I needed to look into the details of ISO 27001/27005 recently. Dang, but they're proud of their information. $209 to $599 just for a copy of compliance standards. Ouch.

I could see it if they had something confidential or proprietary, but no - these are IT security standards.

Then again, I grew up a country kid who still thinks it's weird to pay for water in bottles and can't grasp the concept of paying for parking, so maybe it's just me.

The cash cow on charging for shit like that is coming to an end one segment at a time.  At least it is in the information technology sector.

Anything of mission critical importance is standardized through the IETF, and those specifications (RFCs) are always free to get.

In other news, put a fork in MPEG because it's as good as dead.

It gets really interesting when governments adopt codes & practices created by private entities. It's the law, but you can't get your own copy of it (or even sometimes legal access) without paying the private company that created it.

Hmm... I wonder if my local library system has the ISO standards in their collection...