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Yahoo names US surveillance critic as chief security officer

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Yahoo-logoYahoo Inc has named well-known security researcher Alex Stamos as its chief information security officer, tapping a vocal critic of the U.S. government's secret surveillance programs for the position.

Stamos was one of the primary organizers of TrustyCon, a gathering of prominent technology experts last month who had pulled out of the RSA security conference in San Francisco amid growing discord over some technology companies' cooperation with U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts.

Yahoo officials and Stamos could not be reached for comment on his appointment, which was announced Monday on the company's blog by Yahoo Senior Vice President Jay Rossiter.

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The blog said Stamos will lead a team of Yahoo "paranoids" charged with making products as secure as possible.

Stamos most recently served as chief technology officer of the security firm Artemis. Prior to that he was a co-founder of iSEC Partners, a security company that was acquired in October 2010 by NCC Group, the parent of Artemis.


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