Brian and Keith Rabois discuss how Trump might reshape cybersecurity policy. They expect a cyber-offense task force and tougher stance on encryption, but predict incremental changes rather than dramatic shifts. The biggest unknowns: whether Trump pushes for corporate data access and how U.S.-Russia cyber tensions evolve.
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What does security and privacy look like under Donald Trump?
I think that's the question we're all wondering about today. The reality is, I think that there, first, we can all take a deep breath. There's probably not going to be an enormous amount of change. But I do think we can look to two things. One is, what he has said is he wants to put a task force in place to look at these issues. That's the what he's put on his website. And that can be expected of any candidate. And I think the second is that there could be more offensive activity. And that is probably the one that we need to watch closely, because particularly post-Russia, which I know you're going to bring up at some point, point is that there have been some retaliations of late, at least that's been reported in the press. Will he continue?
What kind of retaliation?
What's been reported in the press is that we've gained access to their infrastructure. And so the question is, will that continue? Will he want to use cyber offense more often than has been used in the past? Will he be more disclosing of those capabilities?
I think that's where the unknown is.
So you're saying the U.S. is going to hack Russia now? No, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that what has been in reported in the press, is that the U.S. has, you know, tried to retaliate for what seems to have transpired with the WikiLeaks. And so the question that I think is on the table in regards to President Trump and what may transpire going forward is how will he use cyber offense? That is an interesting question, much more than necessarily privacy, because I don't see him making much of an impact in that.
Do you worry for your safety, for our safety? I do.
I mean, if you've looked at presidents before, like Nixon clearly abused some of his powers and, you know, God forbid he had some of the powers that President Trump will inherit. I think there's going to be a lot of fans suddenly converted into the form of the belief in limited government. There's been a lot of, you know, Democrats and liberals that have been ignoring the concepts of a constitution and constitutional limits and limits on the executive branch. And Obama's pushed very far on that dimension. And I think there's going to be.
A consensus to pull back what the executive branch is allowed to do, which is probably a healthy thing. So let's talk a little bit about Russia. Of course, President Putin congratulated Donald Trump. on his win. Brian, how much do you think the hack on the Democrats, WikiLeaks, how much do you think that actually influenced the outcome of the election?
I mean, I'll leave that to the political prognosticators. What I'll stick on is security. What I think what was interesting about it, as, you know, General Hayden has noted, is the fact that it looks like a foreign intelligence service went ahead and partnered with an organization such as WikiLeaks to disclose the information.
And got away with it, thus far.
Appears that way.
Or accomplished what they had hoped.
I mean, I think that that is where the speculation comes in, which will lead to the prognosticators. What we should focus on is what that means going forward. And I think that's partly what we'll continue to see, which is cyber will be used increasingly as a tool. We really know it as a tool of economic espionage. We really know that people are being targeted inside organizations to take sensitive data, because the reality is that somebody that is internal has access. And that's what we saw with the John Podesta leaks is they were gaining information there and they knew who to target. They knew how to target. What we really saw there is that that can happen more and more.
The U.S. relationship with Russia has been incredibly tense. Keith what do you make of a potentially friendlier future. What does that really mean for us.
I'm not sure being friends with Russia under the current leadership is a good idea. I'm not to be a hell probably be accused of being bit Romney in 2012. But I think you know Russia has some and Putin has some bad ideas and somebody needs to stay stand up to them. I don't know that it'll be Donald.
Trump, but hopefully it'll be the Republican Congress. What about Brian encryption and privacy issues that, you know, companies like Apple have a lot of our data and have been fighting to keep it private? And Trump has been very public that he didn't like the way Apple handled the iPhone, the encrypted iPhone situation. Of course, you know, the White House in general wanted Apple to break open that phone, but Apple did not. you know, could Trump force companies to hand over more personal data?
Yeah, I mean, first, I'm glad you asked that, because I think that's the interesting question. What it appears as if is that he's going to be much more pro-law enforcement. So he could be much more aggressive going forward. I think we have to remember that there are still other branches of government that need to be engaged to enable him to continue to be more aggressive. I mean, he would have to get a subpoena approved to gain access. I do think this is where an idea such as Senator McCall Senator Warner and Congressman McCall's commission that to study encryption further comes in. And I could see that gaining some legs. But I think of all the priorities he has coming up, you know, going after and changing the way encryption is.
In this country, I would say that's probably not going to be at the top of the list. And what about other countries? I mean, the U.S. now has an agreement with Europe called the Privacy Shield, which sort of controls the transfer of.
Data that can happen between Europe and the United States. Could Trump undo that deal? Of course he could. and it was done via executive order or via an executive branch activity. But the reality is that that's unlikely to. That is being implemented, that has widespread public support, and the reason he would undo it, to be clear, is to gain more access to EU citizen data. Yet at the same time, he also ran as somebody that's very pro-business and wants to encourage, you know, our companies to be successful. So I think the question that we are probably asking today is what's to come? and I think the reality is we don't know. But my sense is that we're going to see a lot more status quo than we expect. And likely what is happening is the normal study that happens during any transition of power.
