On Friday 20 May 2005 00:33, Ram A Moskovitz wrote:
> > 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.

Well, you may be right.  That's why I said conjecture,
and that I would personally bet that they wouldn't
fight.

As to your comment above about the commercial
sector, I didn't comment on it but I can see that might
be taken to be what it meant.  What I should have
said is that as Verisign makes much more revenue
from the federal government than from the intended
victim of a substitute cert attack, then they are
unlikely to fight it.

If you need a cite on that, check "agency theory."

> > 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.

I had it in my mind that Verisign was headquartered
in Washington area, maybe I was thinking of one of
the acquisitions.  Was Network Solutions HQ'd there?

> > > > > 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.

OK, just so there's no misunderstanding here,
such a request could cause tempers to be
inflamed, as you are telling the person that
your view of "legitimate" is the one that they
need to accept.

In other words, by using the words "legitimate"
you are signalling that your request is not in
fact legitimate, and you need to appeal to
cheap and shoddy tactics to overcome
resistance.  That's why asking whether Duane
votes and whether he'd "help save the children"
got a pretty firm response and he struggled to
be polite about it.

This is a cultural thing, I think.  Different
countries have very different attitutes as to
how things are couched and what negotiating
techniques are valid and what are rude.

(The precise technique is a win-lose negotiating
technique and I don't know its technical name.)

iang
-- 
Advances in Financial Cryptography:
   https://www.financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/000458.html
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