Readit NewsWell, sure, you could argue that, but that argument justifies every rule that exists now or might in the future.
Export controls are there to prevent killing machines getting in the hands of a countries enemies (or potential enemies in the future)
The government shouldn't be forced to buy any type of military technology someone creates. But even if the government won't buy your tech, it still can be dangerous in the hands of other countries.
One could argue that if the government is preventing you from selling your tech abroad - there should be some sort of compensation for this. Others could argue that's just the cost of being in the business of weapons manufacturing.
"The move could hurt the companies image in San Francisco where the competition for engineers is fierce."
I live in New York and I would never work there. Why would anyone want to join a sinking ship? It's image is gone all in the name of the mighty stock price.
While its always great for your career to be in a company that's constantly growing - sometimes being that person that can help the company do a lot more with less resources is even better for your career. When everyone's jumping ship - the people who choose to stay on-board can often be very rewarded as far as their career growth goes.
Expect more of this in the near future, single-source infrastructure is becoming a huge liability (not that it wasn't before). I wonder what impact on SLAs it will have when cloud services providers are taken down - will they honor their SLAs or inject DDOS clauses into them to shield themselves. You won't see many standing up to multi-Tbps attacks, at least for the moment.
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Be wary of social engineering attacks though.
- <support on the phone> I'd also need you to provide me an answer to your security question. What was your first dog's name?
- <me> Oh, you know, it's a long string of random characters I generated, I'd have to give them to you one by one...
- <support> (looks at the answer) uh, right. I see. Let's continue then.
1. You live in the US
2. You believe the US government is moral and "good"
3. Any "enemy of the US" is evil
3 assumptions I am not willing to support
It isn't about believing your government is moral or good. Its about understanding that your government is responsible for the safety of citizens, and that your enemies will want to kill you (or at least kill your soldiers).