Corruption... Hmmmm... Are you corrupt? Have you engaged in corrupt activities? Anyway, if you have not, you may throw the first stone. I believe governments of all countries, territories (yes, there are still colonies today), communities, etc., are run by people, and the pursuit of power will drive them to act in -- at times -- immoral ways. But I am not here to justify corruption in
the world. I believe that Brazil does have an enourmous potential not only in IT, but also in other sectors. Take voting, for example. The Brazilians have a democratic society, and they have been successfully using secure electronic voting systems over the past elections, whereas in the U.S... we know what happened in this last presidential elections. So many senators, representatives, and other politicians have been investigated, and many have been put to jail in Brazil by a government that is keen on minimizing corruption not only in politics, but also in the
world of business. In Brazil, the federal and state governments have prohibited the use of cellular phones while driving. In the U.S., few states have created such law. Brazil has a couple of linux distributions of its own. It is the second country with largest number of ISPs and Internet subscribers in Latin America. But remember that this country is a developing country. It has other priorities, like solving social and economical problems, poverty, diseases, etc. One of Brazil's biggest problems, in my opinion, is the violation of copyright materials. I blame law enforcement for allowing pirate software to be sold openly in Brazil.

Someone posted Bruce Schneier's statement that "Security is a process, not technology," and I agree with Mr. Forno that Brazil is in its infancy during this process. Network protocols, programming practices, and other computing practices from the 1970s lacked security . Why? Because it was the infant stage of modern computing experienced here in the U.S. and worldwide. This does not mean that the country in question is (technologically) 30 years behind. Brazil is rapidly advancing, sometimes too rapidly, keeping up with technology that is being introduced in the country (thanks to the economic boost starting from the mid-nineties). This technology enabled the process.

I am pleased that some Brazilians working in this field had the opportunity to participate in Mr. Forno's lecture(s). Hopefully, he will make contributions to the advancement of secure computing in Brazil.

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