[Cryptography] Boing Boing pushing an RSA Conference boycott

[Bear]

On Thu, 2014-01-16 at 21:30 +0300, ianG wrote:

> Wider scrutiny.  Also, it was the company that was tricked.  Was this
> the only case?  Do we need to be suspicious of every other product?  Ask
> pointed questions, how do we know that favours weren't done?

See, that is precisely the same problem that the NSA is up against. 
How can they know that terrorists *aren't* operating in a given 
theatre unless they know *EVERYTHING* that goes on in that theatre?
That is the rock, the demand on them, on which the waves of ethics 
and morality have broken.  

The only way to 'prove' a negative proposition:  You have to know
absolutely everything about the universe in which it takes place.
And there is no way to do that.  There is no way to even approach
it other than by doing evil and betraying the trust of everyone. 

We'll never be able to 'prove' that something didn't happen unless 
we do the same kind of unethical crap and pervasive monitoring that 
is so repugnant.  So clearly we cannot make lack of evidence into 
a standard of trust.  

We have to evaluate what is known and what isn't, and then reach 
and act on our conclusions even if we can't have direct evidence 
of malfeasance.  Or we have to descend into the kind of amoral
backstabbing behavior and pervasive monitoring that the NSA is 
now seen to have done.  The only alternative is sticking our 
fingers in our ears and going, "la la la" and pretending we 
don't have to think about it at all.


Bear