German Gov't, Free Software, and Secure E-mail

friday2k writes "There is a nice Article on Newsforge describing how the German Government moves ahead on looking into Free Software solutions for government agencies. And you need a standard, secure, email client for this." Basically, they are funding some good secure e-mail - but making sure that it works with stuff like Kmail.

Comments

Who woudl've thunk it..

[Sir_Real]

Germany... Last bastion for open communcation? Give it twenty years... The U.S. govt. is doing it's best to shove the genie back into the bottle... Shouldn't this be a sign to them?

Re:Who woudl've thunk it..

[Jason Earl]

All the more reason for Germany to be interested in encryption. The U.S. might be shoving the genie back in the bottle for normal citizens, but you can bet that the government itself will continue to use encryption.

Likewise the Germans know that they can't run their government without encryption, but they realize that they can't expect the U.S. based software industry to supply it, and they can't really trust the U.S. based software industry not to create backdoors in the software they do supply. So the Germans are doing the only sane thing. They are writing their own crypto programs.

This is why the U.S. will fail to crack down on encryption. The genie is loose, and there are too many people that want it to stay loose.

Re:Who woudl've thunk it..

[austad]

The fact is that the genie is out of the bottle. Making laws which outlaw strong encryption are only going to be followed by John Q. Nerd, and not by terrorist organizations.

It's closed-minded people like you that are getting our freedoms taken away because you don't realize that making a law isn't going to solve a damn thing. It's just going to take away the freedom of lawful citizens. Do you really think that Bin Laden is going to say "Oh crap, the US has made PGP illegal, I will uninstall it and use my captain zero decoder ring instead?" No, he's going to use it anyway. You can't irradicate the internet of the strong encryption that is already out there, it's impossible, especially since it's perfectly legal in many other countries.

Re:Who woudl've thunk it..

[david duncan scott]

I assume you're trolling, but what the hell -- bin Laden's been giving our intelligence people fits, in large part because he not only doesn't use encrypted email, he doesn't use email. He avoids telephones. He seems to favour couriers: real, physical people traveling in meat space with messages they've memorized. Go figure.

Re:Who woudl've thunk it..

[Malcontent]

and recruited him too.

Quickie pointy outtie

[germinatoras]

Project Ägypten will focus on making Open Source email programs KMail and mutt compatible with Sphinx

They're modifying KMail and mutt to work with Sphinx, not the other way around (as the post implies).

Cool idea, but what implications?

[perdida]

I would applaud this but would only suggest that open source developers not gravitate too closely to the governments of the world for cues and support in development of new security software.

They will order code they can understand and code they can master, and will want multiple accesses to encryption (such as back-doors) that truly render it useless in an intelligence capacity.

Give the government strong crypto controled by a single trusted admin. Distributing information and accesses simply opens the door to moles. The US government has seen several, such as Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames.

If an agent is communicating with a handler far away via encrypted email, not even the handler's supervisors should be able to override the encryption. Especially them.

Re:Cool idea, but what implications?

[AndroidCat]

If it's open source, their backdoor will have to be well hidden in the encryption algorithm. And if you don't like their admin, change it. Sheesh!

As for agents, they won't use this system. "Hey, Joe Shmoe in New Jersey just accessed the Taliban crypto server. Wadda ya think?" This is just for standard government communications. Agents would probably use the modern equivilent of one-time pads.

saving their taxpayers $$$

[jeffy124]

By doing this, they are saving their taxpayers a bundle (easily billions) by not spending so much on licensing fees from Sun or Microsoft. That money saved can go to greater things like making better schools, etc.

The article starts out saying that Congress wants to outlaw Open source via the SSSCA.

Perhaps congress should visit our German buddies and see how a switch to OSS can benefit the American public. A little bit of seeing what's happening abroad could go a long way.

Re:saving their taxpayers $$$

[Red Aardvark House]

I noticed that in the article too, despite the Dept. of Defense adopting StarOffice. The German government seems to be taking it a step further; since StarOffice is a multiplatform app, the DoD can still run Windows as a primary OS.

However, IIRC the SSCA will affect open source OS development the most.

Re:saving their taxpayers $$$

[dgb2n]

Its actually a much easier sale to the German people than the American. Sun and Microsoft are American companies and their revenue is critical to the success of the economy. So what Germany stops buying Microsoft and Sun products, it costs relatively few jobs in Germany (although it does cost some).

If the American government took similar steps it would cost thousands of jobs (unless you assume that diverting the money to other government spending provides an equitable stimulus to the economy). That distinction would probably be lost on Congress.

Re:saving their taxpayers $$$

[Malcontent]

The money that didn't go to MS or SUN would simply go elsewhere. Jobs lost by MS would be offset by jobs gained elsewhere. Maybe the govt could pay down the debt, or better educate our children or maybe even spend the money fighting terrorism. The loss of a thousand or two MS employees (who would find other jobs soon enough) would be nothing if we could prevent a biological terrorist act.

Right now the Govt is spending your tax dollars to make the richest man in the world even richer surely it can spend that money in better ways.

Well it's about time...

[motherhead]

I would advocate that governments only use open source projects...

the fact that the DoJ was supposedly at war with M$, while at the same time handing over some of M$'s largest contracts seems insane...

I would almost call it a chuch/state issue...

Re:Well it's about time...

[dgb2n]

You have to remember that our legislature is made up of people that raise money from business to ensure their continued existence in Congress.

Particularly at a time when the Government is taking steps to stimulate the economy it makes little sense for them to deal a further blow to software vendors. I know it sounds counterintuitive but most of the voluminous regulations on Federal Acquisition (the FAR for those who deal with it) are not focused on getting the government the best value for the money but rather are focused on meeting congressional mandates (small disadvantaged businesses, minority and women owned businesses, etc.).

I'm all for the Government using open source software. It would just be interesting to watch the Congressional opposition.

Nice, but...

[A Commentor]

So what is this 'Sphinx' email? Is it some propietary software or what??

The article seems to raise more questions that answers.

(the project) "will focus on making Open Source email programs KMail and mutt compatible with Sphinx"

Will this going to help anyone that doesn't use Sphinx?

Re:Nice, but...

[Teancom]

I'm gonna karma whore for a little bit, and c&p an email to the kmail developer's list that came in today. Text follows.

Dear list,

we are happy to announce that the German
"Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik"
(Federal Agency for IT Security, BSI)
contracted us (Intevation, Klarälvdalens Datakonsult and g10 Code)
to make sure that Free Software for their email security
standard Sphinx will be created.

Sphinx basically consists of S/MIME, a PKIX compatible X.509
profile, together with certificate revocation lists (CRLs)
based on LDAP. The code developed will be modular
allowing inclusion in several MUAs released under the GNU GPL.
Part of the contract with the BSI is the inclusion in mutt
and KMail.

The initial project pages can be reached from the URL below.
We wanted to get the good news out to you as fast as possible.
Expect more information to get released on the website or on the
corresponding mailing lists.

We plan to do the development in an open manner suitable
for Free Software projects. We want to handle the project in a
way that it will leverage and add to the work of other developers
and ask for your collaboration. The BSI pays us to ensure that their
specs are followed precisely and the result passes strict tests.
This is the first time the BSI contracts for Free Software development
and the experiences they make will be important.

We will demonstrate the power of commercial Free Software.

www.gnupg.org/aegypten

So, basically they are adding ldap support (w00t!), S/Mime, X.509, and CRL support to Kmail and mutt, using the GPL and working together with the main developers to make sure it gets included. Very cool, if I do say so myself.

(and yes, I know there is already s/mime support for mutt, but iirc it is via a patch. dunno about ldap/x.509/crl, I use kmail :-).

Hope that clears some questions up.

This should get good results

[jspey]

The best thing I see coming out of this is the possibility of an entire governmental agency switching over to solely free software. At that point you'll have all types of employees all using free destop productivity software. Whatever word processor they use, it'll have to work well and have everything they need and want it to. Same with presentation, spreadsheet, database, etc. applications.

One thing I've heard repeatedly from various places is that there's no set of free software applications that meet the above requirements, pretty much forcing people to use windows. Once an entire agency is using free software, the government is going to have to pay for some company to create exactly what it is that they need for the desktop, and since it's open source, it'll be available to everyone. So there'll be a standard install of a standard, easy to use desktop and it'll come with all the applications a person needs to be an engineer, statistition, executive, or even just a secretary.

I see this as possibly the only way free software will get a good business desktop in the near future, and I can't wait for it to happen.

Mr. Spey
Cover your butt. Bernard is watching.

Re:This should get good results

[choco]

There is another benefit too.

When governments, cities, public organisations start using GNU software, then other large companies will have to ensure they can deal with them - that they can exchange emails, documents, spreadsheets etc.

This will go a long way to unpicking the control over file formats that Microsoft currently has.

SMTP Spec and My thoughts on open source software

[loraksus]

It's great to see a government agency of all places supporting the GPL and open source.
I might be kind of shallow, but I think if you don't release your code, you are afraid of people looking at your poorly programmed code. If the "you" in the above sentence relates to a company, the company is essentially saying that your company is embarrased of the programmers.
I'm sure I'll have a change of heart once I enter the industry.

A mail program isn't the most complicated thing to program, I'm writing something in vis. basic right now (I know, I know - It's called schoolwork and I might as well challenge myself) The program is going to be um.. very highly customizable.
Anyways, these rfc's were really useful.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc0821.txt SMTP Spec
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2046.txt (w/Mime)

On a side note (and kind of in jest), what the hell is with europeans and super long agency names?
Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (damn!)

S/MIME for mutt

[Mike Schiraldi]

This project is great, since it hopes to create a universal module that can be plugged in easily to any MUA.

But for those of you who happen to run mutt, you don't have to wait for S/MIME support -- see this site for details. It's not universal or modular, but it exists now and it works.

If you're looking for an alternative to Kmail...

[bconway]

About 6 months ago I stumbled across an awesome GTK+ mail/news reader very similar in look to Netscape Messenger (and far superior to XFMail) called Sylpheed (http://sylpheed.good-day.net/). It'll handle as many accounts as you want, supports threading and image view through gdk-pixbuf, is extremely fast (and decently configurable), and I've never had it crash on me. Some distributions are starting to pick it up now, and it's included in Mandrake 8.1, though I usually compile myself from source. I'd suggest giving it a look.

Re:Free = Free?

[Mr. Sketch]

What's so wrong about this? Sure the government has to hire some coders to write some free software for them, but they'll easily make up the returns by not having to pay licensing fees to Microsoft or Sun.

This is a very good move by their government to put up a relatively small fixed cost up front to reap potentially huge savings in the future. Who is it who said a penny saved is a penny earned?

Re:SMTP Spec and My thoughts on open source softwa

[kindbud]

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc0821.txt SMTP Spec

This one has been superceded by many later RFCs (1123 comes to mine immediately). However, if you adhere to it, you'll be miles ahead of many commercial programs.

I believe it when I see it.

[twms2h]

Hi,

Living in this country that "supports open source" I am rather sceptically about the whole issue.

The German parliament was also "looking into alternatives for Windows especially Linux", they said. And a few weeks later it was announced that they had made a new deal with Microsoft who gave them some better conditions than originally offered. Linux was no longer an option after that. What do we learn from that: Linux makes a good argument when you want a good deal from Microsoft.

twm

Re:I believe it when I see it.

[thefogger]

Do you have a link to that announcement?

Not really...

[wnknisely]

I think it becomes a "Church/State" issue when the goverment starts supporting one group to the exclusion of others. (In this case it would be using Microsoft exclusively or disproportionatly more than other vendors.)

The problem is of course that standardization in software is a good thing - but too much is a bad thing. I don't know that anyone has figured out where the golden mean is between the two poles. We obviously need some sort of standard software to run our computers, and we need some sort of quality assurance. Open Source certainly is a candidate to develop a standard (think RFC) - but in its present form the quality of software offered is uneven. (Some is extraordinary, some is crap.)

Perhaps the real way to develop a vendor agnosticism would be to actively support and have people on the goverment payroll contribute to the open-source development model. That way the goverment is actively looking out for its own interest, but in a way which supports communal development.

Which of course sounds good, but I have no idea what it would look like... or how it would play out.

On SSSCA

[Masem]

Please note: at this time, only one congressperson (Hollings) wants to pass SSSCA; it's yet to be even introduced into the committee, much less both houses of the floor. Mind you, the bill IS worrisome, so if you haven't already contacted your reps about it, now's the time (and again if/when the bill does get introduced).

Also, too many people are not reading into the bill enough; there is a grandfather clause that does state that 'unsecure' hardware and software before the end 12month discussion period mandated by the proposed bill would be legal; sure, this kills the development of linux, so it's still scary, but preexisting linux boxes on the net could not be taken down by this.

Re:OT - Language Usage on the Net

[ichimunki]

http://www.glreach.com/globstats/ -- according to them German is 5th (based on how many people are online that speak it). It goes English (still less than half of all internet users, even though top spot), Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, German. There is also this site which has the information based on web site language : http://www.et.com.mx/mgb/dmoz/stat/

But as far as non-internet languages go, German isn't even top ten. So unless you've already mastered Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic-- I'd wait to learn German later, unless you've already learned some German, in which case you might as well go for fluency. :)

Govt and Open Source

[throx]

Perhaps the real way to develop a vendor agnosticism would be to actively support and have people on the goverment payroll contribute to the open-source development model.

Hey, we could put Government funds into education and get the professionals there to develop open source software. I'll call up the Regents of the University of California, Berkley. Oh... Wait a minute...

In my opinion, if the government continues to fund software development then it should ensure it isn't under the GPL (BSD license springs to mind). After all, everyone who helped fund that software should have a right to it and not just those who also agree with the philosophy of GNU.

Re:Govt and Open Source

[Malcontent]

If the govt did not release the code under the GPL it would simply be a form of corporate welfare. Under the GPL the greatest beneficieries would be the public under the BSD the corporations would benefit the most.

I think the govt should do what is best for the public not what is best for Microsoft or Sun.

BTW you don't have to agree with the philosophy to use the applications. The GPL should not bother you unless you intend to modify the code AND distribute it. Most people will never modify the code and most people will never distribute it. For the vast majority of the human beings in the US the GPL is absolutely harmless.

Re:Govt and Open Source

[throx]

If the govt did not release the code under the GPL it would simply be a form of corporate welfare. Under the GPL the greatest beneficieries would be the public under the BSD the corporations would benefit the most.

Actually, under a BSD license anyone could use the code, modify the code and resell the code - be it Microsoft, Sun or Jimmy-Bob down the road. Tax money is collected from companies and individuals alike - why shouldn't the fruits of that money be returned to companies and individuals alike.

What it comes down to is publishing government work under a GPL license gives GPL software an unfair advantage over commercial software through it's ability to leverage taxpayer funded projects. Governments should not play favorites to a particular licensing model and make all publicly funded code available to all who provided those funds.

For the vast majority of the human beings in the US the GPL is absolutely harmless.

That's like saying "For the vast majority of the human beings in the US the draft is absolutely harmless". Not affecting the vast majority is a poor excuse for a rationalization.

Justified Paranoia

[AndroidCat]

The German government isn't too happy about the fact that at least of couple of the companies that write utilities used in Windows are associated with the "Church" of $cientology.

And given $cientology's record of infiltrating government offices in the US, Canada, Greece, France, etc, the thought of proprietary code gives them the creeps.

xenu.net

Plans also in Finland

[TeknoHog]

The City of Turku, the oldest and one of the largest cities in Finland, is planning on a switch to Linux + OpenOffice in order to save the XP license money. Links here and here.

Re:Why shouldn't they?

[motherhead]

Why do you think thats insane? The DOJ case is about some illegal business practices microsoft has been using in the past. The DOJ wants to punish microsoft for the damage this has caused (rightfully since it's illegal) and make sure it doesn't happen again.

Valid points, yet I guess my ethical (if certainly not legal) reasoning would be: Because in this instance, Microsoft is being rewarded.

If it has been, or is in the process of being, established that Microsoft used unfair and illegal means to advance itself into a position that they have become a (the?) predominate supplier of software to the U.S. government, then perhaps that relationship should be re-evaluated.

The fact that it goes on un-inspected is, yes, a bit insane to me.

But then who cares what I think? Just another schmuck voter am I.

It's a fair fight, got a problem with that?

[imrdkl]

The "good uses" of encryption are here to stay.

One of the tactics of the black hats seems to be to dig around for information from places, and perhaps in ways, which might not be quite so easy for them to get access to, when the white hats learn to use encryption as well as "they" do.

For example, consider mining an airline booking site to see which flights have special prices. This type of information retrieval might become better protected, because such information could lead to speculation about the human-density on the flight.

Consider also, that Europe, as Us, is devastated by every new MS worm that comes around. But if they'd only use SSL server encryption more widely, they'd be unbothered by such simple virusen. Managers will buy more servers, because SSL takes more horsies, (as every other form of encryption), users will share information in a more sensible way, the economy will rebound, etc., etc.. :)

I contend that the most interesting authorities built out of X.509, in any case objCA, sslCA, and objsign (from openssl docs and Netscape definitions), should continue to be widely encouraged. emailCA, perhaps is for the more mature organization, but an organizations email can sometimes be the biggest "hole" of all. It should be closed-up, in any good business activity, anywhere, eventually.

The point is, everyones already got this stuff. The playing field is even, and we have to fight dishonesty with the same tools as are being used to hide it.

Not to worry unless someone tells you to put your certificate on your head or your hand (right). Right?

Re:No cryptography support yet...

[bconway]

*cough* Last item right here. *cough*

Could someone explain to me what this postercomment compression filter is in I'm violating (which this sentence was added to work around)?

Mutt already has that

[Dwonis]

Mutt is already standard (i.e. works on any terminal, including text-only), and secure (PGP/GPG/choose-your-flavour).

Good news from Europe.

[small_dick]

It seems to me the free software movement has stalled in the USA. Witness the harsh laws, government and corporate comingling, etc.

I've often thought the only way for open source to succeed is for "other-than-USA" countries to embrace it...the USA just has too many influence peddlers and special interests involved in government to make the proper decisions...not to mention a population of dullards who know little of law and less of history. Harsh, but I beleive it true.

It's really looking like it will be the forward-thinking countries outside the USA who are going to turn the tide against "zero choice" monopoly software.

Even though I might have to watch, rather than participate, I'd really enjoy seeing Germany (and hopefully others!) give Bill Gates and his illegal corporation a "boot to the head".

I hope the Germans decide to do this...it's very impressive to see people standing up and demanding freedom, liberty, and choice from their government.

Re:Good news from Europe.

[pete-classic]

Our (USA) government is pretty clueless when it comes to legislating technology.

The advantage we have is that when we find a law stupid, we feel free to violate it.

Is there even a word for jaywalking in German?

-Peter

This is not about Linux vs Windows

[marm]

Living in this country that "supports open source" I am rather sceptically about the whole issue.

Well, you should know then that the German federal government has already sponsored the development of one widely-used Open Source project: GnuPG.

Details are available in English und auf Deutsch.

This is for real. The German government has realised that it has no confidence that its internal communications are secure and it cannot have that confidence if the communications infrastructure is run by Microsoft software - because they have no way of telling if there are or are not US government-controlled backdoors in Microsoft software. They also cannot be sure that the encryption systems built-in to Microsoft OSes and applications do not have unintentional subtle flaws that make them much easier to crack.

With all the (understandable) paranoia over the Echelon system, it is easy to see why they want a solid encryption solution that is entirely under their control.

It has nothing to do with price or better license conditions from Microsoft. It is about having an encryption system that is widely-used, rock-solid and verifiably free from backdoors.

Even if Microsoft offered the German government a source license, how can they be sure that the released version of Windows and the source code that they are offered are equivalent? Quite apart from anything else, there are significant chunks of Windows that Microsoft do not own the rights to, and thus cannot provide under a source license.

So, let me repeat again: this is not about Linux vs Windows. It is about having a solid, secure, verifiable communications channel that the German government can have confidence in - confidence that they cannot have with Microsoft software.

PGP?

[Ed Avis]

Why do all government projects seem to involve S/MIME and X.509? What's wrong with PGP and PGP certificates? They actually have some users and software support.

Germany: highest amount of Linux users per capita

[Qbertino]

AFAIK, Germany has the highest amount of Linux users per capita. Germany often officially considers itself behind in the IT race with other nations, especially the US, but that's mostly due to a typical US focused view.

A good Joke about that is "gang und gäbe" with IT professionals: "If we (the germans) wanna take a wordwide lead in IT, we shouldn't try do so by focusing on the lousiest propritary american OS we can lay hands on."
Quite my position :-).

OSS is cool, '133+, democratic and modern, and the density of tech savy people, due to the high education level (compred to USA) reaches critical mass well enough. Which means politians don't wanna out themselves as 'not tech savy' by not joining in the "oss is the future" policy.
I wouldn't be suprised if Europe realy takes the lead in IT tech by doing a solid amount of OSS lobbying.

BTW: IMHO, succes of Linux in Germany is also widely based on the famos SuSE Distro.

Re: super long agency names

[s390]

Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik

Loosely, that's "State Office for Information Technology Security." It's not an especially long German bureaucratic name.

BTW, the WWII Nazi spycatcher agency was the SD, an acronym for "Sicherheits Dienst." Try saying that three times, fast.

The German security agencies are puckering up and paying more attention lately. It seems they weren't concerning themselves much with immigrant international terrorists, but were concentrating on homegrown neo-Nazis instead. They're scrambling to catch up now (and doing a fairly credible job).