Re: "Revealed: how Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages"

Mark Watson <watsonm@netflix.com> wrote:

> On Jul 12, 2013, at 11:21 AM, Norbert Bollow <nb@bollow.ch> wrote:
> > The key distinction is that the EME spec has the property than in
> > practice, if you want to partake in what the spec is intended to
> > enable, you will have to use closed software that comes from a
> > company that you may not trust.
> 
> Just to re-iterate, the intention is that the closed software comes
> from, or is at least well understood by, your browser implementor or
> your OS implementor. I believe you have bigger problems if you don't
> trust either of those.

My trust in them is to a very significant part based on them making
their full source code available under a Free Software license. 

> Furthermore, you have choices, which through
> the operation of competition pushes these vendors towards honesty and
> transparency.
> 
> This is in contrast to the current situation where the closed software
> comes from a third party who indeed you may not trust and about whom
> you have no choice.
> 
> Is this not an improvement ?

From my perspective there is no improvement at all in that. The
“premium content” services are not currently available for me and that
would not change at all.

Quite on the contrary, through standardization the social pressure
would increase to use a system with closed software from a party whom I
do not trust. That is something that would make the situation worse.
Depending on how much that social pressure would increase, a possible
outcome would be that the number of users of the kind of operating
system platform that I want to use could decrease to the point where it
is no longer actively developed, and then it is no longer a viable
choice even for someone who is rather uninterested in what is currently
offered as “premium content”.

I feel threatened in regard to my continued ability to be able to use
software which I trust.

That is why I argue so vigorously against that threat.

Greetings,
Norbert
FreedomHTML.org

Received on Friday, 12 July 2013 19:54:01 UTC