Ross Brown is not an elitist

You know sometimes you find out more about a person in an adversarial situation than any other time.  In the case of Ross Brown the "security for the everyman" post set off a lengthy list of emails back and forth between us.  I still have not met Ross in person, but feel that I have much better insight into Ross than I did before.  As a result, I will tell you that I do not think Ross is a security elitist.  Ross is proud of his company, does a good job of marketing and takes their strengths and tries to put them in the most positive light.  But at the end of the day he personally is not an elitist.

I also realize that the whole elitist thing got in the way of a good point that I was trying to make in that article.  That is how and for who as security vendors we should design our products for.  Also as security vendors and pros, how do we treat and think about everyday users.  Cutaway up at Security Ripcord, actually does a better job than I of hitting this one.  You should check it out. 

So I still think that many security products are too hard to use, that many security pros have the wrong attitude about working with security administrators and end users.  That they disparage tools that many of the everyman find useful.  However, Ross is not an elitist and in labeling him as such I did him a disservice and for that I apologize.