[arca_vorago]

I agree with you about firmware, but you will notice a very important overlap between the firmware and the software sectors here, in that it tends to be true that you end up with closed software to match the closed hardware (cellphone radio modems having DMA to the same address space as the CPU all under proprietary firmware and software blobs is a good example). I very much agree that we need open hardware, but it doesn't seem to be much of a priority for any of the big players that I am aware of.

Regarding the weakening of crypto standards, this is why I think everyone is wrong when they tell you not to roll your own. Even William Binney (NSA whistleblower) has been saying so recently.