Bonum Certa Men Certa

Software Freedom is Not a Disaster and Those Who Oppose B.Y.O.D. Are a Monarch's Dream

Video download link | md5sum 5a2a7550c3dc497d9a1e0af501abb91c Opposing Device Freedom Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: Mr. Shim (Matthew Garrett, Microsoft 'asset') is telling us that people owning the electronic devices they use at work is a "disaster"; when it comes to security, being compromised (breached by a remote party) is part of that "security" as they define it, for "security" means the "trusted ones" control you, i.e. imperialism spun as "national security" or "war on terror"

THE video above is a response to this morning's post from Mr. Shim, "mjg59", who is best known for his contributions to Microsoft inside Linux, notably (notoriously) UEFI 'secure' boot. Aside from being Stalin's Dream, UEFI 'secure' boot is means by which to remotely sabotage other people's computers. Mr. Shim will never understand that. He refuses to understand that. Don't tell that to him. He is extremely sensitive and, in spite of being naturalised as US citizen, he does not or cannot grasp the First Amendment. So the video is probably a lot more polite than it ought to have been.



"It seems like fake security is a religion now; it's practiced not by security experts but failed biologists."This issue was also discussed for a bit in IRC, though one might need to wait for tomorrow's IRC logs (published for today -- the past 24 hours). Mr. Shim's arguments are full of holes (more of that was explained in IRC) and the gist of some of these misconceptions is that security is mistaken for control, where the control does not belong to the device's user but to some company like Microsoft or a Big Boss. The meaning of security has spectacularly been inverted! We're meant to think that oppression is freedom and security, but the Queen would not turn in her grave today (had she heard that). That's the sort of thing monarchs (dictators) have always fancied. They also seek to silence people who criticise them, just like Mr. Shim. Apparently in 'democratic' Britain it is now an arrestable offence to ask who elected 'King' Charles (nobody elected him).

In the video above I use the analogy of hotdesking; you own nothing, as everything is both temporary and rented. I explained why happy employees (hence, staff retention) is good for security and I reject pretty much all the straw man arguments from Mr. Shim. It seems like fake security [1, 2] is a religion now; it's practiced not by security experts but failed biologists. We've seen lots of this in the EPO -- a deeply corrupt institution where most managers aren't qualified for the positions they occupy, they're just imposters with connections.

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