C I A non-profit venture capital company

[Peter Gutmann]

Donald ramsbottom <donald@ramsbottom.co.uk> writes:

>I agree with JY, that for many firms of this type a link up with a TLA is
>something of a Coup, and great for the marketing department. From a security
>stand point, unless you are a USG dept. or US multinational, there must be
>something of a question mark over using a product sponsored by a "foreign"
>spymaster. All I can say is that if I were thinking about anonymizing, I would
>not use a product from a company which championed its links to an instituition
>who I MAY want remain anonymous to.

You're already doing that right now.  Go a grab a handful of US conference
proceedings and look for all the papers with an acknowledgement that they were
supported with/sponsored by DoD/DARPA/Army/Navy/Air Force/Government
grant/contract XYZ (going all the way back to that ARPA Internet thingy).
You'll find virtually every aspect of the Interent and the tools we use has had
financial input from some sort of bogeymen, but no-one even notices unless one
of the sponsored organisations pops up and announces that a particularly well-
known bogeyman provided them with some VC.  Have you checked to make sure that
every "US Government Research Grant xyz" ever provided for any program you use
isn't CIA or NSA or Illuminati money?  Would it make you feel better if
<whatever the company was> had announced that they'd received a DARPA Research
Grant instead of CIA VC (with both being exactly the same thing, just given
different names)?

(For any CIA PR people reading this, a suggestion: In the future, announce your
 sponsorship as a DARPA Research Grant rather than CIA VC, and everything'll be
 fine).

Peter.