Cisco Admits That Foreigners Afraid Of NSA Revelations May Have Hurt Latest Earnings

from the and-so-it-begins dept

From very early on in the NSA leaks, I wrote that the tech industry should be furious about the NSA revelations because it was inevitably going to harm them tremendously. It's taken a while, but we're seeing more and more companies recognize (finally) that the NSA can have a real impact on business. On Cisco's earnings call (which wasn't good), the company admitted that fears about the NSA in other countries is likely having an impact, albeit small for now.
"I do not think it is the major factor across all of emerging. I do think it is a factor, however, in China," Chambers said.

"It's not having a material impact. But it's certainly causing people to stop and then rethink decisions, and that is, I think, reflected in our results," said Rob Lloyd, president of development and sales.
And this is why the tech industry needs to be a lot louder on these issues, and to actually take it seriously. There's a very real economic impact. The more recent revelations about the NSA hacking into Google and Yahoo's data centers should be a wake up call to even more tech companies, though, unfortunately it appears that many still want to hide under the radar.
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Filed Under: earnings, nsa, surveillance
Companies: cisco


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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2013 @ 3:02pm

    "Cisco Admits That Foreigners Afraid Of NSA Revelations May Have Hurt Latest Earnings"

    Not to side with the NSA here but Cisco, as any company, would want to find any reason to blame everything else for its shortcomings. So anything they say here should be looked at with skepticism.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    out_of_the_blue, 15 Nov 2013 @ 3:28pm

    OMG! An indefinable but "small" effect! -- What about WE THE PEOPLE, Mike?

    I'm actually tired of responding to the many items in which you worry about corporate profits without ever mentioning We The People! (But I soldier on.) Corporations are soulless amoral monsters which feel nothing, but are apparently Mike's first and only concern. Frankly, I don't know how he can even write without some mention of "natural persons" who are victims of both NSA and mega-corporations, but my guess is that Mike is at best split because a corporatist who regards corporate spying as good.

    Libertarians never grasp that civilization isn't about market efficiency; it's keeping the few from controlling all.

    11:27:29[m-730-2]

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2013 @ 6:01pm

    Remember when some members in Congress, were making a huge fuss about letting China owned Huawei, manufacture equipment for US telecommunications markets?

    Almost exactly one year ago, Misrep. Rogers stated:

    "Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, at a press conference to release the report, said companies that had used Huawei equipment had reported "numerous allegations" of unexpected behavior, including routers supposedly sending large data packs to China late at night."

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/08/us-usa-china-huawei-zte-idUSBRE8960NH20121008

    What he's worried about is, China back-dooring the hardware components at their being manufactured at the chip foundries. Which is probably the exact same thing the NSA does. Requiring fabricators of US cellular hardware to program in low-level proprietary back-doors.

    Both of them are back-dooring cellphone and telecommunications hardware, such as Cisco routers. Which is why neither the US nor China wants to have each others back-doored hardware on each others networks.

    Of course there's also Russia. Who decided to go back to using typewriters, and said "screw all the back-doored hardware!"

    Whoever owns the fabrication foundries, owns the hardware. Especially whoever fabricates the 3G/LTE cellular modem chips. I hear the new Intel processors actually have these cellular modems integrated directly inside the CPU itself, and that it's even possible to remotely disable the CPU over the cellphone network.

    http://www.popularresistance.org/new-intel-based-pcs-permanently-hackable/

    https://en.wikiped ia.org/wiki/Intel_vPro#Security_and_privacy_concerns

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2013 @ 6:19pm

    Re:

    See the problem there is that CISCO was not the one caught lying to the public or hiding anything, plus is not like they are like labels and studios that do in fact try to shift responsibility to others.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2013 @ 7:36pm

    Good

    Really, given their infamous longstanding cooperation with evil they richly deserve it.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2013 @ 10:59pm

    Cisco profits down, Governments Tax revenue down, NSA damaging the Government proven...

    Simple analysis, priceless.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Nov 2013 @ 12:08am

    Aww..Boo-effing-hoo! They should've thought about this possibility before helping NSA undermine security in their hardware and mass spying on everyone. If they thought that if they fought it, then they would've lost some US gov contracts, then I hope now they lose 10x more contracts. And let that be a LESSON for any other company doing the same.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. icon
    PaulT (profile), 16 Nov 2013 @ 1:26am

    Re: OMG! An indefinable but "small" effect! -- What about WE THE PEOPLE, Mike?

    "I'm actually tired of responding to the many items in which you worry about corporate profits without ever mentioning We The People"

    You mean apart from all the articles about the violations of personal freedoms (which you also attack)?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Nov 2013 @ 4:56am

    those companies that are still 'hiding under the radar' are probably scared that they will be the next targets of the NSA and have all sorts of trumped up charges levied against them so as to bring the businesses to the knees!
    we have all seen how the USA security agencies con people into doing things for them and then not only turn their backs on these people and companies, they actually have the gall to prosecute them! that keeps their actions looking squeaky clean while hanging someone out to dry. they add in the 'we saved you all from another terrorist plot' just for good measure as well!
    it makes me wonder whether living in a country that rules with an iron fist is better than one that says it doesn't. at least the people living in the one know exactly where they stand, right on the brink! in the other, you are tossed around like a paper boat in a storm at sea, never knowing what lump of shit is going to be thrown at you next and from which direction!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Nov 2013 @ 6:42am

    There's a very real economic impact.

    Not really the NSA will continue to pay them for their services .. remember the $10,000 toilet contractors
    our money will cover all losses .. once again

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. icon
    Shawn (profile), 17 Nov 2013 @ 9:51am

    I am surprised Dell has not rebranded their Network Security Appliances. You got to think buying something named the NSA 2600 has got to cause a pause.

    http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/sonicwall-nsa-series/pd

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Anonymous, 17 Nov 2013 @ 4:54pm

    Re:

    Was my Atari console reporting back to the government in the '80s? Say it ain't so!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Nov 2013 @ 5:06pm

    Re: Re:

    Yes Defender ratted you out

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    Examcollectionsite, 15 Jan 2020 @ 11:26pm

    Pass my Cisco Exam Dumps

    Cisco, being the leading vendor of IT industry, offers a work environment with tremendous opportunities for the Cisco certified professionals. https://www.examcollectionsite.com/Cisco.html is committed to provide you the top dumps to help you embrace Cisco global perspective. Each brain dump in ExamCollectionSite’ Cisco dumps PDF is worthwhile, helpful and exam-oriented. The braindumps PDF is the gist of the entire syllabus yet concise enough to be prepared within days.

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