On Mon January 15 2007 10:40 am, Ralf Corsepius wrote: > As you meanwhile noticed this incident took place in 1999. > > May-be you're too young, may-be it had escaped you, but it had shattered > earth then ... > > Googling still provides many links originating from this time reflecting > this. For example: > http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9909/03/windows.nsa.02/ > Ralf: I'm not sure what you're getting at. I've mentioned a couple of times in this thread that I've heard this story before - as for being young, well, some say you enter second childhood at a certain age, so if being nearly 60 qualifies me, then I'm young... > > and I've wondered > > why. Being an American, and living in my country under the current > > administration, the matter has certainly raised questions in my own mind. > > I'm not personally concerned about who sees what on my machines, but the > > broader issue involved is still relevant concerning questions of > > over-reaching govt. and erosion of civil liberties, and protections > > against unsupervised warrantless surveillance > > Well, then you probably will have difficulties to imagine the impact > this incident had on MS outside of the US. > I've no such difficulty - I'm well aware about concerns raised by other countries regarding matters such as this - much more aware than your average American. What I meant by "not being personally concerned" was that I don't do things on my machines that could remotely be construed as threatening to anyone, nor do I keep data on them that I don't want accessed - but just because my life is an open book, it doesn't mean that I want someone else having the right to database it secretly... > It's not an exaggeration to state it had shattered trust into Microsoft > products and had been one reason amongst others which had caused major > institutions (e.g. governments) to switch away from Microsoft products. > > > I mostly find it curious that the matter just hasn't even come up... > > I recall it (and the fact the NSA is involved into SELinux + RH > promoting it actively) having come up several times before on this list. > Fair enough - I hadn't noticed it in over 3.5 years, but I don't necessarily read every single post - it's a busy list > One thing I can tell for sure: There is still a noticible group of Linux > users in Europe, for whom this incident and the NSA's involvement into > SELinux is an argument for "not choosing" Fedora. I'm not surprised, and I have heard that myself - in fact, that comes up quite frequently in other forums and lists - I just haven't seen much discussion of it here... -- Claude Jones Brunswick, MD, USA
