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There's been much disquiet on this list about the power that
Verisign has to delete domains from the Internet at the whim of US
authorities.<br>
<br>
Potentially even more frightening, they will soon be able to decide
what operating system you may run on your computer. PCs that are
certified for use with Windows 8 will, by default, refuse to run any
operating system that is not digitally signed by a Verisign-issued
certificate. Even worse, the only certificates that hardware and
device manufacturers will recognise by default are Microsoft's.<br>
<br>
This leads to the absurd situation that even commercial vendors of
Linux, such as Red Hat, will be paying Verisign to attach a digital
signature from Microsoft's key-signing root to their versions of
Linux - otherwise they simply won't run at all.<br>
<br>
If that wasn't outrageous enough, consider the geopolitical
implications of this. By virtue of US sanctions, Verisign will not
permit anyone from Cuba, Iran, Syria etc. to develop an operating
system (or even to distribute a version of Linux that they compile
from source) for users of Windows 8 certified computers.<br>
<br>
Why should it stop there? A US court order might be obtained
against Verisign to prevent it from certifying China's Red Flag
Linux, or Russia's ALT Linux. Billions of consumers could be forced
into using older or second-rate computers, or buying Microsoft's
operating system, because home-grown operating systems won't run.<br>
<br>
Will the IGC take a stand against this?<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b><span style="color:black">Dr
Jeremy Malcolm<br>
Senior Policy Officer</span></b><br>
<span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:black">Consumers
International</span><br>
<span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:gray">Kuala Lumpur Office for
Asia-Pacific and the Middle East<br>
Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia<br>
Tel: +60 3 7726 1599</span></p>
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