Re: @Stake CTO fired for Microsoft comments

["Ryan M. Ferris" <rferris () rmfdevelopment com>]

Gwendolyn:

Last year DARPA cancelled a contract with OpenBSD researchers in
Pennsylvania, after Theo deRaadt made a comment like:
"I try to convince myself that the DARPA grant is saving the cost of half a
cruise missile."

If you use fascist logic to fire CEOs for telling the truth and deny funding
to the study of other more secure OS because of political commentary, you
will end up with the mixed results of a fascist technology.  In this case,
our country will continue to have weak network security due to a fascist
agenda, leaving us vulnerable to other countries who have no such monopolies
or politics to prevent them from choosing security vendors in an unbiased
fashion. If we let Microsoft have it's way, open source software like Snort
and BSD would be labelled "un-American". ( A highly ironic label given the
academic start BSD has at a public university....)

This logic extends well beyond network security.  The space shuttle was used
extensively during Gulf War I.  For reasons that are not clear, we do not
have that technology in place for Gulf War II.  The real irony to this is
that the technology Microsoft condemns as being un-American, gets developed
here and then adopted abroad. Have you heard the rumour of the complaints by
the administration about the DPRK using Linux clusters to develop nuclear
weapons?

When we wake up 15 years from now and find Russian, Chinese, and Indian
technology dominating network security  and other technologies across the
world, we can blame ourselves and our great "capitalist nation" that
utimately discouraged entrepeneurship and innovation by practicing fascism,
corruption, and a virulent brand of savage, monopolistic capitalism.

Ryan M. Ferris
rferris () rmfdevelopment com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr" <gwen () reptiles org>
To: <firewall-wizards () honor icsalabs com>
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 7:40 PM
Subject: [fw-wiz] @Stake CTO fired for Microsoft comments


> For anybody that hasn't caught up with this yet:
>
> http://www.forbes.com/technology/newswire/2003/09/25/rtr1092228.html
>
> @tStake CTO loses job after Microsoft report
> Reuters, 09.25.03, 6:46 PM ET
>
> SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 25 (Reuters) - The chief technology officer of
> computer security firm AtStake, which consults for Microsoft Corp.
> (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people), has been fired after taking part in
> writing a report criticizing Windows as posing a national cybersecurity
> risk, an associate said on Thursday
>
> cheers!
> ==========================================================================
> "A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound
> desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to
> avoid getting wet.  This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."
>
> _______________________________________________
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