Too Suspicious?

[Bruce Dawson]

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Bill Sconce wrote:

| Hi, Jim -
|
| In my opinion you did an EXCELLENT job, one which was entirely
| called for. In no way too suspicious.  Thank you for doing it, and
| for sharing it.

I agree with Bill. That was an excellent response.

| ... Like you, I kept a careful record of all the correspondence;
| it's ridiculous, but not silly.

This is very important (keeping records of things like this). They are
very useful when things get out of hand.

| In your case (where the possibility of real espeionage is not
| unthinkable) it would be appropriate to bring the survery to the
| attention of the Department of Commerce,

Actually, it would be Homeland Security. They have the procedures in
place to enforce IT training (well, they're supposed to have them in
place).

| wherever the contact may be for such matters as export control of
| sensitive technology.  Not that I'd ask you to waste more of your
| time, but it would be appropriate (and gratifying) to sic a
| responsible government agency on the irresponsible one, and imagine
|  that someone might learn something as they fought it out.
|
| -Bill

To provide balance, the most frequent excuse is "we don't have the
budget for IT training". Unfortunately, its usually the managers that
need the training.

Also, if I were in Jim's shoes, I would have not missed the
opportunity to expose the security advantage of open source software
and standards (which .doc files don't have). But I believe Jim took a
well balanced and judicious move nonetheless. (Open Source can appear
as a soap box to those who don't understand the pitfalls of
proprietary software.)

http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/private/gnhlug-discuss/2005-October/011982.html
was edited out for brevity.

- --Bruce

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