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TrueCrypt alternative
IainB:
@40hz: Though I am a bit rusty now, I don't think it will have changed much in UK Company law since I studied it years ago, where I recall that the link to any implicit obligation for financial performance is from the shareholders via the Articles of Association which is the document created when a company is initially formed. In short, the Articles are the legal means by which the shareholders may exercise control over the day-to-day operation of the company by the Board of Directors. In a for-profit company, the shareholders will require annual profitability and growth, and can/will turf out Board members who do not demonstrate an ability to meet or successfully pull the company towards those objectives.
They can do this via the mechanism of special or annual general meetings, where they can also confirm/re-elect well-performing directors, to retain them for another year/term, and elect new/additional directors, and vote on various proposed resolutions on the published AGM agenda.
The ROI for the "A" ordinary shareholders (i.e., those with voting shares entitling them to vote in the AGM) would usually be a combination of actual dividend/interest paid on their stocks (or accrued/retained) and the growth in market value of the share price. The shares have a nominal value, which will tend to be exceeded by the market value if the company is profitable. Other stockholders - e.g., "B" ordinary shareholders (non-voting), and debenture holders and preference shareholders, may have slightly different objectives for ROI peculiar to their stakeholding, but they will all share the common objective of making a profit out of their stakeholdings.
I thus must admit to a certain confusion when considering the notion of (say) running a FP (for-profit) company as though it were NFP (not-for-profit), since the idea itself would be absurd, the company would soon be wound up or need to have its Articles and tax status changed appropriately - a NFP would generally have different purposes, Articles and governance structure to a FP company.
I certainly do not consider myself an authority, and what I say generally comes from narrow but mixed experience including having previously been a chief accountant for a UK company, involved as an accountant in setting-up several small FP companies in the UK, acting pro bono as an accounting systems advisor to a leprosy charity based in the UK, acting as a tax accountant to a UK property company, having reported to a director on the board of a syndicated multi-bank off-balance-sheet banking subsidiary in Australasia, and being a director of two companies at present in Australasia, and from having also been a director on the board of the UK charitable trust for an international educational organisation based in Europe.
So, with that narrow experience, I would not be able to state definitively what the law might be relating to Apple or any other US corporation. Where I mainly got my information from in that regard was from a study of the history of the '80s corporate collapse syndrome in US and Germany, and from doing some research in 2004 after watching the fascinating documentary "The Corporation". It was the latter that led me to understand that US (and I think it included Canadian) corporations were different to UK companies in that they had some kind of an explicit legal objective to operate to maximise legally-earned profits and which thus encouraged/compelled management behaviours that could effectively sometimes make them operate as "corporate psychopaths" (which concept has been discussed quite a bit, elsewhere in the DC Forum). I regret if I was mistaken or if I took what the documentary talked about at face value and did not think to verify what the relevant US/Canadian company law actually was. I shall have to do some more homework now. :-[
IainB:
I reckon that is a valid point, and if you follow it to a logical conclusion, then one conclusion you could end up with is Microsoft BitLocker being arguably the only safe/stable encryption tool for the Windows OSes. That might be OK if you could trust Microsoft, but Microsoft's own actions would seem to have demonstrated that there is no rational basis for such trust - quite the opposite, in fact.
-IainB (June 21, 2014, 02:01 AM)
--- End quote ---
Not exactly. If you find an encryption tool that's valid for your current OS, then it should be valid up until the point that you change OS. And you can take steps before you change to see (a) if that particular software supports your new OS before you install it, and (b) if not, find another and switch.
-wraith808 (June 21, 2014, 10:58 AM)
--- End quote ---
Not sure I understand you there. Are you trying to say that the argument:
if you follow it to a logical conclusion, then one conclusion you could end up with is Microsoft BitLocker being arguably the only safe/stable encryption tool for the Windows OSes.
--- End quote ---
- is incorrect?
wraith808:
I reckon that is a valid point, and if you follow it to a logical conclusion, then one conclusion you could end up with is Microsoft BitLocker being arguably the only safe/stable encryption tool for the Windows OSes. That might be OK if you could trust Microsoft, but Microsoft's own actions would seem to have demonstrated that there is no rational basis for such trust - quite the opposite, in fact.
-IainB (June 21, 2014, 02:01 AM)
--- End quote ---
Not exactly. If you find an encryption tool that's valid for your current OS, then it should be valid up until the point that you change OS. And you can take steps before you change to see (a) if that particular software supports your new OS before you install it, and (b) if not, find another and switch.
-wraith808 (June 21, 2014, 10:58 AM)
--- End quote ---
Not sure I understand you there. Are you trying to say that the argument:
if you follow it to a logical conclusion, then one conclusion you could end up with is Microsoft BitLocker being arguably the only safe/stable encryption tool for the Windows OSes.
--- End quote ---
- is incorrect?
-IainB (June 21, 2014, 02:21 PM)
--- End quote ---
Yes. The only argument I was making was that if they say its not compatible with the OS, they are probably saying it for a reason, and if they aren't supporting the OS, then just because it works now, doesn't mean it always will. If they are *actively supporting the OS*, then I think if you trust it, the stability isn't really in question. Changes within the cycle for an OS can affect any software, including Microsoft's.
IainB:
@wraith808: Ah, I think I see what you meant. I think you pretty much made that point earlier too.
What I was suggesting wasn't refuted by that though, since it could still be correct as far as it went as a general possibility.
What I was alluding to was the possibility that the narrowing of choice of encryption systems by the abrupt removal of TrueCrypt from the market scene (coincidentally preceded by unusual and well-publicised FUD with only vaguely apparent sources) might not have been an entirely coincidental set of events.
Wouldn't it be a pleasant surprise for Microsoft if BitLocker came out as being suddenly the market's apparently best-choice best-man-left-standing encryption system? Ah, serendipity.
Some people (not me, you understand) might say that the open technology of TrueCrypt could have been just too good by far and too difficult for "criminals" to hack, and so had to be summarily executed, and that the criminals may wish to encourage us to use a standard proprietary encryption system which they had the keys to - as and when they might need them. And it would be good if we could be encouraged to pay for this at the same time. However, I couldn't possibly comment.
The_Doomer:
Hi!
Maybe Veracrypt could be an alternative for Truecrypt.
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