European Commission Recommends OSS to Fight Echelon

CrossRhythm writes: "The European Commission Resolution on Echelon encourages the Commission and Member States "to promote software projects whose source text is made public", to lay down a standard for the level of security of e-mail software packages, placing those packages whose source code has not been made public in the "least reliable" category," and "systematically to encrypt e-mails, so that ultimately encryption becomes the norm"."

Comments

It all boils down to trust

[All Dead Homiez]

This is an area where OSS really shines. Microsoft NSA key rumors aside, the truth of the matter is that it is almost impossible to audit closed source programs for backdoors and security flaws. As more and more stupid programming mistakes are discovered, more and more people will realize that OSS is the only way to go when security and/or privacy is a concern. Expect many more endorsements of OSS in the near future for this very reason.

-all dead homiez

Europe luring programmers?

[dwbryson]

It's interesting to see that Europe is more openminded towards OSS than the US is. If they do things like this.. pass legislation to encourage OSS development. I could see how programmers would see countries in the EU as kind of a haven. Especially if they didn't arrest them on site like a certain country i know of...

The proper solution: encrypt everything, not email

[hardaker]

You really want to encrypt everything, not just email. I'm not sure why the EU thinks encrypting just email will stop echelon from being effective. Even if echelon was was only sniffing email, they certainly would switch to sniffing other forms of communication if all email was encrypted.

The proper solution is to encrypt all your IP traffic through IPsec tunnels. Recent work within the IETF has given new ideas about how to start performing automatic IPsec connections with any host you can speak with. This is the type of solution that will help battle echelon like networks.

France already uses OSS in a lot of things

[WillSeattle]

As anyone following the news might know, France is using Linux in most of its wiring of public schools, and many french firms are adopting OSS for their software needs.

While some posters are correct that the UK is not pro-OSS in many respects, and certainly anti-privacy, Europe is not a monolith. OSS is spreading throughout northern Europe (Scandinavia), Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and so on.

None of this will defeat Echelon, however, so long as the UK sits in the middle of the pipe, feeding any data that comes through Gibralter and England to the US. So, without strong encryption of normal traffic, and a move to IPv6sec, Echelon will continue to survive and prosper.

1337 questions in Dutch parliament

[Jantastic]

As I was updating this site [Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science], I couldn't help noticing these questions [in Dutch, for Loek Hermans, minister] asked in parliament this week.
I was surprised to see some politicians here who seem to be aware of the consequences of the draconian Microsoft licensing coming up. So I decided to (try to) post some of them in english below.
Disclaimer: translating is not part of my job, I'm not an politician and I don't represent anybody. I only do www-tech-stuff, thank you.


1-4, summary:
Did the minister calculate the amount of extra millions of money needed if schools, universities, government, etc. need these new [XP-type] Microsoft licenses?

5
Which other consequences does the new operating system [Microsoft] have in combination with the new licensing system, for Kennisnet and connected schools?
(translated: Knowledgenet - an Internet-based network of primary(?) schools for kids, parents, teachers, etc.])

6
Which actions did you take in the past to inform schools about the Microsoft trap?

7
Which actions are undertaken now or in the near future to minimize negative consequences for schools? Are you willing [...] to focus their attention on alternatives like MacOS, Linux and FreeBSD?

8
How are you going to prevent that the government, and users and visitors of websites of the government, become dependant on only the Microsoft operating system?

9
Are you willing to investigate how can be assured that information from the government will remain accessible for all Internet users, despite their chosen operating system, or Internet-browser they use?


Did you notice 'the Microsoft trap' in (6)? Not just a MS trap, or another MS trap, but the one and only.
Although I like the question, I think the choice of words makes it look rather clumsy (for a politician, that is), or very MS-unfriendly. Which I find funny. I guess. :)

It usually takes months before answers are put online, unfortunately.