On 6/18/13 11:07 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:
The ARRL http://www.arrl.org/ licenses amateur radio operators. They
are non-governmental but I think the FCC has to OK the levels of the
examination.
Let's say that the PRISM accusations are true, and that Microsoft was
first on board providing compromised services and software to the NSA.
Why would anyone then believe that any sort of Microsoft Certified
Solutions Whatever should be any indication of expertise in ensuring
security as opposed to merely giving the appearance of security (except
for the NSA)? Such `experts' are, well, stooges. Same goes for Cisco,
Oracle certifications etc. You can extrapolate that all the way to
universities funded on the public dime. `Educators' are just as well
subject to influence through funding [dis]incentives as anyone -- and
that possibility is _truly_ insidious.
Organizations like the EFF seems about the best bet, since they are
focused on this issue. That also makes their leadership targets,
should they gain larger popularity.
The first thing that has to go if people want privacy are their
proprietary operating systems. In the open source community, where
people actually care about this stuff, they bother to debate it in an
open way. Personally I'm less afraid of the NSA than opportunistic
sharing of things like medical data, financial information by
corporations, say to reduce insurance payouts. Deals completely behind
the scenes and deniable.
I get the impression that many people accept the story that the policies
and laws are what matter and not the deployed capabilities. It's a
remarkable mistake.
Marcus
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