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'Think Tank' Issues Microsoft-Funded Troll
dlur (among many others) writes: "According to this ZDNet article, a Washington think tank known as the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution is soon to release a study stating that Open Source Software allows terrorists an easy time hacking into our systems. It's little suprise that this group takes money from Microsoft."
The Register's story
is good too.
All the whoring reports in the world won't make open source any less secure. This same institute backed destabilizing, unworkable '80s missile defense
and thinks Alexis de Tocqueville would have wanted the
V-22 Osprey deathplane.
Also, see what their coin-operated policy dispenser spat out for
internet privacy
(eat what you're fed) and
antitrust
(advantage of Microsoft monopoly: "manufacturers of computer hardware need to provide only one
driver").
We weren't going to run this, but there were a lot of submissions, so ...
They're not running their touted monoculture on their own web servers!
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
I am a lone out post of open source in the military agency where I work. My solution, just show them the NSA funded SE Linux information.
Who are the green suiters going to trust? A bunch of paid "think tank" lackeys or the good ole spooks behind the triple fence?
So far NSA's advocacy has been used to let me get away with all kinds of open source implementation.
Of course, NSA has an agenda too I'm sure but that's between the military and NSA.
Subject: "Opening the Open Source Debate"
Date: 31 May 2002 15:45:59 +1200
Some references you might wish to consider before publishing your article "Opening the Open Source Debate"
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi ?bw.053002/221502375
Bruce Schneier, one of the recognized leading expert on computer security on Kerckhoffs' Principle and Secrecy, Security, and Obscurity of software.
http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0205.html#1
Dr. Blaine Burnham, Director, Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC) and previously with the National Security Agency (NSA), gives an keynote speech overview of current encryption and security technologies and outlines possible strategies for future defense.
http://technetcast.ddj.com/tnc_play_stream.html?st ream_id=411
Also you might wish to address the issue of Microsoft's disproportionately high number of open vulnerabilities in its Internet Explorer components. All of which where discovered without access to the source code.
http://jscript.dk/unpatched/
Richard Purcell, Microsoft's director of corporate privacy, has recently stated that any major improvement in regard to the security of it's products may be at least "5, 10 years, maybe".
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may 2002/tc20020523_6029.htm
As for the issue of Trojan horse injection into open source code, it is far from being an open source only issue.
http://www.eeggs.com/
Or were all the "Easter Eggs" currently found in Microsoft's products officially authorized?
If you are looking for a methodology for providing a suitably secure and hardened solution, start with a real world example.
http://www.openbsd.org/security.html
I welcome any open debate.
However, how can we have more companies like Microsoft when that very article is condoning a monolopy? Yes, I acknowledge that they're probably talking about 'one monopoly in each market'. However, we all know that Microsoft is trying to take over as many markets as possible. How far away is Microsoft-branded Vegemite? :)
Stupid. Totally, absolutely stupid.
"And don't forget Kerckhoff's assumption: If the strength of your new cryptosystem relies on the fact that the attacker does not know the algorithm's inner workings, you're sunk. If you believe that keeping the algorithm's insides secret improves the security of your cryptosystem more than letting the academic community analyze it, you're wrong. And if you think that someone won't disassemble your code and reverse-engineer your algorithm, you're naive. The best algorithms we have are ones that have been made public, have been attacked by the world's best cryptographers for years, and are still unbreakable."
--Bruce Scheier; Applied Cryptography (Second Edition); page 7
This seems to apply perfectly to this latest FUD about open source software.
This group also claimed, during Congressional probes into tobacco company fraud, that cigarettes and tobacco products were not harmful to your health. From this memo by a director of the World Health Organization:
l ous.htm
"In addition to creating front groups and contributing funds to groups that have a mission broad enough to carry some of the tobacco industry's goals, the tobacco companies also use publications by allegedly independent think tanks, such as the Virginia-based Alexis De Tocqueville Institution. This group's 1994 report "Science, Economics, and Environmental Policy: A Critical Examination" criticizes the US Environmental Protection Agency's risk assessment methods in 4 areas: environmental tobacco smoke, radon, pesticides, and hazardous cleanup. It dismisses in its first chapter the agency's risk assessment of environmental tobacco smoke, using arguments similar to the tobacco industry's "junk science" arguments described by Ong and Glantz. "
It seems Microsoft is making some strange bedfellows.
Sources:
http://www.smokefreeforhealth.org/studies/YachBia
ZDNet Post
They claim that MCSE's are more useful than a college degree. If they AREN'T taking money from MicroSoft, then they're dumber than I thought.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
What I do not understand is why there aren't any similar groups for the OpenSource / non-Darkside [ advocacy ]
I certainly hope there aren't any self-proclaimed Open Source/Free Software groups that pump out such logically-challenged, clue-free blather. I'd frankly be ashamed to see something on the same order, clue-wise, being used to promote the Open Source/Free Software philosophy.
This just makes me sick. I've read Alexis de Toqueville's Democracy in America several times, it's one of my favorite books. He considered unchecked capitalism a serious threat to participatory democracy. How vile for an organization to sully his name with drivel like this report.
Honestly, I think the Linux community is better off without such a "darkside" group. The more effort that is spent on making actual progress, and NOT fighting the war of words that Microsoft so desperately wants to fight, the better off we'll be. Microsoft has been saying bad stuff about Linux for years -- they have endless supplies of cash to wage that war, and can neatly tie up the Linux community's resources that way.
I would say that any and all "intellectual" aid -- legal, political, research / reporting, etc. should be directed towards loosening or removing Microsoft's grip on public education and government markets. Right now, we have two major entities -- Peru and Taiwan -- that have taken the plunge and are attempting to eliminate their reliance on Microsoft products. We have the US government questioning for the first time how to better secure their networks. And in a time of relative national crisis, shouldn't security at all levels be of paramount concern?
MS has proven itself incapable of (or unwilling to?) improving the security of its code, despite its ubiquity. Open source can only get _more_ stable and secure as time passes, and users / white hats continue to help find bugs in the system. So why shouldn't we have people who are willing to evagenlize OpenSource do it, but to discredit MS by selling the idea behind using Linux et al?
But maybe that's just me........
"A Microsoft spokesman confirmed that Microsoft provides funding to the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution."
-- Don't Tase me, bro!