Top executives ignore Obama security summit

Today Apple CEO Tim Cook will attend a cybersecurity summit at the White House, where he will discuss current issues with the presidential administration and the leaders of major intelligence agencies.

It seems that he will be the sole CEO of a large company among government officials. At least, the leaders of Google, Yahoo and Facebook decided to ignore this event, reports Bloomberg.

Mark Zuckerberg, Marissa Mayer, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt were invited to the summit. But all of them will ignore it, sources in companies said.

One can only guess about the reasons. But it is clear that recently the policy of the state and business in the field of information security seriously diverge. So the probable cause is friction due to the actions of the NSA and other special services, which seriously put pressure on the business and make companies justify themselves to their users. In fact, commercial companies incur losses due to the actions of special services.
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At the event at Stanford University, President Obama will speak to the audience, and then a private dinner will be scheduled.

Bloomberg recalls that representatives of the IT industry almost unanimously supported Obama in the presidential elections of 2008 and 2012. But since then, relations have deteriorated because of the position of the administration on issues of state surveillance of electronic communications and respect for the rights of citizens.

Instead of the CEOs of the listed companies, the directors of information security departments will be sent to the summit.

Recall that Apple and Google have recently begun to use strong encryption algorithms to protect data on mobile devices, without storing backup copies of keys and without the ability to recover information by an outsider. This caused serious concern among the security services: “We need our private sector partners [Apple and Google] to step back, take a pause and consider changing course, ” then said FBI director James Cowmey. “We also need regulations or legislation to create equal conditions so that all communication service providers adhere to the same standard and that our representatives in law enforcement, national security and public security can continue to do their work ... I think it's time to ask where we are how is society? Maybe the principle of the rule of law has ceased to operate in our country, where no one can place himself above the law? Do we really trust the government and law enforcement agencies so much that we are ready to give freedom to criminals ... are we ready to leave the victims of crimes in search of justice? ”