I have an "opinion" – buy my stuff
I will start out this post by saying that I generally am a fan of SC Magazine. Though the product reviews are not very good, they often have informative interviews with some folks whose views I respect. But I had to guffaw a bit with the Nov 2008 edition when I got to the opinion section, and specifically the article by Richard Moulds.
The reason I LOL’ed at this article was not because the article was wrong. Mr. Moulds talked about how enterprise encryption was the last line of defense, where if "other security and access control systems fail, if the data is encrypted – it is probably safe." I agree with that. I also do not disagree with his assertion that key management is "central to deployment on any encryption-based system." Makes perfect sense. Mr. Moulds also says that key management must protect keys but should also make them accessible and highly mobile. Again, no disagreement. Just about everything in the article makes sense when talking about an enterprise data encryption system.
No, I don’t agree with the content of the article. What I disagree with is the placement of the article. I disagree that this article should be placed in the "opinion" section of SC Magazine because Mr. Moulds is an EVP in Thales Group, which recently purchased nCipher. And nCipher, according to their website, "provides state-of-the-art encryption management to the world’s most trusted enterprises." So what else do we expect Mr. Moulds to say about encryption? That it sucks? That you shouldn’t look into it? Sheesh.
SC Magazine’s editorial page says this about what kind of articles it will accept in the opinion page:
SC Magazine does accept vendor-neutral contributions for its monthly Last Word and Opinion sections. Offering viewpoints on timely and sometimes controversial subjects, these may also include some pragmatic advice to help readers deal with everyday problems.
If you can’t see through that smokescreen, then you need to get better fog lamps. Please SC Magazine. In the future, do not allow vendors to write opinions in your magazine about the very technology they sell. It doesn’t give me much of a warm fuzzy that the writer’s opinion is genuine, and it makes me question the integrity of you publication.
Vet
