Oracle Donates Software for Big Brother Database

8onal writes: "C|Net is reporting that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has followed through with his threat, I mean promise, to assist with Uncle Sam's crimefighting efforts. "...Ellison said he has delivered Oracle's 9i database management software to a U.S. government agency for national security, but he declined to give further details, such as which agency or for what usage." Seeing as how he has already supplied the CIA with software, I bet it went to another 3-letter group."

Comments

Ellison's interests

[mwillems]

Seems to me Larry Ellison is being rather opportunistic here, plus, this fits in well with his world vision, which has always been centralistic and in favour of control - I remember Oracle giving me a presentation once about their expense system at Oracle: all expense reports worldwide! go to (and are approved in) one central database in the US head office. Not for good database reasons but for control reasons. See also the NIC (thin client)- central control, again.

Having said that, opportunism in the light of Sep 11 is not restricted to Oracle. Companies like Siebel, MS, and many others have also tried to gain market share. I am sure we all see through this.

Michael

Standard marketing technique

[Raindeer]

If the US governement really falls for this obvious marketing technique, they are dumber then I allready thought they were. Having worked within the Dutch government I know that once a database has been addopted, it hardly ever gets replaced for another dbms. They might build another front end, upgrade the dbms, but switching from vendor is just not an option. It is too scary to make such a big step. Oracle knows this and supplying the database for a national ID-card will mean business for life.

Also don't forget, that there will be many government agencies that want to tie in their database with the national ID-database or base their database on it. Oracle will have a foot and a leg in the door there as well.

Re:Standard marketing technique

[wirefarm]

>>>but switching from vendor is just not an option.
>nope, it is always an option.

Rarely.
In many gov't shops, the Oracle sits on the one Sun box in the place and is only touched buy the ouside vendor-unix guys who stop in once-in-a-while to tweak it. (Those guys who never come to lunch with you.)
You may have in-house people who can fsck around with an in-house built Ms Sql Server or Oracle db, but that rarely has anything to do with that one lonely off-limts box in the corner.

Technically, "yes". All you have to do is email the vendor and get a data dictionary for the 'box-in-the-corner', but in reality, don't hold your breath. Either you will never get it, or worse, you will, then you realize that it is such crap that it will take two years before you could possibly get a system working in any other home-grown rdbms. They have the advantage: though the databases are total crap, design-wise, they've spent the last ten years polishing these turds into bombproof 'systems'.
(Ignore the little man behind the curtain... Ignore that box in the corner...)
I wish it weren't so...

Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo

Standards

[Iamthefallen]

Ein folk, Ein reich, Ein RDBMS?

What? The form you must fill as you enter the US asking if you're a terrorist, nazi or have participated in any genocides recently isn't enough?

Re:Standards

[Tackhead]

> Ein folk, Ein reich, Ein RDBMS?
>
> What? The form you must fill as you enter the US asking if you're a terrorist, nazi or have participated in any genocides recently isn't enough?

Nope. It'll have a new line: "Are you now, or have you at any time in the past, administered a Sybase server?"

Another 3-letter group

[IainMH]

Seeing as how he has already supplied the CIA with software, I bet it went to another 3-letter group

Not AOL?!! They are the people we fear the most!

Re:Another 3-letter group

[Xpilot]

The M.I.B.?

Nah, they use alien technology.

The I.B.M.?

Nah, they develop alien technology :)

Why this does not matter

[wackysootroom]

1. If Larry Ellison offered you a free copy of arguably the #1 database server (and the most expensive) on the market, would you turn him down?

2. The article makes no mention of what kind of data will be stored in the database server.

Even if there is no 'National ID card' information, Ellison saved our government lots of money by giving us expensive software. Lobbying the legislature, writing congress letters, etc. is up to us.

IMHO, the government probably listened to his schpiel, said thanks, and used the software for something else besides the ID card.

Look at the history of SSN

[sllort]

One of the most popular uses of the Social Security Number is stalking your ex-spouse. Larry's database should make this... easier?

Then there's the ACLU's stance: There must be no national ID system -- either in law or in practice.

But all of this means nothing, and preaching to the /. choir is pointless. There's only one number the politicians will look at. And it's this one.

If you want to do something proactive, try to do something about that.

Re:Look at the history of SSN

[Rogerborg]

• preaching to the /. choir is pointless. There's only one number the politicians will look at. And it's [opinion polls]

You're being too simplistic. Other numbers that can effect their decision:

• Number of $50 bills in the brown paper bag passed under the table in the diner.
• Number of roofied cheerleaders in the back of the limo.
• Number of useless idiot nephews who can be given PR jobs with a fat expense account and no job description within the bidder's company.

This isn't meant to be funny. We have honest politicians, but not enough, and a system where 90% of career incumbents are re-elected doesn't exactly encourage honesty or integrity.

I think we've already lost the national ID card argument. All we have to worry about now is how well the system is implemented, and how many false positives it will generate when despatching the MIBs to apprehend evil doers. Given that law enforcement in increasingly using SWAT tactics these days (whether they're trained in them or not) even for such dangerous criminals as computer crackers, I'd hope that whatever system we settle on actually works, especially if it's going to be used by all branches of government at all levels.

If Sally Secretary is going to initiate a paramilitary action against Karl Kracker just by typing in his ID number, I'd far rather that there are safeguards in place to ensure that the goons actually go to Karl's house and not mine. In that respect, an Oracle system might be the least of a host of evils.

Consider the alternative: who do you want to make go away today?

Responsibility

[Tomcat666]

We've had it with people working in medicinal areas (they developed the Hippocratic oath to make sure only to help the people), and with scientists (remember Hiroshima?).

It seems like programmers are in the focus now. Would you write software that will be used in military devices (to kill people)? To observe people and violate their privacy? How can you know what your software is used for?

We should take care of what we are doing when we publish and/or write a piece of software.

This also has some interesting aspects for open source licenses like the GPL. There's no part of the GPL forbidding the use of the licensed software for militaristic purposes (wrong?) or privacy intrusion (to stay on topic). Since most hackers are friendly people and the GPL reflects a big part of the hacker ethics, it should probably restrict the use of your software for the "wrong" purposes.

On the other hand, if you're not as pacifistic and freedom-loving as I am, you might say that the GPL shouldn't restrict the use of software so much. But then I think programmers should consider NOT to release a program if it could be used in a bad way.

Hackers are putting so much love and work and spare time into their projects that they are thinking about its possibilities anyway, so maybe the only danger here is commercial software, written only to earn money.

Re:Responsibility

[MrResistor]

I think this is a straw man arguement. You're blaming the technology for the uses it's being put to, and frankly it's inappropriate. Technology is nothing but a tool, like a hammer. You're essentially asking all hammer manufacturers to shut down because it's possible to kill someone with a hammer.

Your arguement is certainly pacifist, but not freedom-loving at all. Censorship is the enemy of freedom, even if it is self imposed! The GPL is about Free-as-in-speech, and if you alter the license so that, for example, GPLed code can't be used in weapon systems, then it is no longer Free-as-in-speech. You are removing freedoms in order to impose your own pacifist morallity on others. That doesn't sound very freedom-loving to me. Feel free to write your own license for your code that prevents military use, but don't ask for such a clause to be added to a license like the GPL, it violates the basic principles on which that license is built.

Personally, I would have no problems writing code specifically for weapons systems if I were being paid to do it, nor would I be bothered if code I wrote for some other purpose were used in a weapon system. The for pay requirement above is merely a reflection of my desire to be paid, and my recognition that the military-industrial complex has the capability to do that. Unfortunately a military is necessary in our world, and a modern military requires technological systems. Someone is going to get paid to create those systems, and it might as well be me.

RDBs have many potential uses, none of which are destructive (unlike nuclear physics and medicine). Some of the potential uses are invasive, but does that mean the world should be deprived of this technology? Certainly not, especially considering the only difference between invasive and non-invasive RDBs are the people using them.

NSA scrutiny

[Pig Hogger]

Seeing as how he has already supplied the CIA with software, I bet it went to another 3-letter group.

...Where everyone looking at it is having fits of laughter having a look at the "security" features...

Turf wars among the intelligence agencies

[fhwang]

In the story, Ellison is quoted as saying: "There is cooperation (among government agencies). But there's a lot of data fragmentation."

Of course, one of the biggest reasons for the data fragmentation is that that intelligence agencies don't cooperate -- if anything, they're notorious for their turf wars. Ellison is downplaying the organizational battles in order to pitch his technical solution.

One of the causes of the turf war is that the intelligence agencies are poorly defined and poorly monitored. Once an intelligence agency is created, it tends to have a life of its own. Case in point: The CIA was originally chartered to help the U.S. fight the Cold War, something it did with laughable incompetence at times. But when the Cold War ended -- an event which took the agency entirely by surprise -- nobody at the CIA thought "Since our job is done, let's tell Congress to shut us down so we can be unemployed." No, of course, they looked around for other threats to pitch to the White House. With terrorism, they seem to have found it.

Except for the fact that much of the anti-terrorism work will be domestic, and that therefore it falls under the aegis of the FBI, instead. But can you imagine the CIA bosses, always anxious about Congressional funding and eager to get into the anti-terrorism spotlight, staying out of the fray? Forget about it.

Re:But which OS!?!?

[alen]

Do you seriously think he is going to recommend NT and an easy future migration to SQL Server? Some people in the government already don't know anything except for microsoft and why make it worse?

The question is....

[darrad]

Do we really want any database that contains the kind of information we are talking about running on a piece of software developed by a corporate entity.

I may be a Black Hellicopter KOOK here, but I am thinking back the the movie, "The Net"(Bad movie, good story)

If the US Government sets up this database, running on software developed by any third party, then security will always be a problem. How many "Easter Egg" type bugs exist in most of today's software. What happens if one of the coders at Oracle was having a bad day, and added a backdoor to the database, and then publishes the path to it on the Internet?

I don't pretend to have a solution to this, short of not doing anything, which is probably the best thing we can do. Knee-jerk reactions to the events of 9/11 will end up costing us more than the actual events.

I think someone should propose to Ellison to have all of his personal data (credit card #'s, SSN, financial statements, "real" income, not what is reported to the IRS)stored in an Oracle database that is web-enabled. That will tell us all we need to know.

Scary stuff....

CDs will go straight to trashcan

[jeffy124]

policy in all us govt agencies, particularly those dealing with intelligence and security is to _not_ accept donations from vendors, including demoware from tech conferences. Part of this is security interests but also integrity. The gov't doesnt want vendors freely supplying software in hopes they would buy more licenses.

so given that, whenever ellison's donation arrives at whatever agency he donated them to, they'll probably tell ellison "thanks, but no thanks" and toss the box in the trashcan.

Uhh.. software donation. So what?

[mindstrm]

I mean seriously.. if the price of the Oracle software is what stands in the way of the powers that be rolling out such a system, they have a serious problem already.

I also don't see the big controversy. The government already HAS huge databases, analyzed by supercomputers, to figure out things like taxes, and whatnot.. what's another database? The issue is how things are used, not that they exist.

Oracle was FOUNDED for the CIA

[Hobart]

Look up Oracle's history. They produced the first ever commercial relational database -- under contract to the CIA for a project called Oracle that got cancelled. Then they decided to market it, and took the name Oracle.

In fact, Larry Ellison was fired from Oracle in his early years there. :)

Re:Hmmm... Three letters

[Tackhead]

> The I.R.S!!!

As long as we're guessing, how about the INS? Lord knows those fucksticks could certainly use the help.

And it'd be consistent with Ellison "[declining] to give further details, such as which agency or for what usage".

At the INS, I'd bet the usage would be "Put it in the mailroom for six months. Have an agent take it from the mailroom and put it on the shelf sometime in spring of 2002. Have another agent wipe the dust off the box in 2004. Take the box off the shelf and try to install it on a 4.77 MHz PC/XT in 2007. (Side project: Install a CD-ROM for the PC/XT. Should be done by 2011.) When the installation program reports "not enough RAM" sometime in 2018, write a glowing report to Congress about the wonders of the ongoing INS modernization programme, and how, Real Soon Now, INS will finally be able to stop Bad Guys and illegal aliens from getting into (and staying in) our country, if it weren't for all those goddamn legal aliens we're still spending all our time trying to get rid of through interminably long delays in their paperwork."

Slashdotters can moderate this as (+1, Funny). INS employees will probably moderate it as (+1, Informative).

Secret militairy tribunals..

[Otis_INF]

A country which has a president who wants to install secret military tribunals shouldn't be worrying about if Oracle is able to access data inside governmental databases, but should be worrying about what the difference between the USA WITH secret tribunals and a 3rd world country with a dictator and secret tribunals really is.