Re: [tlug] Unix's 40th Birthday

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Curt Sampson writes:

 > But then I remembered that that recently a major mandate of the NSA
 > appears to be to domestic interception of communications of American
 > citizens. Why would they make their job harder?

Fixing kernel bugs doesn't hinder intercepts, for one.

A second reason might be that they want to be able to trust trusted
computing to do what they tell it to do, and not what the owner of the
equipment tells it to do.

A third reason ... why do you think they fixed bugs in DES and
released the fixes to the public?

A fourth reason ...  most U.S. officials are rather hypocritical, and
actually do seem to believe that what they do is what's good for the
country.  It's just that other folks don't get it.  This means that
(like a stopped clock) they're right, on average twice a day. :-)