[Cryptography] What do we know? (Was 'We cannot trust' ...)

[Jerry Leichter]

On Dec 28, 2013, at 3:51 AM, James A. Donald wrote:
>> Large customers, government or otherwise, that know what they are
>> doing realize that if a custom extension/addition is incorporated in a
>> product *just for them*, then they will be paying forever for it to be
>> maintained and included with every future upgrade of the product.
> 
> Famously, government does not care.  It is just taxpayer money.
It really depends.  The government can ignore price constraints whenever it wants.  And certain companies that make a living at the government trough sell nothing but government-specialty stuff.  But there's also an immense amount of "ordinary" stuff the government buys under COTS regulations.  There are huge numbers of perfectly ordinary PC's and laptops spread throughout government offices that were bought from the same distributors any large business might go to, at the same prices any large business might pay.

                                                        -- Jerry