Sixty One

Since it’s my birthday, I’ll take the luxury of ranting a bit.

I have said that the closest I come to activism is in regards to the Internet. While it’s wholly unlikely I would try to leverage persuasion via typical political means, I’m wholly likely to fight tooth and nail in virtual terms. It may not be obvious to most people, but the Biblical Law applies online, as well. Even harder for folks to grasp is how that Law remains utterly consistent despite the radical difference in context.

Context is everything in God’s revelation. I keep saying that, hoping it will sink in that there is no such thing as objective truth. The whole point is God’s glory as seen in His moral character. That character manifests differently in different contexts, and the virtual world is quite a radical context. Your heart can guide you, recognizing the truth or deception in what someone might suggests is justice in the virtual world.

By pursuing divine justice according to my convictions, I can count on God Himself to step in and enforce things. I am utterly certain that all the current noise from US government agencies and officials about various forms of censorship, and an equally dangerous threat from oversized corporations, will eventually fail. However, the means to securing God’s favor is to boldly speak His truth into the context, but to also act firmly and consistently according to my calling in regards to the Net.

My experience with government and business teaches me that precious few ears in government and business will hear your cry for justice. In general, it’s a complete waste of time to demand a redress for grievances. Not only do they not give a damn, but they are hostile to your input. Their hostility may not be obvious, nor even honestly expressed, but it’s discernible in how they respond to complaints. It’s also in how they respond to calls for accountability.

For example, there’s been a lot of noise from the US government that Americans should not trust Kaspersky security software. There is supposed to be some risk that Kaspersky, being based in Russia, might engage in a little spying on behalf of the Russian government. There is no evidence backing this fear mongering. On the other hand, we know for certain that Kaspersky doesn’t cooperate with the NSA, CIA, FBI and other US government agencies. That means Kaspersky is committed to rooting out spyware from those agencies if they can detect it. Keep in mind that they are the ones who found Stuxnet, and security researchers are quite sure the US was involved in creating that worm.

It’s hard to know whom you can trust. Recently CCleaner was found compromise by someone using a stolen certification key. The story goes like this: Piriform is the company that has made CCleaner, and that company was bought up by Avast (AV company). A month later someone used an Avast certificate to slip in a compromised version for download. It took several weeks before someone else (Cisco) found it. Granted, Avast cleaned up the mess quickly, but it does weaken Avast’s reputation.

God bless you all