Security upgrades show Snowden won
Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden succeeded where President Barack Obama couldn't - getting Microsoft, Google and Yahoo to upgrade computer security against hackers.
The companies are adopting harder-to-crack code to protect their networks and data, after years of largely rebuffing calls from the White House and privacy advocates to improve security. The new measures come after documents from Snowden revealed how US spy programs gain access to the companies' customer data - sometimes with their knowledge, sometimes without - and that's threatening profits at home and abroad.
"These companies actively fought against numerous mechanisms that would have mandated far more secure data," Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation in Washington, said in a phone interview. "Now they are paying the literal price."
