[Cryptography] Boing Boing pushing an RSA Conference boycott

[rmusser2209 at gmail.com]

Bear <bear at sonic.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 2014-01-13 at 15:33 -0500, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 3:26 PM, Kent Borg <kentborg at borg.org> wrote:
>>         On 01/13/2014 02:35 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
>>                 There should be a penalty, no question. But what
>>                 should the penalty be?
>>         
>>         How important *is* this conference?  I admit I have never
>>         attended...
>> 
>> 
>> It is the only international trade show for the IT security industry.
>
>> 
>> 
>> Try 10,000 people coming to buy products to protect themselves from
>> the NSA etc.
>
>I may be excessively cynical here, but when you wrote "etc" I think 
>you might have been misspelling "RSA."
>
>Why should we ask someone go to an RSA conference to get products 
>to protect themselves from RSA itself?  Considering the conflicts 
>of interest, that doesn't seem likely to be fruitful, does it?
>
>While I think that a simple boycott is too broad, there has to be 
>an alternative course of action.  The industry needs conferences 
>(for sales) but would prefer not to have RSA's name plastered on 
>them (for credibility).  The public needs conferences (for security
>information and products) but would prefer not to be going to a 
>conference organized by the very same people they have discovered 
>that they need to secure their business against.  
>
>Both groups would be well-served by a parallel series of security
>conferences, scheduled very deliberately to conflict with RSA's 
>conferences and ideally not open to companies who are also presenting 
>the same papers or products at the RSA conferences.  
>
>That would allow people to actually *do* the boycott of the RSA 
>conferences without missing all possibility of making sales or all 
>possibility of securing their infrastructure.  It would reduce 
>the level of collateral damage and allow the very targeted kind 
>of boycott that I think everyone could support. 
>
>Can we get a University (one with a hell of a good math program, 
>or who offer graduate degrees in cryptography) to organize one, or
>if they won't organize it could we get them to host it?
>
>
>
>
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I admit I may be coming in at the wrong time /misunderstanding, but RSA IS NOT the only security conference in the world. Nor is it the only industry recognized one. 
-- 
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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