What a nonsense. The point here is that what is expensive in the Philipines, is cheap in the USA. What is expensive is relative.
Current prices mean that almost any hobby site in the USA can afford a trusted SSL certificate, but even most business sites in the Philipines hardly can afford one.
Bingo.
Welcome to the wonderful world of international currency transations. Here in NZ, the exchange rate with the USD is around the $0.47 mark. This means that a Verisign cert costs us nearly $1000NZ. That is NOT cheap. Thawte cert's are only about $400NZ, but that is still far greater than I am prepared to pay in order to secure a private, non-com site.
Using a CA cert from places like Thawte and Verisign means that you don't have to click through multiple dialogs of bullshit warning you that the site you are attempting to look at has a certificate that wasn't signed by one of the big names in PKI.
It also means that, if you have a technically-aware audience, you don't have to deal with concerned customers/users querying you about the absence of a CA root cert.
Having an SSL cert is becoming an essential for providing any kind of service over the 'net if there is any kind of not-totally-public-information transfer. When it costs so much to get a certificate, that is a serious barrier to entry. The digital divide doesn't just apply to those that do and don't have computers, but within the group of those who do have computers but can't afford to purchase essentials for making use of their computers.
There're also people who would be termed fiscally challenged.
They don't have the money to upgrade their computer beyond what they currently have, and what they currently have will not operate any of the current bloatware with any degree of usability (I don't consider it usable if it takes thirty seconds to register a mouse-click).
A lot of people in this thread have ignored the fact that there are plenty of computers out there that are running just fine with software that is 3 versions behind current, and "upgrading" to current would turn the machine into a slug.
The reason Europe and Japan have the lead in mobile phones is that the area to cover is FAR smaller than the U.S. You cover more population with less investment.
Bollocks.
Try New Zealand, a nation with in excess of 90% coverage (and that doesn't include the marine coverage) by cellular networks of both Vodafone (GSM) and Telecom NZ (analogue). This is a country with average population densities of less than 1 person per square kilometre for much of the larger half of the country. Don't give us the sob stories about low population density.
Europe, just like the US, focuses most of the population in major centres. LA, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston... Every single one of those cities has more people in them than NZ, and NZ has a land mass the size of California.
New Zeeland by passing laws like this is moving towards totalitarian society. I would encourage any Kiwi reading this to throw the bastards out when next given the chance.
Unfortunately, that's easier said than done. The last government began this process, and since NZ is still primarily a two-party nation we will just get the same shit coming through under the next batch of leeches we elect.
"The Right to Privacy is enshrined in the UN charter on Human Rights, personally I think any country not signing up to and obeying that most fundemental charter should be excluded from the UN."
NZ is a signatory to the charter. It is also a solid member of the UN, one which pays the money it owes (not looking at any particular large, democratic nation which is sometimes called the Great Satan), and is respected on a near-universal basis.
Don't think that this can't happen to you just because you actually have a constitution. The FBI/NSA want to have this legal right. The NSA already monitors a large chunk of global communication, via a network that (I'm ashamed to say) NZ helps host. Hell, the FBI helped our last government get the delusions of grandeur that resulted in this particular abomination.
Every LEO in the world who lives in a democracy desires the legally protected right to break into private residences for no reason, read anyone's e-mail, and listen to their phone conversations at will. These legislative modifications will destroy much of the privacy that Kiwis currently enjoy, as only the ignorant (of which there are many) believe that these powers will only be used to catch paedophiles and other low-lifes. We in NZ have no legally-protected rights to freedom of speech, or freedom of association. The government merely allows us to exercise our perogative to these basic human rights, without actually guaranteeing them. The press in this country is not particularly vocal in its reporting of issues such as this, due to the fact that the government can, and has in the past, get gagging orders placed. So much for separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary.
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. I believe that that is the line? The vigilance, though, is not just vigilance against threats external to the state. The vigilance must also be against threats presented internally, by the state.
Quantum computing, if they ever figure out how to get it working properly, could well negate every existing concept of encryption security based upon key-size.
Even a 2048-bit key could prove to be insufficient against a quantum machine.
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Welcome to the wonderful world of international currency transations. Here in NZ, the exchange rate with the USD is around the $0.47 mark. This means that a Verisign cert costs us nearly $1000NZ. That is NOT cheap. Thawte cert's are only about $400NZ, but that is still far greater than I am prepared to pay in order to secure a private, non-com site.
Using a CA cert from places like Thawte and Verisign means that you don't have to click through multiple dialogs of bullshit warning you that the site you are attempting to look at has a certificate that wasn't signed by one of the big names in PKI.
It also means that, if you have a technically-aware audience, you don't have to deal with concerned customers/users querying you about the absence of a CA root cert.
Having an SSL cert is becoming an essential for providing any kind of service over the 'net if there is any kind of not-totally-public-information transfer. When it costs so much to get a certificate, that is a serious barrier to entry. The digital divide doesn't just apply to those that do and don't have computers, but within the group of those who do have computers but can't afford to purchase essentials for making use of their computers.
They don't have the money to upgrade their computer beyond what they currently have, and what they currently have will not operate any of the current bloatware with any degree of usability (I don't consider it usable if it takes thirty seconds to register a mouse-click).
A lot of people in this thread have ignored the fact that there are plenty of computers out there that are running just fine with software that is 3 versions behind current, and "upgrading" to current would turn the machine into a slug.
Bollocks.
Try New Zealand, a nation with in excess of 90% coverage (and that doesn't include the marine coverage) by cellular networks of both Vodafone (GSM) and Telecom NZ (analogue). This is a country with average population densities of less than 1 person per square kilometre for much of the larger half of the country. Don't give us the sob stories about low population density.
Europe, just like the US, focuses most of the population in major centres. LA, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston... Every single one of those cities has more people in them than NZ, and NZ has a land mass the size of California.
NZ is a signatory to the charter. It is also a solid member of the UN, one which pays the money it owes (not looking at any particular large, democratic nation which is sometimes called the Great Satan), and is respected on a near-universal basis.
Don't think that this can't happen to you just because you actually have a constitution. The FBI/NSA want to have this legal right. The NSA already monitors a large chunk of global communication, via a network that (I'm ashamed to say) NZ helps host. Hell, the FBI helped our last government get the delusions of grandeur that resulted in this particular abomination.
Every LEO in the world who lives in a democracy desires the legally protected right to break into private residences for no reason, read anyone's e-mail, and listen to their phone conversations at will. These legislative modifications will destroy much of the privacy that Kiwis currently enjoy, as only the ignorant (of which there are many) believe that these powers will only be used to catch paedophiles and other low-lifes. We in NZ have no legally-protected rights to freedom of speech, or freedom of association. The government merely allows us to exercise our perogative to these basic human rights, without actually guaranteeing them. The press in this country is not particularly vocal in its reporting of issues such as this, due to the fact that the government can, and has in the past, get gagging orders placed. So much for separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary.
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. I believe that that is the line? The vigilance, though, is not just vigilance against threats external to the state. The vigilance must also be against threats presented internally, by the state.
Quantum computing, if they ever figure out how to get it working properly, could well negate every existing concept of encryption security based upon key-size.
Even a 2048-bit key could prove to be insufficient against a quantum machine.
Rather a scary thought