On 5/19/05, Ian G <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Thursday 19 May 2005 23:25, Ram A Moskovitz wrote:
> 
> > > If it is the US government then it is probably
> > > easier to ask Verisign.
> >
> > I don't think it would be tougher for the US gov to get a certificate
> > out of one US corp or another assuming they had legal grounds to do so
> > and the employees saw no ethnical problem with doing so. If there is a
> > difference I think it is the opposite of what you suggest. VeriSign
> > can afford to fight requests it has problems with while a smaller
> > company may find it much harder. There is a weak analogue available in
> > the way ISPs are handling requests for their customer's information -
> > of course the ISPs don't live by a repuation that depends on trust so
> > they are not as motivated to avoid trust breaches.
> 
> Perhaps.  We are dealing with a hypothetical and
> we can only conjecture as to how this would unfold.
> It may be that Verisign would fight it, but as they
> have much more revenue from the federal government
> I personally would bet that they wouldn't fight it.

You have data that shows VeriSign makes more money of the US Fed than
off the commercial sector? I believe that is false; citation please.


> Also,
> if one is to look at the location, board, and interlinkings,
> it has often been commented that Verisign is one of the
> closest organisations, along with Oracle by way of
> example.

I believe that is false; citation please.


> > > > In any case I
> > > > think you would go along with any legitimate request made by a
> > > > legitimate government authority; I would.
> > >
> > > I think Duane is in Australia.
> >
> > And so being an upstanding Australian citizen or resident I expect he
> > "would go along with any legitimate request made by a legitimate
> > government authority"
> 
> OK, so just FYI, that is an approach that
> would not work so well outside the US, as
> you can perhaps see from Duane's response.

My intended meaning of "legitimate" request was a reference to
appropriate - the point being to exclude cases of inappropriate or
unethical requests.


> Many peoples around the world would be
> bemused at a direct appeal to nationalism,
> and the notion that because someone says
> it is legitimate then it somehow is legitimate
>
> Either way, many Internet people think that
> privacy is privacy, and once breached, that
> needs to be recognised.
> (Which might not then result in much like
> refusing the warrant ... but it is certainly
> enough to call into question any policy
> that says "that's ok coz the government
> asked for it" and to render such as not
> really popular for Internet open source
> groups to consider as part of their policy.)

We must each take responsibility for our behavior and that includes
testing it our values.

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