If you have excellent Linux skills, Microsoft wants you. Four of you, anyway, according to the job listings Tuesday at the company’s Web site.
Tip of the virtual hat to Linux Today, which spotted this first.
Does $50 Buy Privacy?
It may well, if you’re sending your money to Zero-Knowledge Systems, a Canadian company that offers anonymity on the Net. I’ve just subscribed to the Freedom service, and I’ll be letting you know how it works.
There’s a genuine debate surrounding this product, and it’s all about anonymity. Yes, it’s a way to cause trouble. And yes, it can be a way to hide criminal activities.
But the value of anonymity, not to mention the free-speech factor, is far higher than the problems it may cause. Jonathan Wallace at the Cato Institute has written an essay on the topic, and I encourage you to read it.
I’ve written a fair amount on this in the past as well. Here’s an excerpt from a column last February:
“We all have the right to hold unpopular views, to be different. That’s what they told us in school, right?“Actually, this theoretical right has always been subject to conditions. In the real world, it’s fine to believe in something most people consider crazy or wrong, or to have an illness or condition that frightens other people, as long as you don’t talk about it too publicly. We tend to be a society of angst-ridden conformists, shunning those on the edges whether they’re promoting bizarre notions or trying to find support.
“The Internet has given voice to the people at the edges. They form communities of ideas, gripes and common experiences, physically scattered but able to coalesce in the vastness of cyberspace.
“What someone says in a 12-step program stays there. What someone says on the Net generally becomes available to anyone.
“And that’s the best reason to consider the value, not just the threat, of an upcoming software product called Freedom, from Montreal-based Zero-Knowledge Systems Inc.”