Intel's Harkins knows nothing of open source

Read:

• http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/091610-intel-security.html

And look closely at the line says the following...

Harkins cited mobile apps: "What kind of security do we think is in something that sells for 99 cents? Not much."

Wow... he doesn't know the power of open source. Really... he needs to know something before he starts speaking. Look at Bruce Shneier's PasswordSafe or look at AxCrypt software or look at. Maybe how about TrueCrypt, FreeOTFE or how about GPG? Aren't these good examples of FREE AND OPEN SOURCE and some are even FOSS approved.

So don't look down on open source or 99 cents apps. Free (inclusive of FOSS defined Freedom) apps can be really hard to crack or defeat. That is partially why the US government is afraid of strong encryption and security in the hands of everyone and maybe still is having that very fear.

So don't blindly state a statement unless you have a damn good explanation and good backing and concrete evidence.

UAE and Saudi attempts to ban RIM

It has been going on for a while where some governments (for now is the UAE and Saudi Arabia) attempts to block the use of RIM. I wouldn't bother to list some sample sites for reading as I usual do since these news are all over the place and widely available.

Well, that's too bad for Obama's use of his personal Blackberry if he visits UAE and the Saudis.

Many people can claim that this and that are done in the name of security but how much can you justify your claims if you make such a claim ? How effective is it to prevent terror if someone (some government) manages to get RIM to release all it's data to them in plain and they (whoever these governments are) gets them ? 

There's just too much information out there and sad to say, most data-mining programs are very prone to false positives.

Besides false positives, anyone could encrypt their messages before hand without relying on RIM's 'secure' channels and servers and there is nothing RIM could do ?

So how do you get good intelligence ? Rely more on good on the ground intelligence training in combination with technology rather than allow technology to dominate your intelligence gathering and getting too engrossed with technology than practical on the ground intelligence.

Oh... and do you know that banning stuff is classified as breaching of human rights ? If you do it, you might find it even harder to obtain FTAs and enter the WTO or maybe getting scrutinized by other nations.