Adam Back asked | Would you expect microsoft IIS web server to contain an SSL backdoor? Or | microsoft VPN client? Or cisco?
I replied > Of course they contain backdoors. [[...]] Adam Beck also wrote | A lot of businesses and individuals are | relying on these things to do what is advertised. Not doing what is | advertised can itself get companies in trouble, in many jurisdictions. | Skype has/had as a differentiator that it was end2end encrypted, it is my | impression that a number of people used it for that purpose. to which I responded > Yes, many people are foolish enough to believe advertising. The contrast > between what the advertising says and what (little) the EULA shrink-wrap > license text actually promises is IMHO quite instructive... Jeffrey Walton then commented: > Well, I'm not user how foolish someone is being (no disrespect > intended). Most users don't have the expert knowledge of folks in this > group; nor the expert knowledge of a lawyer to wade through the fine > print. Users are just being users, and both Gutmann and Anderson have > a lot to say about them in their books. [[...]] > If the technology > is advertised a "secure" or it ensures "privacy", that's what people > expect. These companies are *not* advertising "partially secure," > "partially encrypted," or "partially private" conversations. You make a cogent point, and perhaps I was being a bit too harsh in writing "Yes, many people are foolish enough to believe advertising." A better phrase might have been "Yes, many people (are led by our culture to) unwisely believe advertising, and unwisely believe that powerful instutions (corporations and governments) pay more than lip service to individual privacy. > Sorry to drift off-topic. On the contrary, I think your point is quite appropriate. ciao, -- -- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]" <[email protected]> Dept of Astronomy & IUCSS, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA on sabbatical in Canada starting August 2012 "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral." -- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list [email protected] http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
