[governance] Verisign to control what operating systems you can run on your computer

[Jeremy Malcolm]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Will the IGC take a stand against this?

-- 

*Dr Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Policy Officer*
Consumers International
Kuala Lumpur Office for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East
Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia
Tel: +60 3 7726 1599

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