Snowden's revelations changed IT industry's sense of privacy

With his release of information that the US National Security Agency had access to the private networks of technology giants Google and Yahoo, were scooping up users' mobile data indiscriminately and tapping the phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and 34 other world leaders, Edward Snowden kicked off a global debate on privacy and surveillance that is likely to resonate for years to come.

Most users are probably now aware that companies can be compelled by US courts to reveal sensitive data. They also are likely to assume that intelligence agents could get direct access to e-mails, video-conferencing sessions, chat logs, calls over the internet, stored data and usernames and passwords for any of these services.

"There's a lot more interest in open-source cryptographic tools. The developer can validate the tools are not doing something else," said K. P. Chow, the director of the Law and Technology Centre at the University of Hong Kong and a cryptography expert.

He said requests for information about security and privacy tools from the government and Hong Kong community have been on the rise since Snowden's revelations a year ago and that people are asking more and smarter questions about potential security vulnerabilities.

Chow said that as they look to move away from the big US technology providers to boutique companies that do not have as strong ties to particular governments or large institutions, more interest is being shown in tools developed by providers from Korea and China.

Such moves have been a boon to most of these smaller providers. But for Lavabit, the encrypted e-mail service provider used by Edward Snowden, US legal pressure forced it to shut down last year to protect its users.

"What ensued was a flurry of legal proceedings that would last 38 days, ending not only my start-up but also destroying, bit by bit, the very principle upon which I founded it - that we all have a right to personal privacy," wrote Ladar Levison, owner of Lavabit, in The Guardian last month, as he detailed how FBI agents served him  court orders requiring  that he install surveillance equipment on his network and provide the private encryption keys that would allow the US government to access the plain text version of all e-mail communications. He also received a gag order that stopped him from talking about his ordeal..