Danny Yadron

There is a new frontier in cybersecurity: The computers masquerading as phones in consumers' pockets. Smartphones are constantly connected to the Internet, infrequently updated and are challenging to secure. They're rich targets, recording pictures, names of associates and conversations.

Google wants to make encryption hip -- and may have won a quick convert. Comcast, the nation's largest Internet provider by number of homes and businesses served, said it would begin scrambling customers' email to protect it from prying eyes.

The move came just hours after Google called out email providers, including Comcast, for not using encryption.

Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas said the company is testing encryption and would begin using it more broadly on customers' email "within a matter of weeks." He said Comcast is "very aggressive about this."

The moves were an indication that some tech companies see privacy as a consumer issue after a year of leaks from Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor. Snowden's leaks prompted Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo among others, to make it harder for government spies to read emails as they cross the Internet's backbone.

To a degree shared by few, John Inglis knows the risks of collecting a lot of data on people. Until January, Inglis, who goes by "Chris," was the number-two official at the National Security Agency. He spent much of 2013 pushing back against disclosures from former contractor Edward Snowden about the extent of NSA surveillance.

Now, the former NSA deputy director is warning technology companies that amass vast amounts of personal information to learn from his agency's mistakes. Be transparent about what they collect, and why they collect it, Inglis said.

"There's an enormous amount of data held in the private sector," Inglis said, in his first published interview since leaving government. "There might be some concerns not just on the part of the American public, but the international public."