On a personal level the disclosure was that "little additional push" (a wake up call) that made me abandon use of main Google services (email and voice). I advocated my close friends and associates to do the same and some of them are following the lead.
The most important impact will be difficult to gauge: The US and Five Eyes have built a world-spanning interlocking hierarchy of lords and vassals of surveillance. This means none of the important governments in the world has true autonomy in decision-making, without their decisions being anticipated and influenced by the US and its closest allies.<p>Security efforts will get serious if state actors decide to try to escape this web.
It would be nice to see how companies like google/twitter/facebook/apple/microsoft/etc got negatively affected by these disclosures. Probably by checking usage drop or some other relevant metrics.<p>I know a few people (non it related) that dropped gmail.
The reality is even if they pardon him, the guy will never be safe in his home country. Thousands of so called "patriots" believe this man is a traitor. Very sad especially considering what little has changed since the leak.
It has not made our data safer - rather it confirmed that our data "is not safe" anymore!!<p>Snowden confirmed that we have 0 (zero) privacy and that government has unrestricted access to all of your personal data, and if needed that data could be "pulled" and used against you.
In my experience they caused people to get slightly more serious about security, but the effect was minimal beyond crypto heads and maybe enterprise users.<p>UX continues to dominate all other market factors in computing by a huge margin.
[quickly] Reading through: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosures_(2013%E2%80%93present)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure...</a><p>If you say that disclosing surveillance on US citizens was ok, how do you explain these leaks:<p>* """The Norwegian Intelligence Service (NIS), which cooperates with the NSA, has gained access to Russian targets in the Kola Peninsula and other civilian targets. In general, the NIS provides information to the NSA about "Politicians", "Energy" and "Armament"."""<p>* """In France, the NSA targeted people belonging to the worlds of business, politics or French state administration."""<p>* """the NSA had been monitoring telephone conversations of 35 world leaders"""<p>* """In an effort codenamed GENIE, computer specialists can control foreign computer networks using "covert implants," a form of remotely transmitted malware on tens of thousands of devices annually."""<p>* """According to Edward Snowden, the NSA has established secret intelligence partnerships with many Western governments."""<p>* """revealed NSA spying on multiple diplomatic missions of the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Headquarters in New York."""<p>How are these matters relevant to the citizens of the United States? Aren't these things exactly what spy agencies are supposed to do? Why should Snowden get a pardon for disrupting normal intelligence work?
Snowden's revelations about domestic spying made the US safer. Snowden's revelations about non-domestic spying made the US weaker.<p>If all he'd done was the first he should be pardoned. Because he did the second he should get life without parole.
Does anyone else think this Snowden as a hero stuff is a bit much? The guy revealed government programs that ANYONE who cared to look knew existed decades before (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON</a>). I'll grant he sure raised awareness but does that make him a hero? ...and the recent increased attention to security seems to be heavily influenced by commercial hacking concerns rather than a response to government surveillance? Also... does anyone seriously think the government can't decrypt your data? Do we want every soldier, employee and contractor working in our government to use giant data dumps as a legit way to lodge their objections? Convince me why this guy shouldn't be in prison?