AT&T turns spying on customers for CIA into cash waterfall – report

"We value our customers' privacy"

And the value is ten million dollars!

One of the very few parts of our legal system that works really well is the part that prevents the government from taking your property without paying for it. Thanks to the British oppressors of the past who forced colonial rebellion, partially, by allowing their soldiers to stay in people's houses and seize their property we now have a really great way to bill out current oppressors.

But seriously, even with a court order the government has to pay if they take/demand your stuff. If it's a product they're taking they have to pay the replacement value of thing and any costs associated with putting the new thing back to work, those prices are generally established and there isn't much wiggle room. Service demands/subpoenas are another thing entirely.

If they're requesting you perform a custom service on their behalf, you've got pretty much a blank check to assign (arbitrary) numbers of staff to the project. You have to bill those staff out at their regular rate, but they can't say no if you say it takes 19 first class engineers to check email logs. They can cancel the project (even then you get to bill them for the quote) if it is too expensive but you basically name your own price and they can take it or leave it.

What about free VOIP?

Free VOIP anyone? How many free VOIP and messenger services are there that have no income, and yet can pay the ISP bills.

I read Viber was suspected of being a surveillance app, but they're hardly the only company that collect information without a business model to pay for their servers.

Kwack for [Talmon Marco viber CIO] to see what I mean.