What we need is a Turn Key setup to protect online Americans from government, corporate, and outright criminal intrusions.
We're talking about getting 25,000,000+ people out of these lines of fire as they come out of XP.
Microsoft XP remains the second most common flavor of PC operating system in the United States. Fully a third of workstation and laptop machines here run this operating system, many unregistered/unpaid. Despite that popularity it provides minimal modern security beyond a firewall.
XP came out in 2001. Now Microsoft is pulling the applications plug come April 15th 8th.
The City of Munich, Germany, has taken a first step. A suitable operating system has been identified: the Ubuntu Linux system, specifically Version 12.04 Long Term Support (Precise Pangolin). A setup to support security requirements is included with their release. The City handed out 2,000 copies on CD format last fall.
Munich also links to support and to help loading applications packages.
Applications might go better with a Turn Key approach. You also want assurances for basic quality control functions.
Candidate examples for secured packages:
-- Firefox -- Web browser (instead of XP's default Internet Explorer; active control of Java and Javascript coming off web pages using NoScript)
-- LibreOffice or OpenOffice -- Office suite (instead of Microsoft Office; LibreOffice has converttopdf for Adobe documents but OO comes up with 1:1 cross-compatibility to new and old Word documents)
-- VLC -- Media player (instead of Windows Media Player)
-- Shotwell -- Photo manager (instead of Picasa)
There's dozens of open source programs that replace Microsoft Windows-compatible products. It's not just about features or price: you cannot trust corporate software to keep malware out of your skivvies.
We will do well to replicate Munich's effort and publicize the results.
Sourcing for IP protection is another task. Everybody says it's doable. So how's to do it Turn Key?
We also need to make this available for 25,000,000+ PC users if we are going to take responsibility and respond, taking one step at a time, to the destruction of Constitutional protections pointed out by Edward Snowden, Diane Feinstein, Thomas Drake, William Binney, Edward Loomis, and J. Kirk Wiebe.
Somebody is going to tell me that's easy.
First step: how's about recruiting a team? Christopher Soghoian is one superstar. Then what's involved making a Turn Key System to do the XP conversion? If it takes a printed/detailed work book to go with computer screens, fine.
This is doable.
A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins........ you betcha!
