one of the watching museum guards squaked briefly and loudly into life, neatly illustrating Zimmermann's point.
Miss the mortgage, code the crypto
Encryption is the process by which data—be it an email, phonecall, or indeed any digital communication—can be scrambled so that it can only be accessed by the intended recipient.
The debate over online privacy had been going on since the emergence of the internet itself, often centred around the use of encryption, since the technology remains the best way to ensure privacy. After all, modern encryption systems mean it would take a supercomputer thousands of years to break encrypted messages without the key.
Zimmermann has been a central figure in the debate since the start. His work on encryption has always gone hand-in-hand with his privacy activism, as he explained over tea the day before the museum's private showing.
"I can apply my crypto expertise to making a living and that fits nicely with the activism about privacy," he said. It's certainly the discussion of privacy that makes him most animated, although, as he notes, "at different times my activism has run in different directions," adding as an aside: "If I had more time, I'd work on climate change."
In the 1980s in Boulder, Colorado, he worked as a military policy analyst with the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign while juggling a day job as a software engineer.
During this period he was arrested along with Carl Sagan, Martin Sheen, and Daniel Ellsberg —quite a line-up for a geek dinner party—and 400 others for protesting at a Nevada nuclear weapons test site. It turned out the test they were trying to stop had taken place a couple of days earlier.
As the Cold War began to draw to its close, Zimmermann's interest in encryption grew as he realised the need for technology to protect private communications both across the world and at home. When the internet was just a hangout for a bunch of early adopters, security and privacy wasn't that big a deal. As it began to grow, that changed.
"The internet became a more hostile place. In the early days of the internet, it was kind of a nice neighbourhood with well manicured lawns and then it became a blighted neighbourhood so people were more aware they had to be more careful. If you're going to do communications on the internet, you pretty much have to do crypto to have any expectation of privacy," he said.
Zimmermann began working on a project, which eventually became Pretty Good Privacy—PGP for short—an email encryption software package. It was published for free on the internet in 1991, and became the most widely used encryption software in the world. Its development wasn't an easy job, however.
"It was a hard road to get to the release of PGP. I missed five mortgage payments developing the software in the first half of 1991," Zimmermann wrote on the ten-year anniversary of its debut.
It got worse. When PGP spread worldwide, Zimmermann became the target of a three-year criminal investigation, because the government argued that US export restrictions on cryptographic software had been violated. The government finally dropped the case in 1996.
"It was shortly after PGP 2.0's release that US Customs took an interest in the case. Little did they realize that they would help propel PGP's popularity, helping to ignite a controversy that would eventually lead to the demise of the US export restrictions on strong cryptography," Zimmermann wrote.
That's because his case, along with a number of other events at the time, created a very public debate about how privacy technologies should be used. The conclusion was that, despite the potential risks that encryption might pose, governments ought not place controls on the technology.
"At the end of the 90s we saw many elements of society were reaching a consensus: that strong crypto was an important technology for ecommerce and civil liberties and privacy and a free society," Zimmermann said.
Since then, encryption has taken on the same level of importance to the internet as the Force in the Star Wars universe: a mysterious power that surrounds us and binds the internet galaxy together.
When we shop online, it's encryption that makes sure that your credit card details aren't being snooped on. When you log into your bank account, it's encryption that means you can be sure it's really your bank's website you are visiting, not a glossy fake. Encrypted databases keep your medical records safe from prying eyes, while encrypted email protects your business proposals, declarations of love, or nude selfies.
PGP is now owned by Symantec, and for the last dozen years Zimmermann has been working on encrypted voice communications protocols, and most recently the creation of a company called Silent Circle. One of the voice encryption standards used by Silent Circle is called ZRTP and as the company's website puts it bluntly: 'The Z in ZRTP stands for Zimmermann."
Silent Circle
Silent Circle launched in October 2012, jointly founded by Zimmerman and Mike Janke, a former Navy SEAL. The company counts 30 of the Global Fortune 50 among its customers, along with journalists, government agencies, and the military. The company recently raised $50m to fuel further growth.
But it's not your standard tech startup, many of which make their money from slicing, dicing, and reselling information about their customers' web habits. In contrast, last year Silent Circle moved its headquarters to Geneva—Zimmermann is also based in the Swiss city now—from Canada in search of stronger privacy laws to protect its customers' information, even from itself.
Originally when they started the company, the intention was just to pursue markets where there were people with a particular need for privacy—like journalists working in war zone—but after the Snowden revelations, "there were a lot more people that could see that there's a need for this in all kinds of situations," Zimmermann said.
Mike Janke (left) and Phil Zimmermann
Patrick McDermott, Getty Images
Talking of Snowden, Zimmermann notes with a certain amount of pride: "Snowden got his hands on some documents that showed some products that [the NSA] had broken the crypto [on]—and none of my stuff was on the list."
Silent Circle's Blackphone device runs a security-toughened version of Android it calls PrivatOS. Calls are encrypted end-to-end which means even the company itself can't hand over the details to anyone. "We have no access to it. None. We can't disclose what we don't have access to," the company says.
Since the V&A exhibition opened, the Blackphone has been added to the collection of a second museum—the International Spy Museum in Washington DC. Its 'Weapons of Mass Disruption' gallery explores the challenges facing the intelligence community in the twenty first century.
The idea behind the Blackphone smartphone, and the tablet that followed it, is to provide an even greater level of security than is available with current hardware. The decision to move from software to hardware was in direct response to questions like 'Is your stuff NSA-proof?' which make cryptographers uncomfortable, said Zimmermann. That's because, while their software might work fine on 'clean' hardware, when running on a computer infected with malware, the software—no matter how good in theory—could prove useless. "For many years that was our caveat, but it's better to try to do something about it, [to] see if we can improve the hardware platform," he said.
Providing secure communications might seem relatively uncontroversial but the consensus built in the 1990s—that encryption is a good thing—is now on the verge of collapsing, with the Snowden documents representing the unexpected catalyst.
Governments are warning again about the dark side of encryption, claiming that it allows criminals to plot in secret because police and intelligence agencies can no longer crack their communications.
Recently, Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the NSA, said: "I certainly have great respect for those that would argue that the most important thing is to ensure the privacy of our citizens and we shouldn't allow any means for the government to access information. I would argue that's not in the nation's best long-term interest."
Lining up on the other side are the privacy campaigners and even the United Nations which argues that access to encryption is essential to protect basic human rights.
All of this is an issue again because, as a consequence of the revelations from Snowden about the extensive surveillance programmes of the US intelligence agency, more and more companies (Apple, Whatsapp, Silent Circle, and others) are making encrypted communications the standard for their billions of customers.
As a result, politicians and law enforcement agencies have been making louder and louder noises that something must be done about the use of encryption—although they are vague on exactly what actions should be taken. They also generally sidestep the irony that many companies have only turned on encryption because of the massive data collection by the NSA and others.
The NSA is demanding access to encrypted communications and the UK is considering passing a law to enable the same. In contrast, Germany, with a different historical perspective on the dangers of government surveillance, not only allows encryption but positively encourages it.
Considering that Zimmermann has been through the whole encryption debate once and thought it settled, only to see it emerge again like some kind of digital Groundhog Day, he seems surprisingly relaxed and upbeat—at least about this element of the privacy battle.
"Back in the days when I was getting arrested for trying to stop the arms race, that seemed pretty hopeless. The entrenched interests in that were huge. Look around: we managed to get through it. The Cold War is over, the nuclear arsenals have been dramatically reduced—still enough to blow up the world a few times, but we're much better off now than we were. If we can change that, why can't we change this?"
For Zimmermann that means a public debate, like the one that the privacy activists won back in the 90s. "I used to debate NSA and FBI officials; I'd like to do that again. Strong crypto is pervasive now: in every web browser when you do ecommerce or online banking, the web browser has strong crypto. There's no rolling that back. That's why I'm not getting all worried about it."
But does the average member of the public care? Despite the Snowden revelations, has there been any real impact on public opinion? If so, it's difficult to perceive. The issue of privacy would mean little to an average citizen - say my dad - for example. Therefore, the wider the public debate, the better.
When bringing up my dad, Zimmermann's response is sharp and to the point: "You bring it up with him I assume? Then he might have quite a lot of opinions on it. Ask him what he thinks." His point: the danger is letting such issues pass undiscussed and unchallenged.
He might not be worried about the ongoing anti-encryption rhetoric, but he remains a vocal supporter of the right to use it. Zimmermann was one of a number of technologists who signed a letter to the US—along with tech giants like Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, and the American Civil Liberties Union—warning the White House to step back from attempts to bring encryption under government control.
"More than undermining every American's cybersecurity and the nation's economic security, introducing new vulnerabilities to weaken encrypted products in the US would also undermine human rights and information security around the globe," the letter said.
However, the very same governments, even the same agencies, that worry about the use of encryption by the public are themselves enthusiastic users of encryption products, including those from Silent Circle.
The irony is not lost on Zimmermann: "Everybody wants this protection for themselves, they don't want others to have it," he says.
"We had US Customs come into the office. It so happens that US Customs was the agency investigating me in the 90s. I sat in on the meeting and I said, 'How many people here actually worked at US Customs back in the 90s?' Nobody's hands went up—so none of the people in the room were aware that US Customs was the investigating agency in my case."
But what of the idea that only governments should be allowed to use encryption technologies? While Zimmermann was addressing a security conference in one hall of London's Olympia exhibition centre, in another hall at a completely different event, the UK's top anti-terrorism police chief made a speech complaining about how tech companies—he didn't say which ones—were making life harder for cops.
Zimmermann deploys an analogy to dismiss such arguments: "We're in the business of making body armour—there's a need for body armour, Navy Seals need body armour. What are we going to do? We can't just sell to them, there's not enough Navy Seals. If we sold only to them, the cost would just be crazy."
He points out that there are plenty of other technologies beyond cryptography that have been used by both consumers and the military.
"There's lots of technologies that are widely used: GPS receivers were developed by the military to guide missiles to their targets. It's only later that people started using them for other things. Crypto historically has been used more by the military than anybody, but now everybody uses it for ordinary things, just like they use GPS for ordinary things," Zimmermann said.
The question of pervasive surveillance
But while Zimmermann is relaxed about the prospect of refighting the crypto wars of the 1990s, he's far more worried by what he sees as a larger threat to privacy that is looming right now.
"The debate now is about the question of pervasive surveillance. We have to push back against the intercepting [of] everything that flows over the internet and fusing it with surveillance data that comes from other sources—cameras everywhere, face recognition algorithms behind the cameras—total information awareness," he warned.
Part of this is down to technology—as we carry more gadgets, snoopers will find it easier to track us and learn about us. But it's also to do with a change in emphasis for the intelligence agencies, from focusing on a few individuals to collecting as much data about everyone as they can.
Zimmermann argues that one of the key things that has come out of the Snowden leaks is how the NSA has changed its definition of the 'collection' of data, which allows it to collect and store vast amounts of data—as long as it doesn't look at it.
"The new definition of collection is that 'it doesn't really count if all I do is collect it and store it somewhere, but if I want to look at it in storage, then I go to a court.' Well, that's a pretty loosey-goosey definition of collection. That's collection that should count as collection," he said.
Zimmermann speaks with the air of someone who has had these debates many times before, but is still willing to go back into battle. What of the standard argument often deployed here: that if I have nothing to hide I have nothing to worry about?
His response is succinct. "If you really felt that you had nothing to hide, then I would never want to tell you any of my secrets as you're not going to protect them. If you're a doctor, I don't want to see you because you're not going to protect any of my patient records."
Also, to take such a narrow view is to miss the bigger point. For example, political opposition in China is impossible because the country has built a surveillance society, he argues. "Here we have a democracy in Britain, but sometimes in a democracy bad people can come into power and if you have a system that allows another election cycle, you can get rid of the bad people.
The Blackphone 2 smartphone
Image: Silent Circle
"But if they inherit a surveillance infrastructure like what we are seeing, they can use the power of incumbency to remain in power. They can neutralise opposition with scandals or blackmail, or whatever can be exposed about their private life."
Even George Orwell's Big Brother had the decency to limit its surveillance to one all-seeing 'telescreen' per house. Now, thanks to smartphone selfie cameras and webcams on pretty much every device, we've all but built our own panopticon. All that is required is for the NSA or GCHQ to start gathering up the streams.
Technology can both protect the individual or create an environment where privacy is impossible, he warns.
"All dystopian societies are surveillance societies, so we have to get people to recognise that it's bad to give up everything," he said. "In any complex society, people do have secrets."
Even those people who see little to fear might ponder the scenario that Zimmermann sketches out of the future of pervasive surveillance.
"Imagine if the police installed surveillance cameras in your house, in every room of every house, in your bathroom, in your bedroom, and they collected all the video and put it on massive disc farms in the basement of the police station and they promise not to look at the files unless a court orders it."
He also has little time for the politicians and police who worry about losing track of criminals who use encryption.
"They are in a golden age of surveillance now. They've got this big picture with a few missing pixels and they're complaining. You go back twenty years, and they didn't have this big picture, they didn't have all these incredibly pervasive surveillance capabilities. So would they take that trade? I don't think so," he said.
"They have near total information awareness so they shouldn't be trying to take away our last few remaining black pixels on the big picture."
According to Zimmermann, we are witnessing the emergence of pervasive, retroactive surveillance, and the response is obvious. "We have to do something about this," he said.
