Trump vs. Clinton: Who's Better on Cybersecurity?

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Comparing Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on cybersecurity is probably one of the toughest challenges for a journalist writing about the presidential race. Or, perhaps, it’s one of the easiest. Donald Trump has no mention whatsoever of cybersecurity in his official platform. In fact, he doesn’t even mention the word “Internet” once, although he has mentioned the word cyber. Clinton, on the other hand, has a whole section of her platform dedicated to innovation and technology. To be fair, she doesn’t have detailed proposals regarding cybersecurity, but at least she mentions it, saying she intends to promote it “at home and abroad,” and will protect “online privacy and security.” Clinton also specifically says she intends to safeguard “free flow of information between borders,” and update procedures that regulate the sharing of people’s data across borders—a key internet privacy issue.

Trump, for his part, has shown a remarkable ignorance toward cybersecurity even throughout the campaign. Recently, he said “the cyber is so big,” and explained the word cyber didn’t even exist until recently—showing how out of touch he is from anything that involves computers. He also called out Apple for fighting the FBI in the famous San Bernardino (CA) case and said he was going to boycott the tech company, and joked about the DNC hack, calling Russia to hack Clinton’s e-mails.


Trump vs. Clinton: Who's Better on Cybersecurity?