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F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen Cancels RSA Talk In Protest
An anonymous reader writes "In a letter to RSA executives, F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen says he is canceling his talk at the 2014 RSA Conference, due to the company's deal with the NSA, and how the agency has treated foreigners."
From the letter: "
I don’t really expect your multibillion dollar company or your multimillion dollar conference to suffer as a result of your deals with the NSA. In fact, I'm not expecting other conference speakers to cancel. Most of your speakers are american anyway — why would they care about surveillance that’s not targeted at them but at non-americans. Surveillance operations from the U.S. intelligence agencies are targeted at foreigners. However I’m a foreigner. And I’m withdrawing my support from your event."
As an American, I am giving my moral support to Mr. Hyppone for his courage to speak up against the unspeakable and despicable things that NSA has done !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Hypponnen needs better news sources.
As an american, I don't believe for one second that it's not targeted at us, too. Mr. Hypponen has my support, as well.
Let me just say that, by far, most of us Americans *do* care about the surveillance going on in our country. And we're horrified by it.
Good for Mikko for taking a stand. Unfortunately, the NSA was monitoring Americans as well as foreigners, they just had to obfuscate their spying on American Citizens because it's illegal for them to target Americans without secret court permission.
RSA has categorically denied that they cut a deal with the NSA. But Mr. Hypponen and the rest of the internet has declared them guilty based on unseen evidence. How is that fair?
The bottom line is that the world is no longer confident about software written in the US, and will seek alternatives sourced from Europe, Russia, China and elsewhere to regain the security and privacy which they believe they have lost.
The NSA will be directly responsible for a shift away from US standards, US software and US protocols ... because without confidence, those standards, software and protocols don't mean a damn thing. RSA, by simply going along with the NSA has damaged its brand name, possibly irreparably.
How did the stock market react? RSA's mother company is EMC, isn't it? There doesn't seem to be much of an effect, on the contrary, gaining half a percent today? Or am I looking at the wrong data?
I support anyone that's willing to hit the breaks these days. Without people, nothing can succeed, nothing at all. If the only card we have to play - in this world of bullshit, lies and damn lies - is non-participation, then we have to play it. To keep going on like "everything is just what it is and there's nothing that we can do to change it" is to play into the continuation of the problem. To see others acting upon this truth is heart-warming and gives hope to others that are doing it.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Make sure you tell them why.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
As symbolic as this is, It's worth pointing out that the RSA Conference and RSA Security are two separate corporate entities (and I worked with both, producing RSA Security's own booth content at RSA Conference 2011). They do however, all funnel back up to EMC (y'know.. the world's largest storage systems corporation).
Mr. HyppÃnen hasn't been paying attention if he believes "surveillance thatâ(TM)s not targeted at them but at non-americans". That's the NSAs line, but the Snowden revelations have shown that to be pretty much a lie. They're willing to spy on Americans who are up to three hops from a target, and they're Hoovering up American's call records wholesale.
Why the "or"? Considering the way they act and their goals, an "and" seems more appropriate.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In Mikkos own words it's time to act. I guess this means he is taking his own advice. I have in my own very small way been pushing up the price of surveilance : https everywhere, disconnect, duckduckgo etc... haven't been motivated enough for Tor yet because I share a slow connection. Still, we can and must act in small ways in our browsing behavior, purchasing decisions, and any other ways we can come up with. We're lucky that others of us are already acting in not so small ways, and we must support them.
BTW here's Mikko's recent TED talk on the topic if you haven't seen it yet.
I am dropping RSA as my SSO secuity system and prepping for another now.
I would have hoped ya'll would have got that hint in 2011 after a breach at RSA compromised their customers FOBs... better late than never.
Dude... seriously? You think the rule of law is going to have any impact on this situation? Admit it... we are all cowards
Or alternatively [Start], charmap in the run box, Enter key.
In response to some of the comments along the lines of "Hey! Maybe we are reacting too harshly!" If there is reasonable cause that any given security system is compromised even a little, the entire thing must be shutdown and repaired. In other words, unlike water plumbing...a little leak is cause for total dismissal of a security system. At this point, it's safe to say the entire internet is suspect. Failure to take this stance is just burying your head in the sand.
you know what's really funny then? if I just type the letters on my nordic keyboard... WANNA GUESS DO THEY WORK? FUCK NO! FUCKNO! this is what comes out after pressing submit: ÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃÃ
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Then why is it still going on?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I hate to be *that guy*, but everyone needs to understand two significant points:
1. After a couple month of watching the PRISM scandal unforld I now believe this is a "Hiroshima moment". Never before in human history was it possible to spy on everyone. To have a file on everyone. The secret services (the bad as well as the good) always had to focus on a select few. No more. We are living in 1984.
2. I firmly believe the main reason why other spy agencies are not doing what the NSA is doing is because of their limited capabilities. Both in less money and resources, but also in reach. Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft are US based. Many important internet exchanges as well. This point is especially important, because of the US tradition of transparency and whistleblowing. As American as the NSA may be, Snowden is even more so. I can't imagine a Chinese Snowden. And even if he existed, would they have a broad discussion on that subject in China? How about Russia? Or even the UK? GHCQ has been as bad as the NSA, yet do we see a broad and honest discussion about it in London?
I hate the constant and ubiquitous surveillance, but the technology advances were the ones that brought them here. The NSA were only the first and foremost ones that took advantage of the new tools. They become cheap fast. Soon every spy agency will have them. This is a very useful and helpful discussion we are having right now. Because we either need to encrypt everything and move everyone onto Tor, or get used to having a file on everyone. There is no "gentlemen's agreement" (no-spy-agreement, UN accord, whatever), because there is no way to enforce it.
I hate to admit it, but you're right. We are cowards. Maybe it's because we feel we have too much to loose? For whatever reason, we seem to tolerate the inequities and injustices quite nicely.
Dude... seriously? You think the rule of law is going to have any impact on this situation? Admit it... we are all cowards
Apparently you didn't get the hint either as you are just now prepping to change.
Silence is a state of mime.
If the NSA did have this control over the internet that you seem to think they have, how come you are discussing it?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Wouldn't it have been better for him to show up, presumably on whatever topic he originally planned, and then give a presentation on why RSA was wrong to capitulate to the NSA? Sure, a number of us have seen this on /., but I think way more people would've come across this if the other major news outlets picked it up when he was escorted out of the building. Of course, there's the possibility that he would've been held up trying to get home.
I would go as far as calling US a one party system; the party being "a rich peoples party". In order to make it look less like so, they have simply divided the party into two halves! Both party-half having half of the representatives in senate and half of the representatives in congress. And each party-half ruling the White House after the other party-half has had its turn.
The political system was always the tool used by the rich and powerful. It's just that now they've found the perfect combination of freedom and profit to placate people with. They're told that democracy is an ethical imperative, and that it is an ideal that we should strive for and hold in the highest regard. Whoever calls bullshit on this get's labelled evil and "anti-freedom". The state is the exact antithesis of freedom, and we all need to wake up and realize that.
The question of who is in charge is irrelevant. The truth of the matter is that we have to dismantle this immoral system before it ruins all the good we've done despite it. I guarantee you, with this intellectual/connected society we have now, the end result will be beautiful.
The reason you don't hear about a chineses Snowden is because they shot his family and threatened to kill the rest of his family tree if he continued
THANK YOU MIKKO! After 9-11, the U.S. interdiction efforts quickly morphed from international terrorism to internations and domestic terrorism with equal emphasis placed on both. IMHO, the U.S. Govt is currently more concerned about domestic terrorism than about foreign operatives. Sorry Mikko, you are wrong on that count.
Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!