DARPA Grant Cancelled for OpenBSD and U-Penn?

Starrider writes "It seems the DARPA grant for OpenBSD and for University of Pennsylvania has been cancelled (?) immediately and without warning. See the full story in Theo's email and on deadly.org." Theo is left to only speculate why funding was suddenly pulled. One also has to wonder what this means for the University of Pennsylvania, since they were also in for a piece of the pie.

Comments

The real reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Is because they read Slashdot and saw the *BSD is dying.

Easy...

[guile*fr]

...they discovered Canada harbors french talking people.

Re:Easy...

[cperciva]

Canada harbours Freedom talking people now.

I stand behind Theo

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenBSD is his project. If DARPA wants to retract their funding, so be it. Good riddance. Theo's intrepid and unwavering ethical beliefs are the reason I trust him to write this OS.

Re:I stand behind Theo

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're a bit confused. Unless you are making sweeping accusations and a "guilt by association" claim, in which case you are an absurd purpose and possibly just a silly little person.

First, money is a common denominator in many aspects of society. It is, more or less, simply there as a value marker. We could dwelve deeper into this, but the reality is, it is a fundamental and agreed upon method of exchange, here work/code.

When the project took to the DARPA grant, it was money to improve the OS. No questions as to politics or motivation. Money for code and effort. Hopefully, by now, anyone with two neurons realizes that technology can cut both ways and it depends on the use of that technology that provides evidence of right or wrong (i.e. crypto, a knife).

When Theo took the money, it was to improve OBSD. There was shared purpose between Theo and DARPA that matched and hence the transaction was to take/took place.

When DARPA removed that money, it was (allegedly) for political reasons, not (seemingly) because of loss of common ground on what was to be worked on (e.g. loss of security, features, timetable, etc.). Unless they stupidly believe Theo's antiwar sentiments would cause a decrease in quality code (absurd).

To be consistent, they should pull Bill Gates into a hearing and ask him in detail his war views, and if not agreeable, pull the plug on all MS sales. Same with Linux--if Linus is antiwar in any way, Linux should be chucked.

Really now.

There is nothing hypocritical about Theo's statements. He stated his views on his own time, in another country, and did so DESPITE the grant. That's not hypocritical; that's clear cut freedom of expression and conviction. I hope you haven't forgotten that, because if you are a fellow American, you need to check your own logic at the door. He didn't tone down or water down his statements because he had a grant; that would have been more in line of being "bought".

Or do you believe grants are exclusively decided on the basis of political motivations (undoubtedly a factor though), not the technical ability or the job done?

Essentially stating that he will state his views on matters that have little to no bearing on what was agreed to is principled, and sticking to them even now (e.g. take back the blood money since that has become clear _after_ the fact) continues to be principled, not hypocritical.

If the color of his language after having the grant rejected bothers you, you really should consider that the money was removed after unfavorable comments, which is the real color here, in that it colored the money has pro-war or only for those that support the war...which is not something that I think was probably part of the grant application (if for the war, check here?).

I am further bothered by your snipe since it sticks of guilt by association. As a Republican, I see this too often. Dems label, Reps label, blah blah blah. Get over it. Unless you would agree that, say, everyone who supports Linux also supports China and it's antihumanitarian ways (guilt by association). Unless you would think that DARPA made it abundantly clear that their grant has direct political pro-war motivations (hardly, unless you want to be called a hypocrite yourself, you use the Internet, which grew directly out of such funding).

Rather, it is more likely you just transposed your feelings of the US government on anything with some whacked political motivation and want to twist this as a bad thing by bouncing it off of Theo's (laden) reputation.

For me, it is abundantly clear that the money for code/effort in grant form went beyond the grant. The money was given only for those that support the war, since it was removed _after_ Theo put foward his antiwar sentiments. Last I heard, that wasn't part of the grant application process.

Theo's comments in Globe and Mail

[LinuxParanoid]

Theo's anti-war comments in The Globe and Mail can be found here. Theo wasn't told why funding was pulled but he suspects his comments there did it.

I don't think it was Theo's comments to ZDNet on "security through beer drinking" which can be found here.

The "oil grab" comment does strike me as a bit uninformed and polemic, but I'll leave that debate for another time. As an OpenBSD user, I'm sad to see the funding pulled and not happy that someone in the U.S. gov't is being petty. (Or perhaps they're just paranoid?)

--LP

Re:Theo's comments in Globe and Mail

[Skjellifetti]

Now, give me one example of a conflict where the US unselfishly involved itself for no other cause than "good".

A reasonable case can be made that Roosevelt worked hard to help the Brits out prior to the US formal entry into WWII because it was The Right Thing To Do.

More recently, the US entered Somalia because the population was starving due to a combination of long-term drought and local warlords who didn't seem to give a damn about the local people.

Rwanda is another recent case where the US intervened when there was no strategic reason for doing so. Just a nasty local ethnic cleansing problem.

And then there is the whole leftover Yugo mess. One of the major reasons the US got involved was because we perceived (rightly or wrongly) that the Europeans did not seem to care very much about the thousands of people whose lives were being lost. Remember, it was a group of Dutch "peacekeepers" who stood by while the Srebrenitza Massacre took place.

Most European capital cities have a "Never Again" museum where they walk schoolchildren through the brutality of the Holocaust and the Nazi occupation of their country. And yet Europeans are the most obstinant about refusing to help others out of similar fixes the way the US helped them out of theirs.

Bottom line for me is that I'll gladly accept a mixture of both pure and selfish motivations if that is what it takes to rid the world of bastards like Hussein.

Re:Theo's comments in Globe and Mail

[Skjellifetti]

The fact is that killed more people, via direct war and 12 years of sanctions than Saddam ever did.

BULLSHIT! Hussein spent his oil money from the past decade on weapons, bribes to local elders, and his own luxury goods and bank acounts. It would not have been hard to have spent that money on food, medicine, schools, etc for his own people. The sanctions cannot be blamed for the state of Iraq or for ANY deaths that occured in the past decade. Only one man is to blame for those deaths and if we are lucky, God is judging him for those actions right at this very moment.

Re:Theo's comments in Globe and Mail

[Skjellifetti]

That's BS, too. There is an illegal oil pipeline running from Iraq to Syria. Iraq was also running illegal oil in barges into Iran. Where did the money get spent? In the 1980s, Iraq fought an 8 year war with Iran that cost Iraq at least US $10**11. Toss in Gulf War I and Iraq never had much left over for luxury goods like schools. In fact, Iraq's literacy rate is only 58% and has never been very high compared to its neighbors. Jordon, with no oil, has a literacy rate of 86%. Syria, again with no oil, has a literacy rate of 70%. No, the sanctions meant that the people of Iraq suffered because of the budget choices made by Saddam and his minions. Saddam and the military first. If there is anything left over, the people can eat. If not, tough. That was Saddam's choice.

Also remember that it was in Saddam's interest to make the sanctions look as horrible as possible in order to garner sympathy from Western pacifists. Iraq had quite a propaganda machine going to this end. I'm really quite skeptical that the sanctions caused as much heartache as people like you seem to believe. I'm open minded on this issue, but I want to see a real in-depth analysis from a UN or similar source.

Finally, the Geneva Convention also requires that you not hide military personell and equipment in and around civilian facilities. This was a common practice of the Iraqi military. And the GC frowns on the use of poison gas, especially on your own civilian population. Funny, too, that even though the GC came out before most westerners had electricity in their homes it now is considered a "means of survival". Next war you'll be telling us that it is against the GC to take away the enemy civilians Internet connections.

Re:Theo's comments in Globe and Mail

[CausticWindow]

Ok, let's look at Somalia first.

As always, there's the corporate welfare angle. When the US spends money on a military campaign, guess where that money ends up? Other than that, you have the geographic strategic importance of the country (the former Soviet supported Ethiopia to the north, the Suez canal to the east). And then there is oil. Yes, Somalia got oil.

Even if you were to believe that the mission in Somalia was of a humanitarian nature, you can't disregard that the US were largely responsible for creating the situation in the first place. Their support of an extremely violent dictator (Siad Barre, maybe an even greater bastard than Saddam) in exchange for lucrative oil contracts, during the seventies and eighties, eventually brought on a bloody civil war.

The real world has nothing to do with the Jerry Bruckheimer fantasy Black Hawk Down.

That the genocide in Rwanda could reach such levels as it dit, has been partially attributed to how the US administration managed this case in the security council. From the beginnings of this disaster, they opposed most of the remaining members of the security council. First in supporting withdrawal of most of the UN controlled forces in the country. Then by stalling for unknown reasons, when then UN proposed a second plan for restoring order.

Regarding the former Yugoslavia and the NATO led intervention, the US has never tried to cover up that they had very real strategic goals with this campaign. Take a look at for example this report.

As I said earlier, the world is not a rosy place. I don't particularily care that the US did or did not intervene in these latest campaigns in Africa or Southern Europe. What's scary is that so many of you americans, firmly believe that your leaders only act out of a "pure" motive. I'm sure you're not so naive in other regards. The only explanation I've got, is that you must be blinded with "patriotism".

Closed-source lobbying

[drosselmeier]

Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but likely the problem was due to lobbying efforts of companies that are anti Open Source. Anyone remember NSA Linux (now SELinux)? It was released and soon thereafter the goverment started backpeddling in the glare of strong corporate lobbying efforts, and decided that they wouldn't release things under the GPL without serious consideration in the future. One company in particular, based in Redmond WA, lobbyied heavily to stop this sort of action, because it inhibited them from selling their 'hardened' software.

I was suprised to see DARPA (which is more independent of this sort of thing in general) giving money of such magnitude to an open product, but I'm not suprised now to see them renig without explanation.

Re:Closed-source lobbying

[mkettler]

Although it's somewhat off-topic, despite the lobbying SELinux is still going. They just made an updated release April 7th, a mere 10 days ago.

http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/news.html

Thus, I don't think DARPA has any issue with the open/closed sourced-ness of it.

It does however seem reasonable for a branch of the US DOD to not be wanting to fund someone that is critical of the US military. Wether his statements are true or not is another matter, but it would seem odd to for the DOD provide funding to a non-us citizen that criticizes the DOD. I'd expect them to have been taking a lot of political flack about that.

Re:Closed-source lobbying

[DevNull Ogre]

The difference is that OpenBSD is released under a... you guessed it: BSD license. That means all those closed source shops can just take the code for free. Even Microsoft seems pretty okay with BSD-style licenses.

Re:Closed-source lobbying

[jeffy124]

actually - i dont think lobbying is it. DARPA provides a lot (and I do mean a LOT) of money for projects that eventually releases OSS code. Even ReiserFS (a russian company at that!) is a recipient of DARPA funding.

CHATS, is one such program specifically for OSS, which is where Reiser's funding comes from. TIA, believe it or not, will be generating OSS code in the next few years, assuming privacy extremists let it get off the ground.

Re:Closed-source lobbying

[bogie]

" Linux for Govt is a shady subject - since Govt is supported by taxpayers, including CORPORATE Taxpayers (ok ok, so what if loopholes let companies get off on 2 bucks a year :-) ), all govt software projects should be BSD Licensed"

Sorry I think your wrong and hardly think Linux for the Govt is a "shady" subject.

I disagree and think govt projects when possible should be GPL. The code should ALWAYS remain free no matter what. Some company shouldn't be allowd to come along and just take what others have worked on or more importantly paid for via taxes without giving back. That's only fair if your getting free code from MY dime. I'll be damned if some commercial company is going to close the source to some exiting project and sell it back to the unsuspecting public who ALREADY paid for it!

couple things

[Satai]

Read the whole thread; not everyone thinks it was because of the peace comments. (Not that it would be surprising to this particular slashdotter.)

Something else that ought to be looked at is the Microsoft angle -- in the past they've put pressure on public institutions to avoid supporting open source projects and instead invest in the "free" market. in this particular climate, of jingoism and nationalism, how hard would it be for them to target OpenBSD as a Canadian, anti-capitalist movement, and then to shove a couple hundred copies of IIS under DARPA's nose?

But, then again, maybe I'm misunderstanding the nature of the grant. It is quite possible that DARPA was funding it specifically because of the non-proprietary nature of the software.

My guess? We'll never know the whole story. (But, I've been wrong before. I used to think Enterprise had promise.)

Re:couple things

[mosch]

Has anybody looked at the Theo De Raadt is a huge fucking asshole angle? In the past he's managed to build walls between himself and the rest of the world, and perhaps he just did it again.

Re:couple things

[Tony-A]

Whatever.
While it may be possible to make secure software and be a "nice guy", I'll believe it when I see it (and maybe not even then;)
Considering the territory, Theo actually seems pretty mellow.

A few speculations

[lingqi]

* Corporate lobby (hey, it's a sale-point)
* TIA would be seriously hampered if everyone is very secure
* fear of technology leak into other countries
* other acts of "head-in-ass"

Re:A few speculations

[buttler]

Just for fun, let me respond to your accusations one by one:

* How much influence do you think any company has on DARPA directly? Somebody else indicated that they thought MS could buy off DARPA with free software/money. Hmmm... Lets think again. DARPA's goals are to advance technology in specific areas. They receive funding through DoD and Congress, not from any corporation. I believe a companies influence is limited to what they can convince key Congressmen of to redirect the type of technology (and software copyrights) that DARPA funds. Of course this ignores more direct, underhanded efforts a company might take to influence officials.

* I have a speculation of my own: the parent poster has never read what the real goals of TIA are. There seems to be an assumption that "total nformation awareness" means that the government wants to monitor all information all the time, including every single keystroke and mouse click on your computer. This is not what the specific project that is funded by DARPA (named TIA) is about. It is more about dredging through exisiting databases to notice suspicious patterns that may indicate terrorist activity. Whether or not some members of government would like the ability to comb through all possible information about people at any time is another question.

* In general I don't see DARPA being too concerned about techology leaking to other countries. Otherwise they would not fund large public universities (where a large percentage of faculty and grad students are not US citizens).

* The final point is too vague to be meaningful. While I am sure it plays well to the anti-establishment crowd, it doesn't contribute to intelligent conversation.

Probably not his comments in Canada

[jimhill]

It's less likely that the grant got pulled for comments Theo made in a Canadian newspaper than for the fact that the government which has assiduously spent the last 18 months dismantling our country's(*) claim to being the Land of the Free finally realized that their vastly-expanding surveillance capabilities would be hampered by increased computing security. Plug pulled, time for Clipper 2.

(*) For values of "our country" == "the USA".

Re:Go FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

the idea, as i understood it, was that the grant would help to facilitate development, but the government would not be able to direct the flow of that development. the openbsd people would continue to do the same thing they had been doing, but would be able to bring on more full time programmers.

additionally, openbsd's drive isn't to make an OS with tons of ports (as they, arguably, do much to hurt security of the local machine), but rather a mature, stable, and secure operating system. I use FreeBSD on both my server and gateway, but am going to switch my server back to OpenBSD with the release of 3.3, simply because of the features OpenBSD offers. However, I would never move my workstation over from FreeBSD, as the ports make it much a very nice match for those looking for a workstation.

This also affects OpenSSL

[Schubert]

So yeah this might hit closer to home to some of you now. The DARP grant was to the U. of Penn. and a chunk went to OpenBSD with another smaller chunk to OpenSSL.

Re:File this under DUH!

[CybeRHiDe]

There are still individuals, as well as companies, that utilize OpenBSD. It has prooven to be quite stable and secure for many. From firewalls to webservers, vpns to ids, personal workstations to x servers. Comments that "BSD is dead" and "noone uses OpenBSD" are purely not true. It maybe a specialized BSD designed for a small niche of uses, but it does what it does and it does it well.

-Cyberhide

Open Source Means *ALL* Open Source....

[Anonymous Coward]

This sucks.

I happen to be an OpenBSD user, having converted most of my systems over to it because of it's tight code base, progressive deployment of features that are stable, and performance on any hardware.

I "came home" to BSD after taking the trip through some commerical UNIX'es and not liking what the InterNet era did to bloat Linux distributions.

OpenBSD, NetBSD, and FreeBSD regularly share code amongst themselves, giving it huge depth in the experiences of talented coders worldwide.

I was happy when OBSD was US-government funded because I thought it was smart for the US to do, adding up what I know about OBSD's security, the talent of the programmers on the whole OBSD team, how tight they work together, and it showed the government took a smart stance on OS security. I had hopes whatever came out of the project would trickle out to the rest of government.

I don't know if we'll ever know why the program was cancelled, but someone should ask @ an official level. It's not about Linux vs. BSD, it's about our tax dollars as US citizens being used in a way we approved of in a project we cared for, and then being yanked.

We deserve and should demand to know why this decision was made and ensure there's no corporate malfeasance in that decision making process.

Contact your CongressFolk today, US citizens, and help show that Slashdotters are a powerful and informed bunch of people.

Who's biting the hand...

[wfrp01]

Who's biting the hand that feeds them? Not Theo. Theo has class. Theo lost some bucks. That sucks. But here's the thing: DARPA gets a lot more out of Theo then Theo ever hoped to get from DARPA. This is just another example of idiocy run rampant at the defense department. This is the same department, remember, that ascertained the necessity of protecting the Iraq Oil Ministry whilst the relics of civilation's birth were plundered. What's so important about the Oil Ministry? What have they got there? A bunch of loan guarantees with the French, vs. the cradle of civilazation? DOD fuckwit shitwits. These people are so stupid that they will put their own interests at risk in order to spite someone (a very intelligent someone) who doesn't tow their fucked up party line.

Theo will prevail. The current administration of the US DOD will go down in history as infamous self-important crusading intolerant assholes responsible for great world instability and economic chaos.

Re:Obvious explaination:

[XaXXon]

They're going to be cancelling as many contracts and grants, etcetc, as possible to recoup some of those costs.

You obviously have little idea how beaurocratic money works. You don't spend money in one place and move it back into the pot for use by other things.

Once money is allocated for a particular use or group, it stays there. This isn't money that DARPA is losing from the government, just money they decided they weren't going ot give to BSD. They will spend it on something else.

The war will be funded by us, our kids, their kids, and so on as budget deficit.

OT: I think making a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced budget may be going too far, but make it so that you can't be re-elected as president if you have a budget in the red (or something like that -- though not sure what to do about second-term presidents)..

Free Speech != No Consequences

[primebase]

Actually, you do have the right to speak freely in the US, just as I suspect you do in Canada. After all, you & your loved ones are not dead/imprisoned/being tortured for what you said.

However...

You did just shoot your mouth off about your employer in a negative way! Not too wise to do that anywhere public, and pretty much just plain dumb to do it VERY publicly in print.

And, lo and behold, they didn't agree with what you had to say (shock, amazement) and they pulled funding.

I hate that you lost your grant money (especially since I like your project and the work you do), but you have no one to blame but yourself.

So no whining.

Refer to the subject of this message if you have any further questions.

Re:Free Speech != No Consequences

[dolmant_php]

Employer? No. Theo specifically says in the news article that this money comes without any direction. It was taken only on the conditions that no strings were to be attached. DARPA wasn't paying OpenBSD to do X. It was paying them to do the same thing they've always done. It was more like a gift than a salary.

Re:Free Speech != No Consequences

[daw]

Theo specifically says in the news article that this money comes without any direction. It was taken only on the conditions that no strings were to be attached. DARPA wasn't paying OpenBSD to do X. It was paying them to do the same thing they've always done.

Oh come on. The fact that he gave this impression is probably exactly why they canceled his ass. That's not how DARPA grants work. It's not the fucking MacArthur genius award. They don't just say, "Hey! We like you! Here's $3 million in taxpayer money! Knock yourself out!"

Come on! Grants have deliverables, lists of what you're going to spend the money on, schedules of what you're going to accomplish every year, etc. etc. Excruciating detail, negotiated in several back-and-forth rounds before anything is ever funded. I guarantee you this grant had all that too. And if the funders read in the newspaper that their money was instead being funneled to some foreign asshole who was claiming it was his personal nest egg and promising literally to give nothing back for it and just instead do what he pleased, then of course they cut it off.

This obviously had zero to do with Theo's view of the war in Iraq. If you read the article, he had about two words to say about that, and the rest of the article was devoted to him saying many irresponsible things about how he was squandering our money.

theo's mail

[Mentorix]

Theo's message follows:
- - - -
FYI,

It has come to my attention that DARPA has cancelled the POSSE program with UPENN, (sub OpenBSD & a bit for OpenSSL) for undisclosed reasons, effective today, without any warning.

My suspicion is this happened because I made anti-war statements in a Canadian newspaper article in the Globe & Mail, but I am not an American citizen so I cannot claim to have free speech there (even made "quote of the day").

In a phone call a few days ago it was expressed to me that there were people inside DARPA and UPENN who were very uncomfortable with the article, but I was not told specifically what upset them.

We have 60 developers flying in from around the world (they bought their own tickets, non-refundable) for a Hackathon May 8 - 20, where we do a major part of our development; since DARPA is now forcing UPENN to cancel those Hotel accomodations, I would be very grateful if anyone can find a way to help us. I'm going to need to pay for it myself, since these people are going to come.

Thanks.
- - - -
The anti-war statements that were made can be found here
--
Full steam ahead, stoke the boiler with more kittens! -- Bluey, Dragon Tails

Re:Place to make donations

[datastew]

Here is the actual paypal link: Paypal link.

Open mouth, insert foot

[reemul]

Forget for a moment that the funding source was the US gov't. Just imagine that the money came from a grant from some generic source with no political or social implications whatsoever. A portion of the money was spent, and many of the goals were already reached. The project lead continued to spend the money, in some cases for purposes that were at best dubious and at worst clearly opposed to the wishes of the grant source. And then he gave interviews where he badmouthed them. Do you think that any group, anywhere, would continue to give money to the project?

This isn't a Big Mean US Gov't story - after all, they had been funding the project with pretty lenient restrictions until now - this is yet another case of a great programmer and leader who has let his mouth get in the way of his work. Theo isn't yet up to the level of RMS, but he is trying Really Hard. DARPA brought the gear, the ball, provided a nice field to play on, and gave the OpenBSD team a chance to show what they could do. After a great start, they decided to hang out with friends, do their own thing, and drink beer out of their helmets. And then they threw dung at the guys in the suits paying for the party. Brilliant. Why should anyone at all be shocked that DARPA took their ball and went home?

I like OpenBSD, and use it on my firewall box. Partly because of the security, and in part because as an also-ran in the OS popularity contests, none of the script kiddies even bother trying to get in. I'll upgrade to 3.3, and maybe even buy the disks to give some money back to the team. But I still think that personally, Theo is a prick, and this time it bit him.

Coders and testers can give back to the Open Source community through pretty obvious ways. Same with tech writers helping with the docs, and lawyers keeping an eye on the licenses and handling privacy and security issues. Any PR or other personal contact specialist folks out there looking for a way to help out? There really needs to be some project full of helpful folks to handle the interface between the socially-deficient techies and the prickly and sensitive people in the outside world, from investors to possible users. I know I need the help when dealing with clients, and clearly I'm not the only one. How about it?

Re:Open mouth, insert foot

[Flamerule]

The project lead continued to spend the money, in some cases for purposes that were at best dubious and at worst clearly opposed to the wishes of the grant source.

I have no idea what you're referring to here. Was Theo sending grant money to the Iraqi government, or something? Certainly you can't be referring the the beer quote, since it's specifically stated that DARPA money wasn't spent on beer. As if that was in doubt...

After a great start, they decided to hang out with friends, do their own thing, and drink beer out of their helmets. And then they threw dung at the guys in the suits paying for the party.

So the OpenBSD team shouldn't be allowed to drink alcohol while they're being funded by DARPA? What should the rules be? No parties, wear full IBM business suits, 50000 lines of code per month? And I'd hardly call Theo's opposition to war in Iraq "[throwing] dung" at the DOD. He's got lots of company, especially in Canada.

Re:Open mouth, insert foot

[reemul]

At what point did DARPA money become an entitlement? Theo (and everyone else) is allowed to say pretty much anything they want about the US Gov't without being shot or put in jail. That is what free speech is all about. However, that doesn't mean there aren't any consequences. DARPA is under no obligation to give the project any money, so they decided to stop doing so, a decision they are absolutely entitled to make. Mr. de Raadt has no inalienable right to get paid by the US Gov't, their freedom to cut him off is just as strong a right as his freedom to say whatever he likes.

If he wants to keep getting money from the US DoD, he should try to avoid saying unkind things about them. Not that his comments were provably the reason for the cessation of funding, but they weren't helpful. Just spending most of the money on non-US programmers was probably something they weren't happy with - they are, after all, US taxpayer funded. He made a free-willed decision to speak his mind, which I respect even if I don't agree with his opinions. In return, he must accept the results of that decision. He could have smiled while taking their money, instead he said his piece and no longer gets the cash. Life continues.

Re:Serves Them Right

[3141]

I'm always astounded how people think they have the right to express their opinions and then act surprised when there are repercussions.

Perhaps because when things are happening that will affect the whole world, including themselves, they feel that they have just as much a right to speak freely as politicians.

Free software meets real life

[coupland]

Just goes to show all this talk about freedom and free software is great when you're arguing with ComandrKeen69 on /. but free speech hits you in the pocket book when you port it to meatspace...

Re:How's it goin Theo?

[RLiegh]

It has come to my attention that DARPA has cancelled the POSSE program with UPENN, (sub OpenBSD & a bit for OpenSSL) for undisclosed reasons, effective today, without any warning.

My suspicion is this happened because I made anti-war statements in a Canadian newspaper article in the Globe & Mail, but I am not an American citizen so I cannot claim to have free speech there (even made "quote of the day")."

You might be king shit amongst a group of nerds but the idea that your opinion matters to the US Government is laughable.
If it was anyone It could have been MS whispering in ears just like they did for SE Linux. Not because of some lame anti war comment you made in a Canadian newspaper.

It could very well have been as simple as someone from Darpa decided to peruse the mailing list/IRC forums one day and asked a n00b question and didn't like the response (unlikely, but not nearly as unlikely as getting shitcanned for an anti-war comment).

I agree, Theo is blatantly stretching.

[using my karma bonus as I feel this needs to be heard and discussed.]

relevant quote

[zogger]

--relevant quote from down the list:

"I am not sorry for having said my anti-war stuff, in fact if anything,
this comes to something I said to Ty a few nights ago at the bar: "If
they take the money away, then it was blood money, and I don't want it".

I actually feel redeemed :-)"

--good for you theo. It was blood money. The US government has been hijacked and is run by ....well, that word you can't use in usenet. I've seen enough with what passes for the law and legalities with this junta, they are the rulers, everyone else is a subject. They've been hacking down websites, now they are starting with the ultra violence on anyone who dares to have an opinion against them. Losing cash is nothing in the long run. Screw em, make your OS, and keep your opinions.

And quite frankly, the government doesn't want "the people" to have a secure OS, they want "total informational awareness". Can't do that with secure software to the people, can you?

We're seeing it now, assaults on security researchers and developers, assaults on encryption, etc.

I've never run your OS but I can see what's happening, so you must be on the right track. Just lately they've taken down irwin schiff and his tax research, and also the publishers of cracking the code, the expose of the UCC in the US. so it's just not specifically IT. Politics as usual like you would see in any banana republic, just so happens this is turning into a LARGE banana republic, or should I say a "regime"..

Re:While I suspect ...

[ralzod]

...Kind of like when NSA backed off on doing security for Linux...

Perhaps a contradiction to what you are saying, but his earlier post pointed out that the NSA just put out a new SElinux release...

www.nsa.gov/selinux/news.html

This is just stupid.

[dracocat]

1) There is no evidence the reason the funding was pulled because of Theo's comments.

2) I think people are missing the point. It was the Department of Defense, not just the US Government that was funding the research. Now, why the hell would you shoot your mouth in a negative way about somebody that is giving you funding--AND then complain about it.

If you care about something strongly enough that you are willing to stand up for it and take the consequences... good for you. But why does he act surprised and start whining when the consequences actually arrive!

BSD Found on Road, Dead

[ENOENT]

In a surprising turn of events, BSD was found lying dead on the side of the road in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I'm sure that we all have enjoyed using BSD-derived code at some point. BSD will be missed. Truly an American icon.

Re:BSD Found on Road, Dead

[Chuck Milam]

"In a surprising turn of events, BSD was found lying dead on the side of the road in Milwaukee..."

And, fear not good citizens, CNN.com was right on the ball, since they had already prepared the obituary on their web server sometime last month.

this is understandable

[toddhunter]

since the DARPA chief has too much money invested in the secret metal gear projects to invest in a simple OS

Re:Go FreeBSD

[Ryvar]

I use FreeBSD on both my server and gateway, but am going to switch my server back to OpenBSD with the release of 3.3, simply because of the features OpenBSD offers. However, I would never move my workstation over from FreeBSD, as the ports make it much a very nice match for those looking for a workstation.

My suggestion, as an OpenBSD afficianado, is to keep your server and workstation running FreeBSD and to shift your gateway/firewall to OpenBSD.

Gateways, firewalls, NATs - these are the things Open excels at. The firewall it offers is quite honestly second to none as of this point in time. As of 3.4, Open will have quite a lead in this realm. FreeBSD kicks the unholy shnikey out of Open on the performance and user front, however, and there's no denial nor excuse otherwise from the team nor the hardcore following of Open.

Just a suggestion, though. Alternatively, you might consider doing what I what I do . . . Open on the gateway and 'insecure/screw-around' server, Free on the heavy traffic webserver for performance, and Gentoo Linux on the workstation. This is just my personal approach, however.

Of course, the fact that you're using BSD on multiple machines suggests you're wise enough to make your own decisions, heh.

--Ryv

Jonathan Smith was a professor of mine

[NSParadox]

I'm a student at the University of Pennsylvania, and Jonathan Smith teaches CSE350 every semester (our software engineering course). Last year we wrote a kernel-level firewall for OpenBSD. It was a great course, and he's pretty much the only professor here with any idea what software engineering means.

It's a shame that this grant was cancelled. He could do a lot for the gov's computers.

Now I know why we used OpenBSD in the course and not Linux. :)

Re:Huh?

[AKnightCowboy]

Well, best as I can figure it, Saddam is dead, Iraq is free, Afghanistan is free, Al Qaeda is destroyed, and international terrorism has been eradicated. DARPA has no more need for secure operating systems now that cyber-terrorism threats are no more.

Meanwhile, in some other part of the country, some contractor for DARPA is placing an order for $5 million worth of Microsoft Office because the damn thing keeps saying it's not activated. Our government really needs to get its head out of its politicians' asses.

Re:I don't know what to say...

[Almost-Retired]

Neither do I. And while I'm a bit abivalent about this war from the standpoint of the weapons used, such as the depleted uranium cannon shells, thats not germain to this particular subject.

What is germain is that DARPA issued a grant to fund a major effort at improving this particular OS, one that already has a decent reputation for being secure, airplane tickets were bought and paid for out of the expectation of receiving the grant in a timely manner, plus accomodations arranged for. All of this costs money.

To then have the grant canceled just because the head honcho made his views known on the war is being petty beyond belief!

I have no idea who is responsible for this, but if this person can be identified, we, the tax-payers of the US would most assuredly like to interview him for the public record, and so that appropriate changes in the funding of DARPA can be arranged in congress.

Its not out of the realm of possibilities to arrange to have this persons salary removed from the DARPA budget by congress.

Its been done at least once before when a Richard Davis at the BATF, who was espousing a national gun registration scheme, had his salary removed from the BATF budget by a nearly unanimous vote of both houses of congress, now about 25 or so years back up the log.

Who else feels as I do on this, and could afford to offer a bit of help, it sure sounds like Theo needs it right now!

That, and let us see if we can find out who made that decision. IMO this person needs to see how _real politics_ is played.

--
Cheers, Gene

Re:I know what to say, "Support DARPA and the USA.

[McGurk]

"I spent _six_ months waiting for a visa when I was invited as a researcher for the Air Force" (snip) "So fuck DARPA, and fuck the USA nationalists" Looks like the INS made the right choice. The day my Government gives asshats like you my cash is the day I vote for the other party.

POSSE was not just BSD, there was Linux work too!

[warlordMIT]

For the record, I was being paid out of the POSSE grant (through UPenn) to work on Linux-IPsec, so clearly POSSE was not BSD-only. Unfortunately this was cancelled, too. I highly doubt this is a front against OpenBSD (or Theo), but I admit I'd prefer to know why the grant was retracted. Unfortunately I don't expect to learn the answer to that question.

*sigh* Now I need to find another contract. :(

Theo's 'oil grab' comment... "why Iraq?"

[LinuxParanoid]

Sorry this is only on-topic due to Theo's "oil grab" comment, and I'm know its usually a bad idea to respond to anonymous trolls. But still, I think it needs to be said, if for nothing else than for others to correct me...

If it was an oil grab, an 'informed person' would have to articulate:

why the US would spend $100+ billion to control Iraqi oil revenues that are a twentieth of that annually... surely one could get a higher return elsewhere?

what evidence there is that the U.S. will actually *take* (grab) the oil, rather than leave it for the Iraqis to own and control

explain why the US would rather take oil than just buy it on the open market

under related but alternate theories, acknowledge (or explain why not) why one should be suspicious that US is doing this for oil company contracts, but why that same logic would not apply to French and Russian rationales for opposing the war

explain why the US would act in such an insecure or greedy way when only 10-15% of its current energy usage comes from persian gulf oil (~50% energy usage is oil, 25% of US oil comes from persian gulf)

An 'informed' and fair person would also be willing to acknowledge he was wrong if, 5 years (or whatever) out, the Iraqi's had a functioning democracy and controlled their own oil. Right?

I don't claim to be 'informed'. I don't *know* why the war happened, but the stated reason is pretty decent: old theories of 'containment' don't work when a nuclear-capable state can just slip a nuke to a terrorist and get away with killing millions of people, destroying economies, etc. with a decent chance of not-getting-caught and counter-nuked. With 9/11, it became crystal clear that existing terrorists have the will and the doctrine to do participate in such actions. Nation-states clearly have the will and doctrine to develop nukes. Whether they have the will to pass such material on to terrorists is unclear, but in Iraq's case, the history of invading neighbors, using weapons of mass destruction on Iranian enemies and local Kurds, and a reasonably successful history of deceiving the UN, suggested that the will to proliferate might also be there. That possibility must be stopped.

--LP

Re:Theo's 'oil grab' comment... "why Iraq?"

[homer_ca]

why the US would spend $100+ billion to control Iraqi oil revenues that are a twentieth of that annually... surely one could get a higher return elsewhere?

You can't debunk the greed motive so easily. The people footing the bill aren't the ones reaping the profits. The American taxpayer pays the $100 billion and Halliburton, et al make the money.

Re:Theo's 'oil grab' comment... "why Iraq?"

[be-fan]

why the US would spend $100+ billion to control Iraqi oil revenues that are a twentieth of that annually... surely one could get a higher return elsewhere?
>>>>>>>>>
Um, because most of that money comes right back to the US? In the global economy, it's not about how much you spend, but where that money goes. There are a few different catagories of costs to the war:

1) Money that is up in smoke. This covers bombs, spent fuel, destroyed buildings, etc.
2) Money used to pay troops. This is a large part of the deployment cost, and again, it comes right back to the US.
3) Money used to rebuild Iraq. Most of this money comes right back to us. It's the same principle behind how USAID (our foreign AID department) works. 70% of US foreign AID comes right back to US contractors and subcontractors. Guess which companies will get dibs on rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure? Not the Iraqi companies that need the money, but the American companies that don't.

When all these factors are taken into account, the *actual* cost, in terms of money that flows out of the US into other nations, is much, much less.

Now, what are the potential payoffs?

1) US companies getting markets in Iraq. Long term, this is the big one.
2) More secure oil source. It doesn't matter how much oil costs now. It matters how much it costs 50 years from now. Having the world's second largest reserves of oil in a nation indebted to the US is going to look a whole lot more favorable decades from now, when the oil starts to run out and the other OPEC countries get antsy. Even small oil crises (like in the 70's and 80's) can have a huge impact on the economy, and a big one would just be disastrous.
3) Rise in the economy due to increased consumer certainty.

Now, when you take the potential profits into account, the tens of billions of dollars that the war would actually cost seems quite a reasonable bargain.

Of course it would be stupid to say profit is the only motivation. Governments rarely act because of a single motivation. It is however a major one, and I would argue it is *the* major one.

Besides, given the position the US has put itself in, it should expect people to question their motives. If the US really wanted to put itself beyond accusation (and still felt it needed to go to war), it should just put up the money upfront and remove itself from the possibility of profiting from the rebuilding effort. This *would* cost nearly $100 billion in actual currency. Yes, this is asking a lot. No, you can't expect a country to just put aside it's own interests like that. I think the primary problem that most people have is not that the US isn't doing this, but that the US isn't doing this but (through all the talk of liberation, etc) but *acting* like they are doing this.

Support OpenBSD

[xtal]

If you like OpenBSD, chip in a few bucks. If it went down the way it did, then that's a shame. I'm a Canadian, FWIW, and it's really too bad this went down like it did. I also run a OpenBSD 3.2 firewall that I love. I can't say that it suprises me though, and it certainly is dissapointing.

If you're an American and don't like this, then write your elected representative of choice. I'll be writing mine, but only because I'd rather see them throw money at these guys than a $1.077 Billion dollar gun registry boondacle. OpenBSD sells boxed sets, and I certainly imagine they'll take cash, too.

I didn't see in the article anywhere you could send a donation to. OpenBSD.org has their own donations page and a orders page for their propaganda and cds and section for donations as well.

If nothing else, OpenBSD will profit greatly from the exposure and free publicity this will generate in the Globe and Mail tomorrow.

Theo's Legendary Mouth At Work

[SoupIsGood Food]

Shock and outrage! Theo opens his mouth to bite the hand that feeds him, and so gets no bone? Who would have thought it would happen to such a sweet and affable fellow?

Bah.

Theo's legendary lack of tact and people-skills has sunk him... again. He can fork NetBSD and come out on top, he can fork OpenSSH and win the trademark dispute, he can fork IPfilter after alienating Darren Reed... I don't think he can fork the US Government. (Tho it would be a lot more stable and secure if he did... )

~Soop

Re:How's it goin Theo?

[ostiguy]

DARPA is not a welfare program. If they get the results/research they seek, it shouldn't matter where the work gets done.

Re:I don't know what to say...

[ScooterB]

While I do empathize with your anger and would love to see the guy responsible face the wrath of the public, I must say this is not an isolated event. The DoD has put my employer quite in a similar situation a number of times. They would compete a contract, award it, and then decide not to fund it, essentially canceling it before it began. I have a feeling that it may be just another one of those events that have occured rather than something more sinister.

Oh, come on.....

[deanj]

Hey, I've been in on DARPA funded grants before, and I'll tell you, there are a TON of reasons that funding could have been pulled...

1) The contact at DARPA changed. This happens all the freaking time. The guy who used to be your bonus baby might have been asked to move aside (or moved up, as the case may be), and the new guy just didn't "get" the project.

2) They expected milestones, or at least reports of the sort that backed up what was being done on the project. If someone was slacking in getting these reports written, ....cut!

3) Questions weren't being answered in a way they wanted to see. I've seen this too. It's pretty damn embarrasing to watch the funding agency ask legit questions, and then get the runaround on answers. THEY HATE THIS.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Also, usually the main contact with the DARPA folks are NOT the guys implementing the project. It's the guy who's responsible for the grant. They don't give two rats cheeks about who's on the project, as long as the work gets done.

I seriously doubt they had any idea who Theo was, no matter how "famous" he is within his community. Putting too much stock in anyone's profile besides the guy who wrote the original grant is just grandstanding (grant-standing? heh).

It could have happened for any of the above reasons, or more. When I first hear about this a few hours ago, I looked for it on Slash.... Glad to see the submitter had a level head in posted what he/she did, since until the guy who wrote the grant speaks out, there are no facts here, just guesses.

Re:Oh, come on.....

[deanj]

Theo wasn't the guy running the DARPA contract, the guy at UPENN was, so he really had nothing to do with points #2 and #3. The points are still valid. Theo agreed to take money from UPENN, who got the money from DARPA. The agreement was with a guy at UPENN, not DARPA.

In fact, if he said there were no strings attached, it's quite likely he never did anything to help #2 and #3 when DARPA need it from the guy who actually got the contract at UPENN. As I said, #2 and #3 are very important, and if DARPA didn't get the info they wanted, they'd get cut.

Re:Oh, come on.....

[rpg25]

No, Theo saying there were no strings attached in no way makes points 2 and 3 invalid. The government has its procedures and that's that. You simply can't take DARPA's money and not expect to write progress reports, explain what you're going to do with the money, etc., etc. In fact, I'd be surprised if Theo even considered writing progress reports, submitting accounts for the money received, etc. as "strings attached" --- that's just management and accountability.

In particular, DARPA issues contracts; DARPA does not issue grants. They are buying something from you and there are lots of rules about what the government must ask for when it buys stuff from people. You might believe there are no strings attached, but you'd be wrong.

As an aside, the same people who are outraged that Theo's money went away would probably be just as outraged if they found out that the government was spending money on something they didn't like without these controls. $700 toilet seats, anyone?

I very much doubt that this was pulled because of Theo's comments. I'd be absolutely shocked if I found out that one of UPenn's contract monitors actually read the Globe & Mail, stumbled on Theo's comments, and bothered to trace back to find out that he was funded by DARPA.

DARPA contact

[Anonymous Coward]

The man in charge of DARPA infosec is Dr. Douglas Maughan DARPA/ITO. Write an email to dmaughan@darpa.mil and ask him politely why he decided to drop funding for this project. The timing of the announcement suggests that it is related to the pro-peace comments made by one of the project's members.

Generally you don't find out why

[MyNameIsFred]

My experience is that you don't find out why. You have to remember the government is a HUGH beaurcracy. The left hand generally doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Typically an order will be sent out that says the agency has to come up with X million dollars, now go find it. The people who have to find the money may not even know why.

And I am talking from experience. My significant other just found out today that her funding was pulled. She doesn't know why either. (And she didn't make any anti-war statements.)

Re:Sorry, Theo.

[Loki_1929]

"If it makes me less of an American for believing in free speech, then so be it."

Free speech does not mean there are no consequences to what you say. For instance, I have the right to call my boss an arrogant ass to his face (he's actually a great guy, but humor me), but I best expect to be fired for doing so. If Theo wanted to exercise his right to free speech without any consquences, he ought to have exercised his right to do so anonymously. No one's saying he didn't have a right to say what he said, but DARPA has every right to not give free money away to whomever they please for whatever reason, including his publicly expressed views. Not to say that's why they pulled the funding, but so what if they did? Is any person/project entitled to a government grant? Absolutely not; although as arrogant as Theo is, he probably believes his money was taken away from him. It wasn't. A grant was pulled.

Not so simple as that...

[An Onerous Coward]

I hate to see this war portrayed as just an oil grab. It's a thousand times more complicated than that, and a thousand times more complicated than "We're spreading democracy out of the goodness of our spleens" as well. There are dozens of motivations here, some noble, others far less so.

Nevertheless, the "oil grab" mentality is at least a bit better-reasoned than you've portrayed:

If it was an oil grab, an 'informed person' would have to articulate:

why the US would spend $100+ billion to control Iraqi oil revenues that are a twentieth of that annually... surely one could get a higher return elsewhere?

First, you have to realize that it's not the US Government that directly benefits. It's the energy industry that reaps the benefits. Cheap oil benefits refineries and power plants.

President Bush is heavily financed and heavily influenced by the energy industry. The links are well known, well documented, and date back to his first run for governor of Texas. I'm not saying that Big Oil snaps and the Prez. comes running. But when it comes to complex matters of public policy, a bit of access goes a long way.

what evidence there is that the U.S. will actually *take* (grab) the oil, rather than leave it for the Iraqis to own and control

Nobody thinks the U.S. is being that brazen. We could never storm in, take full ownership of Iraq's oilfields, and still maintain any more credibility than Saddam did when he "liberated" Kuwait. The UN would go nuts. American voters would go nuts. It simply could not happen.

But imagine playing it out another way. Go in, depose a ruthless dictator whom everybody detests, and set up an interim government. Set up a few service contracts for American companies to improve Iraq's infrastructure. This includes providing some technology critical to developing oil fields. Once the native government takes over, they're likely to continue those contracts out of obligation, need, or just plain inertia.

Sure, I make it sound all smarmy. The kicker is, even under my scenario, Iraq is still better off.

Now, regarding your "return on investment" question: It gets way more complicated when you start looking at the OPM (other people's money) problem. For example, Bush can't help himself to a campaign contribution from the US Treasury. But he can ask Congress to spend Treasury funds in ways that benefit his supporters, which leads to contributions he'll need for 2004. Similarly, if a private company thinks that it will get $1 billion from the fallout of a war, it doesn't care that the US will spend $100 billion. Remember the fool who damaged Berkeley's fiber optic link while trying to steal a copper wire for salvage? Even though the damage done was ten thousand times the value of the copper, for him it would have been money in the bank.

explain why the US would rather take oil than just buy it on the open market

As I said earlier, it would be politically impossible. But the US does benefit from the cheap oil prices caused by an addition of a new supplier to the energy market.

under related but alternate theories, acknowledge (or explain why not) why one should be suspicious that US is doing this for oil company contracts, but why that same logic would not apply to French and Russian rationales for opposing the war

I'm not sure I understand the question.

explain why the US would act in such an insecure or greedy way when only 10-15% of its current energy usage comes from persian gulf oil (~50% energy usage is oil, 25% of US oil comes from persian gulf)

First, stop thinking of the US as a homogenous blob with clear and unconflicted interests. Don't even think of the government that way. Instead, see that this war does benefit certain interest groups, and that

Re:Not so simple as that...

[z4ce]

Actually the energy industrry HATES cheap oil. If supply goes up, prices go down, quantity demanded goes up (but not enough to offset the difference), total profits will be lowered in the industry.

It will be good for any company that owns the fields. It would be good for energy consumers. It would be terrible for bush's "oil buddies in Texas.

Bush's oil buddies would like nothing more than the oil fields to be lit on fire and emptied (from a financial point of view). Then they would make A LOT of money due the short term inelasticity of oil-based energy.

I think our reasons include:
* Not wanting Saddam to get WMDs
* Wanting to cut off the money flow to terrorists
* Wanting to liberate the Iraqi people
* Wanting to handle saddam now before he gets enough weapons to try calling himself king the middle east and try to take over his neighbore's again.

Some less than noble reasons:
* Cheaper oil helping the entire world economy.
* Corporate contracts for oil drilling equipment (maybe, we'll find out after the war...)
* Free nations in general help the entire world's stability and wealth

But I keep hearing it will help oil companies or Bush's oil buddies. This couldn't be further from the truth since it will actually lower their profits if oil is cheap.

Re:Not so simple as that...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The real deal is that anybody who still is somebody in Oil in Texas got out of the business of selling oil back in the late '70s when the gas shortage reversed. I should know, I got inlaws in them thar parts that worked as corporate bankruptcy lawyers helping all those people get out of the business.

The facts are that the people who are left in Oil in Texas are all about oil infrastructure. They build pipelines, they build wells, they build refineries, they even put out fires. But what they don't do is sell oil. These are the people that are buddy, buddy with Bush. These are the companies that get awarded $7.5B contracts from the US Federal goverment to go clean up Iraq's oil infrastructure without even having to worry about a competitive bidding process, in this particular case, Halliburton. But Halliburton is just the most public (and clumsy in their feeding-at-the-trough behavior) face of the oil infrastructure industrial complex. There are plenty more that you aren't going to hear about unless you run into them and their business in Iraq (and Afghanistan!) directly.

Re:Not so simple as that...

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

No. Though I do hope Iraq will get a functioning democracy, and while I'm absolutely positive that somebody in Iraq will be in control of the oil reserves by that time, it was never about direct control by the US government. The cynic in me says that it was always about deposing Saddam and putting someone friendly to US interests in control. That same cynic also keeps whispering that there is no way a democracy would be allowed to succeed. Democracies have an uncanny knack of acting in the best interests of their voters, not US corporate interests.

Yeah, well, it's a while ago now, but just look at what happened to Mosadeque in Iran (the democratically elected prime minister) when he tried to stop BP.

Or the democracy of Guatemala in '56 when they tried to put a stop to United Fruit. They still haven't really recovered, and of course Iran hasn't returned to democracy either.

Let's hope there's been progress since then.

Re:Not so simple as that...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Because it didn't matter. They are (usually) smart enough to take 50% with little risk than go for 100% with huge risk. Every once in a while you get somebody too dumb to play it cool, somebody like the representative from Qualcomm who wants to put Qualcomm's interests ahead of the Iraqi peoples, but isn't buddies with the right people so he gets a little too loud and it all comes out...

Iraq's oil infrastructure was barely in a state to handle the meager allotments for the oil-for-food program, there is plenty of "work" to go around in building it up. Not all the contracts are Federal either, or at least not US Federal. You can expect that whatever government ends up in place in Iraq will be handing out lots of restoration and development contracts either directly, or through proxy via privatizing the oil fields, and you know who will be first in line for those.

Chalabi - remember that name. He's Rumsfield's favorite choice for head of Iraqi leadership / stooge for US corporate interests and like too many others that the administration endorses for service here in the US, is a criminal. Chalabi had a hand in a $500M banking scandal in Egypt, he was lucky to escape from the country in the trunk of a car.

FWI, read article about how the widely televised pull-down of the statue of Sadam was mostly staged and the people playing the role of the local Iraqis were really henchmen for Chalabi that had been flown in to put on a show.

Re:Not so simple as that...

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

Also on the issue of oil infrastructure I would like to add that the issue isn't with the pitiful current Iraqi oil infrastructure. It's with the potentially huge future Iraqi oil infrastructure.

What everyone seems to be forgetting with "their annual oil income is only 1/20 of what the war cost" is that Iraq has the largest known oil reserves outside Saudi Arabia. What they don't have currently is a production to matches those supplies. And they never had one.

The situation in Saudi Arabia is volatile, remember that the 9/11 terrorist (and Osama) were Saudis (with the odd Egyptian thrown in), an Islamic revolution there would leave the US with their pants around their ankles, oil wise. Even accepting the 25% figure, that's a huge percentage to suddenly do without. And furthermore, focusing on total energy usage ignores that you've built most on your transportation infrastructure on the abundance of cheap oil derivates. Hit that that hard, and your (already shaky) economy could collapse. Unfortunately you'd take us with you...

Given that, what better place to increase your influence than the other oil rich nation in the world? Let's not forget that the only nation in the world that can survive on its own oil resources is Russia. The US has increased its consumption over the last couple of years, not decreased it.

Let me put it this way, if the war in Iraq isn't an oil grab, it damn well ought to be, from an American perspective. A perspective I don't happen to share (or agree with), BTW.

"regime"

[benjamindees]

I remember seeing about a year ago a news conference in which Donald Rumsfield referred to his administration as a 'regime'. He said something to the effect of "Saddam's regime is doing blah blah, and this regime won't let him get away with it". It gives you a new perspective on the US government to hear things like that.

I wouldn't know where to look to back this up, but it's actually true. I don't suppose C-Span keeps searchable transcripts...

Coverage @ news.com

[LightwaveNet]

Also covered at news.com http://news.com.com/2100-1016-997393.html

These paragraphs sum it up pretty well:

"A University of Pennsylvania computer science professor, Jonathan Smith, had originally applied for the grant under the title, "Portable Open-Source Security Enhancements," or POSSE. About $500,000 of the money went to several U.K. researchers to do a vulnerability analysis on OpenSSL, a widely used program for encrypting communications, especially to and from Web sites. A handful of flaws were found, de Raadt said.

Smith refused to comment on the funding, citing the sensitivity of the issue. An email to the POSSE project's DARPA representative wasn't answered.

Earlier this week, de Raadt said he was told that officials from DARPA were concerned about statements appearing in press reports that indicated most of the grant was being funneled to foreign researchers, an apparent no-no for government-funded projects. Moreover, de Raadt believed that the U.S. government took exception to comments he made indicating that the money spent on his project meant that fewer cruise missiles were being built."

You don't understand Free Speech.

[ClarkEvans]

you do have the right to speek freely ... However... You did just shoot your mouth off about your employer in a negative way...

This is problematic on several fronts. First, this was an acedemic institution project which had its funding withdrawn... if it was done for political reasons, i.e., beacuse of what one of the researchers said, then it is definately, clearly, a violation of free speech. If he was awarded the grant based on the acedemic merits, and the money was canceled due to his political opinions, then this is quiet ugly.

Second, DARPA is not a private enterprise. It is an agent of the government, and an instrument of the people. While a private enterprise may be free to act anyway they want (subject to lots of restrictions _if_ they are publicly owned), the government isn't. It's bound by the constituion.

Thirdly, this is especially important for acedemic researchers, since they are in a trusted position. If publicly funded researchers have to watch what they say or their funding will dissappear... then you have effectively silenced a great majority of them. It is very much a violation of free speech.

Free speech means not only that the government won't throw you in jail, it means that it won't treat you differently from others based on your political viewpoints.

Re:I don't know what to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Theo is guessing that his funding was cancelled because of his media comments about the US. Since no-one from DARPA has commented publically, and Theo claims not to have heard from them how can you assume that his guess was correct?

As others have posted, there are any number of boring reasons why DARPA grants get cancelled.

Re:[OT] care to explain what you mean by this quot

[knowledgepeacewi]

What, specifically are you referring to?
http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/text/101 6bushres.htm

Minipax memo

[Quelain]

Theo DeRaadt statement crimethink. Unproceed grantwise.

Its about common sense, not free speech

[Sanity]

Many appear to be arguing that the reason the grant was withdrawn was because Theo expressed an anti-war opinion. This is misleading, the reason the grant was withdrawn was more likely due to the manner in which Theo expressed that opinion, namely by expressing concern about DARPA's motives.

If Theo was really concerned about DARPA's motives, he should have expressed his opinion by not accepting the money, not by taking it then using the fact that he had taken it as a vehicle for his political opinions.

I am saddened that a silly mistake could have denied the public good the benefit of this funding, but this is the real world - and in the real world - you don't take money from someone then openly question their motives for giving it to you.

Re:Its about common sense, not free speech

[ablair]

So he should muzzle himself or change his political views because of whom he is getting money from? No: the principles of Theo and others on the OpenBSD team, and the fact that their principles are not for sale, is one of the very reasons why OpenBSD is as good as it is.

Theo did not use the grant "as a vehicle for his political opinions"; in all likelyhood the grant caused a minor amount of media attention, and he was asked about DARPA issues and how this relates to the war, to which he gave his (pre-grant) opinion which was unchanged despite the money. Good for him.

Its about common sense, not free speech

[Sanity]

Many appear to be arguing that the reason the grant was withdrawn was because Theo expressed an anti-war opinion. This is misleading, the reason the grant was withdrawn was more likely due to the manner in which Theo expressed that opinion, namely by expressing concern about DARPA's motives.

If Theo was really concerned about DARPA's motives, he should have expressed his opinion by not accepting the money, not by taking it then using the fact that he had taken it as a vehicle for his political opinions.

I am saddened that a silly mistake could have denied the public good the benefit of this funding, but this is the real world - and in the real world - you don't take money from someone then openly question their motives for giving it to you.

Re:I don't know what to say...

[Wolfrider]

--Evidently you didn't read the article. Theo was told that certain people in DARPA admin were "very uncomfortable" with his comments.

> In a phone call a few days ago it was expressed to me that there were people inside DARPA and UPENN who were very uncomfortable with the
article, but I was not told specifically what upset them.

--Although it must be said, that Theo displayed remarkable thick-headedness by making those remarks in the 1st place, considering the source of the money.

As They'd Say In The VaIley "It's like, shut up."

[RedSynapse]

I remember reading the original article about OpenBSD getting the money and Theo's "Uncomfortableness" with it coming from the U.S. military industrial complex. I and just remember thinking, ummmm, shut up, they're finding a special loophole to give you free money and your speaking out about the war isn't going to change a damn thing.

I think Theo has been right about any technical and licencing issues (i.e. ipf) but cheerist, shut your yaphole when people are giving you badly needed funding with no strings attatched. The war has NOTHING to do with OpenBSD and if the KKK/Hitler/Child Pornographers of America trust fund wants to donate vast sums, take it and run. If someone asks how you feel about getting the money from them repeat after me: "The organisations that have donated money to the project have absoutley no control over it's direction so my personal feelings are irrelevant."

Oh well too late. Loose lips sink ships.

Re:I don't know what to say...

[theedge318]

For full disclosurer: I currently work on a defense project paid for by the Air Force, and my girlfriend is under a DARPA contract, so I pretty familiar with the process.

First I have to start with the logical. I work for X. If I go out and bad mouth X at a bar after a stressful day of work, I would expect no repercussions. However if my derogatory comments made the evening news, I would start packing my desk. No rational person would expect to have a job in the morning, why should this be any different. His first ammendment rights were upheld, he is not in jail, or otherwise quietened. To refuse to continue a business relationship is an entirely different matter.

That said, DARPA is very structured an meticulous about how its money is spent. They expect quarterly reports, where they spend a day and a half going over everything. Thats 6-days a year, where they really get to know the project. They don't care if your project spends money on foreign researchers, as long as THEIR money isn't spent on foreign researchers. The same also goes to foreign excursions: you can fly to any country for someone elses conference. But if you are using their money to host a conference, it should be in the U.S.

The reasons for such rules should be obvious. If $10 million is spent in the US, it only costs the gov't $5m (b/c the money will come back in taxes @EOY). If the money goes out of country it cost the gov't $10 million dollars.

Oh yeah, and I am a Canadian citizen and coder (but I live and pay taxes in the US). I hope that Canada exercises similar restraint towards keeping the tax payers dollars in country. The only countries I would like to see benefiting from my tax dollars, are the developing countries of the world (which Canada isn't).

Too many acronyms???

[Black Copter Control]

Too many acronyms!

Perhaps you should become a CMS

(Cardholding Member of SAT)

(Society against TLAs) (Three Letter Acronyms)

sorry ... Just had to say it

Re:As They'd Say In The VaIley "It's like, shut up

[RazzleDazzle]

While understanding what you mean and where you are coming from... you are suggesting Theo change his ways. I have been subscribed to misc@openbsd.org for over a year now and I firmly believe that Theo knows what he is doing even if he lost this money. He stats in a later thread on the misc mailing list that this is actually for the better in the long run (could have happened at a slightly better time like 1-2 months in the future for the purpose of the hotel/hackathon)...

Re:I don't know what to say...

[stevew]

This is a funny(strange) situation because normally I would be ranting about how people don't get the concept of freedom of speach, i.e. no-one said there isn't repercussions for saying things that other people don't like (see the response many of the Hollywood crowd is getting as an example). Freedom-of-speach means that the Government can't persecute you for things you say...uhm...DARPA being the government does tend to completely cancel my favorite argument.

DAMN!

They may just have run out of money

[Alan Cox]

Government bodies do pull money on projects in order to make ends meet, and its a US government which has dropped many schools, a complete health program and a lot more in equivalent value on Iraq. The OpenBSD funding may just have been converted into a couple of missiles instead.

Theo can still have the last laugh, I dread to think how many holes in common government used software the OpenBSD audit team could find in one hackathon.