Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Enables Terrorist States
chill writes "Where to begin? OpenBSD Journal has a couple of update articles on the business of DARPA cancelling POSSE and OpenBSD's grant. And here is a message from Theo de Raadt, the OpenBSD big cheese, with a quote from a military spokesman. How does '...due to world events and the evolving threat posed by increasingly capable nation-states...' grab you? Does open source and freely available security support terrorism by its very nature?"
The beauty of real, open source, free software is that it empowers EVERYONE. Be they good, bad, or ugly, everyone is given access to the same kind of benefits. On the one hand, of course this empowers terrorists. But then again so does encryption research. Should we ban encryption? I'm sure the MPAA would have things to say about that.
Open Source gives everyone an equal stake. Just because the enemy gets the same benefits doesn't mean we should stop. We're already "more powerful" than them - how will this uneven the playing field any more than it already is?
"I want to get more into theory, because everything works in theory." -John Cash
I run Linux.
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
By nature, terrorists obviously aren't going to obey any laws... much less SOFTWARE LICENSES. This makes Windows a FREE OS.
And with Microsoft's latest effort to try to make their OS's as "secure" as possible, shouldn't all these people picking on opensource be targeting Microsoft as well, since they are now SECURE?
All this post-9/11 paranoia is getting really ridiculous, and I can't wait till someone in power finally realizes how stupid we are being.
SuPz.orG
Wouldn't terrorist organizations by their vary nature ignore the laws which would prevent them from pirating closed source software? And while a BSD variant will generally be more secure, i'm sure that security doesn't pose much of a threat to the intelligence gather organizations of the US.
I'm tired of bombing the universe
Sounds like a nice religion.
So the .mil is concerned that OpenBSD (And I assume by extension, OpenSSH) gives nation states the ability to use high grade encryption, and that would make their job of spying on these states difficult. In this day and age, you can't be all that surprised. Good encryption is almost as important as good weapons, and I doubt that DARPA would fund the development and distribution of blueprints for laser guided mortar rockets or armor piercing assult rifles.
.mil can't crack your GPG or SSH keys easily!
Its still seems to be a bit of a knee jerk reaction though. Does DARPA not expect that development of encryption systems will continue with or without their money?
On the upside, that would seem to indicate that the
Honestly this is starting to get out of hand. I really don't mean this in a 'bashing' way, but the United States really needs to take a step back and look at what the hell it is doing to itself.
This 'Homeland Security' and ferocious anti-terrorism behaviour is getting seriously out of hand.. its an enormous overreaction and its starting to make the USA look very very silly.
I totally appreciate that the threat of terrorism is real, and I believe that we must take measures to protect ourselves.. but offending and mistreating people of other countries & backgrounds is not the way to do it.
It is this kind of over reaction, uninformed decision making which makes me ashamed of the US. Like my father always said: Hate my government, love my country. Let's hope that money goes to a better cause, perhaps feeding some people or paying down the national debt.
Are you secure enough in your masculinity to run 'man touch'?
When you're downloading OpenBSD, you're downloading Communism!
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
But, the west states supported now-terrorists by much more direct means in the past. I'm more worry that we are now supporting some future terrorists or "evil" states only because they are our partners to achive some short-term goals. We are not choosing our friends because of the common values, and that is more serious problem.
Open source software supports terrorism just like P2P, but fortunatly we have the DMCA, RIAA, and MPAA to defend us against these injustices
Competition in America: If you can't beat 'em, Sue 'em!
yes a hammer can
build a terrorist building
it can build a church
or a hospital too
are we to stop selling hammers
to weed out terrorism?
back in the day we didnt have no old school
This is comparable to our brand-spanking new Department of Homeland Security calling Wireless Networks a "terrorist technology".
Personally, I'd rather have open source software running on all important computers - that way we can check to make sure that things are done right, rather than have to trust in proprietary source code churned out by the monkeys at MS. I feel more threatened by the unknown than by the free.
I subscribe to a belief expressed best by Benjamin Franklin:
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security".
------
"Will the highways on the Internet become more few?" --George W. Bush, in Jan. 2000
Horse
Cart
If nation-states are planing terrorist activities, it has already been shown that they do not need free operating systems or software to execute its plans.
A terrorist group will perform it's act regardless of OS.
CJC
What else? Everything, bombs, and fists!
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
To defeat terrorists through their IT infrastructure, do the following.
1) Encourage them to pirate closed-source software; make them as dependent on it as possible. Make them despise open source software.
2) Deny them any tech support for the software, on the grounds of it being pirated; via other channels, persuade them that they do not actually need thech support, because modern GUIs do not require experienced administrators.
3) Watch their plots spectacularly crash because of software glitches.
Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes
So even if you accept the idea that security through obscurity is a necessity for such applications (a very questionable assumption at best) you can go ahead and obscure them. Where's the ache?
So, in other words, DARPA decided not to come through with the funding in question because they're affraid of terrorism?
Pwa-hahaha! These people don't even care that they're acting like petty children.
Don't let the lusers get you down.
and stand well back
The argument seems to be that Open source contributes to terrorism by providing privacy to plan.
This is the great crypto debate that never happend.
It's too bad that none of our represenatives had the strength to hold the debate but instead tried to give us Clipper. (I'm an American)
Work bio at MMWD
It supports terrorism in the same sense that other software does. Closed source, open source, it's all readily available. Anyone could buy/pirate/et al any Microsoft OS. Anyone could download/buy/et al any given distribution of Linux and *BSD. So the question of Open Source supporting terrorism is rather unjustified. It's just a matter of opinion and stature. This makes absolutely no sense at all, there are other things to be pointing fingers at here.
In my oppion any negitive attribute of the software in relation to security threats with terrorists equals the amount of possitive attribute gained from taking away freedom by actions that are suppose to moniter the little terrorist in us all. Its all the same, even Niels Bohr reliesed the unity of oppisites(Ying Yang symbols on his coat of arms).
Insert Witty Remark Here ===>____________________________
Bad people use technology to do bad things.
"Does open source and freely available security support terrorism by its very nature?"
So, you mean to tell me that we can trust closed source companies whose primary motivation is the almighty dollar?
I know that most companies are not *that* evil, but how about the case where a company insider shares *important information* with a terrorist resource? Or the case of a sale of software and a license for "shared source" to a company that could be a front for a terrorist organization?
And will the government be willing to put in the necessary oversight to make sure that these companies don't spill the wrong beans? And, given how politics and lobbying go, can a company influence the government the wrong way (intentionally or unintentionally) to avoid this oversight?
I don't know if open source is inherently supportive of terrorism. I couldn't really tell you. But there are too many questions involved when you argue that closed source should be the only way when it comes to security.
This sounds like another effort to promote "security through obscurity" as the only way to go. I guess they could sue if someone breaks that method of security.
You are a bit behind the rest of the world...
Everybody already thinks like this.
nosig today
Do the word 'terrorism' apply killing thousands of innocent people under bombs in Iraq or does this apply only when killing thousands of innocent people under planes in USA ??
This might be the stupidest thing I've heard all week...
How about guns? Terrorists use guns...is our military going to stop using guns too?
How about toilet paper? Do any terrorists use toilet paper? If so, will our GIs start receiving the Sears catalog instead?
With Open Source software "they" can not put in back doors, sinffers, etc. because *everyone* has access to the code. At least, that's what I think is driving things behind the scenes. /me polishes tinfoil hat.
... due to world events and the evolving threat posed by increasingly capable military empires, the University on April 22 advised the Government to suspend work on the "command and conquer" portion of its foriegn policy.
You can find more information on this at the DEFVAC which is a group that actively tries to protect your rights and liberties from being taken away by the government. They've become more active in the face of such actions such as the passing of the PATRIOT act. They don't get as much press as the ACLU does, but they probably do a better job, too. The ACLU only cares about high-profile things now and couldn't care the least about the ordinary person getting screwed over by the government. Anyways, it's an interesting read. Have a look.
Aren't we supposed to be fighting terrorism by going out and spending money (on websites with strong SSL encryption?)
The irony is that Al-Qeada used relatively weak encryption anyway, so encryption was never an issue with them.
Maybe some paid spokesman for industry telling them "If you don't use 'product A' you'll be helping the terrorists!"
The world is getting to be an ubsurd place. Be nice to move to the mountains or something away from the all these greedy, pawing sociopaths.
Clearly you have never met any persian women do you? (or any woman for that matter). Some of the most beautiful women I know are from Iran... And Afghani women have a reputation for their beautiful eyes (green).
Anyhow, I am sure they have their share of trolls. But so does the US of A with their over weight whales wearing skin tight spandex when shopping at the food court.... uuuughhhhh
If it can not be controlled, it must be destroyed.
Anyone who doesn't buy their software from Microsoft and other lobbyists must be a terrorist.
Disrespect, cultural differances and violent dominance fosters terrorism. Once the seed of frustration has been planted, it will find a method disregardless of how hard people try to stop providing them. Please try to focus on the reasons for terrorism like the Israeli-Palestinian comflict and economic and political powerplay in sovereign countries by western forces in stead of going for an inevitable failure in suppressing the methods. I think Bin Laden c.s. have sufficiently proven they are creative enough to bypass any restrictions.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
OK so we go ahead and ban OS - God knows how they are actually going to manage that short of in a few American companies and organisation who in contrast to what they might believe do not make up the entire world of computing :-)
Next step must be to lock up the programmers of OS. Seeing it as OS is essentially a weapon (mass destruction? - doubt it, unless a few screwed up regsitries count)by now, anyone who has knowledge of such a thing must be potential terrorists.
And so on and so on..........
Honestly, these people need to get a grip and get on with reality!
-.sig sauer-
Its time to stop cowering in the corner from the terrorist "boogey man". Every week there is a new hot button item that promotes terrorism. The general media and governement in the united states seams to want the people to be afraid of everything. Why is it that your governmet has the money to produce this very vague early wrning system but no money for health care. What exactly is a orange alert. Your leaders come on televison and say that you should be scared because somewhere, sometime, something bad is going to happen, stop living in fear and start living your lives. Get out there live your lives, enjoy them and go watch bolwing of columbine it will change they way you think.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective with what users it wants to be friendly with.
*BSD is dead!
In other news, the US Military has stopped all funding for aviation on the grounds that the technology eventually trickles down to commercial aircraft and into terrorist hands.
However, other sources were quick to point out that had the standing orders regarding deviating civilian airliners been followed, the two F18s would have been scrambled sooner, and the whole 9-11 disaster could have been greatly reduced. The problem isnt the technology, its the sloppy work of those responsible for it.
Or don't - it doesn't take much to see that almost everyone here is missing the point: it's not that terrorists can't use windows or any other OS, and it's not that they're equivicating OSS with terrorism, they're just saying that DARPA (which is, after all, a defense agency) is not comfortable putting funds into developing something that is freely available to anyone anywhere without any kind of distribution control whatsoever. Add to this the fact that with OSS, not only are they giving away the tools, but also the plans for making the tools (i.e. the source code and how they engineered certain protections into it).
When you look at it in this light, it really doesn't seem that unreasonable, does it? It seems quite logical that DARPA would rather keep the products of its funding secret - as with anything else be it satellite-imaging, propulsion, or any other kind of technology. I think slashdot is kind of overblowing this one...
Old people gamble in Vegas and Atlantic City.
The owners buy drugs from foreign cartels.
And everyone knows drugs support terrorism.
This means old people support terrorism.
God spoke to me
There's a knock at the door. Joe Sixpack goes to see who it is--
.but I can't say I rmember much about Homeland Security. I don't really pay attention to that mumbo jumbo.
Joe: Well for heaven's sake. It's Georgie Nuorder. How are you. I haven't seen you since we closed the mortgage.
Georgie: Yeah, that's what I'm here about actually.
Joe: Oh, but we closed years ago. You got your money, didn't you?
Georgie: Yes, of course I got the money you paid at the time. But I found out you violated the contract.
Joe: What? What do you mean? I made all my payments on time. It's paid for.
Georgie: No, it's not that you didn't pay. I know you paid once. But apparently you've moved kids in as well. I can't let the kids live here too for the same price. And I wish that was the worst of it. But apparently these kids of yours are even having their friends over. Who knows how far this has gone, but it's got to stop right now.
In case you haven't heard, shared property of all sorts is considered piracy under the new national definition. The Federal Grand Jury for Homeland Security just ruled on this last week. I'm a bit suspicious how you haven't heard. It was all over CNN and MSNBC.
Joe: I'm not sure I saw anything about that. Is this the color code thing? There was this kid with no arms. .
Georgie: Well, you ought to pay more attention to current events instead of that terrorist propoganda. This is part of our goverment's broader move to straighten up all the loose ends in property law in order to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The fact is, you've got a hefty bill to pay for your thievery.
Joe: What? You didn't say anything about these limits when I bought the house. How can you come back and demand all these rights you never talked about when I first bought it. You're just making this stuff up out of thin air. How can you claim to own something you already sold to me?
Georgie: Well let's not play dumb Joe. Computer software has been sold like this for years now. I mean it's only logical that the kids have to buy their own houses. There's no such thing as a free lunch, is there? The law is on my side. I sold the house to you specifically, not to you and anybody you want to lend it to and their friends and aquaintances and so on. It's right there in writing plain as your face. There's only one signature on the contract. You signed the contract and only you. Nobody forced you and there is nowhere in the contract that specifically entitles you to share the property with other people. You're dilluting the value. It's thievery palin and simple. You thought the contract was a good deal then on the face of it and now you're trying to steal from my by taking twice, no three times what you paid for.
It's shameful of you to try and deny it when it's staring you right in the face like that. Look, if we keep letting people like you get away with this stealing --and that's exactly what this is: it's a black and white case of right against wrong, good vs evil. If we let you have your way, the entire housing market will collapse in a few months. You've twisted your mind into believing you have a right to steal. You don't!
You've got to accept the fact that you're a thief for moving these kids in here without paying. The only way out is to pay what you owe. You've got to pay your way in this world Joe. It's the right thing to do.
Luckily, I'm a Christian and I want to be merciful as the teachings of Jesus tell us we ought to be and I will allow you to stay in your home and even to share your home with your children as long as you start paying me rent by the end of the month. That way we just might be able to avoid jail time. This is your lucky day my friend, but don't take my mercy for granted for my vengence against procrastinators is certain to be filled with wrath and rage. I am right and you are wrong and the sooner you get that into your head the bet
It's an uncomfortable truth that complete suppression of terrorism requires complete suppression of freedom. If we want to maintain our freedom, we'll have to combat the fear of terrorism every bit as strongly as we fight terrorism itself. We'll have to risk that our promotion of freedom will at some points allow terrorism to operate. In a word, we need courage. But if we depend entirely upon our government and military to be courageous for us, we're already far along the road to losing our liberty.
come on, where does it stop. the world is evil! It's a fundamental rule. Evil will always be with us. For anyone to say that they can stop evil is lunacy. you cannot stop evil without becomming evil yourself.
Americans need to wake up and realize that the world is not nice like on TV. Bad guys win usually! People are vice-ridden, mean-spirited, selfish souls in general. to put the bible-pounding hat on a minute, After the whole antichrist thing is over earth will have 1000 years of peace! Then evil will be allowed back into the world and a huge percent of the population will follow it after living under a perfect government!!
Bad things will happen, it is a fact. The question is: Do we live cowering in fear with an oppressive government saping our streangth like in Iraq, or do we live freely, in the open, allowing some enemies to knock us down, but with the streangth in the people to get back up again and again!!
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
as opposed to the al-qaeda member with the CD burner and a pirate copy of windows XP...
--- Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit? | Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
Between crying the sky is falling because DARPA is cutting back and didn't want to pay for a little junket and refusing to give credit for work the team built on top of, Theo de Raadt is starting to look more like an immature, whining little brat every day.
I'd be unsurprised if DARPA did go ahead and actually cancel all funding after the tinfoil hat and black helicopter comments that have been made by the OpenBSD community.
War Is Safety
Freedom Is Terrorism
Ignorance Is Good-Consumerism
ps: The "Lameness filter" is lame. Maybe I want to use all caps since the thing I was quoting started out that way.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
this outrage must be stopped now before it goes to far. After all everyone needs a cabinet of guns or they're an incomplete being.
"Oh land of the free...."
Police states rarely have terrorism problems.
... ... the ...
I suppose if we want to be less free, we can give up open source.
And libraries.
And criticizing the President.
And the right to freedom from arbitrary searches.
And equal justice regardless of national origin.
And the right to be charged with a crime instead of being held indefinitely.
And the
oh, CRAP.
We're screwed.
--Kynn
ObPlug: Political ranting from me at Shock & Awe, and tech stuff at Maccessibility
Kynn's page: http://kynn.com/
Most people seem to think this means they think free software "enables" people to do things (with it.) My take on this is the following: they're concerned with funding a project mostly developed by...whoever wishes to develop it. It's hard for a government agency to justify funding a project that employs people from all over the world when we're in a paranoid state of mind and seeing terrorists under every bed (hey, it was communists a few decades ago...and that even rhymes with terrorists!) I wouldn't be surprised to see the DOD fund their own internal use branch of an open source OS, exclusively developed by a tightly knit group of security-cleared people (and effectively making the branch closed source.) It's not so much about who'll use the software...it's more about who'll have their hands in developing it. A pretty stupid way of looking at a system that everyone gets a chance to proofread and debug, but no one has ever accused the military of being smart.
The OpenBSD site has an interesting (anti-troll) feature called Nastygram which prints the IP address for each comment submited. /.? It could be very funny and very .. nasty! (think of goatse, tubgirl, father o'day or whatever trolls..)
Why not implement such a scheme on
Open Source is just a form of free speech. It is true of free speech in general that it also allows forms of speech that groups of people don't like. That's the reason that totalitarian regimes generally do not allow free speech.
Now as far as terrorists are concerned, I don't think they care about going through the proper activation procedure when using MS products. So when MS delivers a software product it is equally available to terrorists than when Linus Torvalds releases a piece of software. The very nature of terrorism is that terrorists generally don't care about any law including copyright laws, the dmca, patent law, etc. Anything just protected by these laws is available to terrorists.
If Osama Bin Laden wants access to windows source code in his cave he'll probably have little trouble getting it through irc (it must have leaked by now with all this shared source bullshit). True, downloading the linux source code is a lot more convenient but the result is the same as far as Osama is concerned. Getting caught for pirating software is the least of his concerns.
What I find worrying is that a lot of things that concern the US government are placed in the context of terrorism lately. The concept of freedom of speech, one of the things many US citizens appear to be proud of, seems to have become a myth rather than reality. Independent journalists still exist in the US, they just don't get a job anymore. CNN routinely kicks out journalists if they get too critical.
Jilles
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The Washington Post is read by people who think they should run the country.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like their smog statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave L.A. to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and they did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country either, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country, or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feministic atheist dwarfs, who also happen to be illegal aliens from ANY country or galaxy as long as they are democrats.
10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country, but need the baseball scores.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
12. Slashdot is read by people that don't bother reading 1 thru 11.
stupid people will always prevail........
This is really getting me sick in my stomach.
- To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion -
Gee, I wonder why the rest of the world thinks Americans are such idiots...
bsd et al were DESIGNED for this. terrorists arent running desktop os'. they want to be able to modify it to block out everything they dont want (via ipfw or whatever) and access what they DO want. command line just makes it inherently easier for all practical purposes. sure they could be using BeOS but hey, not as secure as OpenBSD out of the box. and they can just save their kernel config options, and distribute from box to box. and there you have a weapon of mass destruction (be it plans for nuclear weapons, etc. (dont give me that crap about how hard plutonium is to get) or whatever) in a laptop, developed in the time it takes for a single kernel compile.
in addition to this, there are secure fs'. last time i checked, if you lose a ntfs drive to someone, they can just jack it in via an ide controller and read everything. obsd has a function, iirc, that lets you have a secure fs.
no i'm not advocating MS as the hero company defending the united states, i'm just saying that BSD is better for terrorist purposes.
flame on.
Yes, it's stupid to cancel a grant that funds a highly useful and beneficial project.
;)
Yes, the government is getting out of hand trying to stamp out an invisible, intangible enemy.
The thing is though, we see this shit all the time. Company X releases a product (or TV Network Y airs a show) with questionable content or usage. Extreme Rights Group S (for Stupid) pitches a bitch and demands the product pulled. Company/Network doesn't feel like risking a potential PR nightmare by openly treading upon the wishes of potential customers or losing potential ad revenue and acquiesces. It's very possible that DARPA's funding was in some sort of jeopardy unless it stopped supporting these projects or other pressure was being placed on the organization to stop funding these projects. It's not like the government made it illegal to work on OpenBSD. They just said 'we're not paying for it'.
Life isn't fair. All financial matters throughout the history of time have been resolved by protecting the interests of the owner of the money far before worrying about the well-being of anybody else. In other words, I'll give you the raw end of the deal long before I let myself get screwed.
This is just capitolism rearing its ugly head
-Rylfaeth
its all just a case of people attaching their bandwagon to the latest issue in order to get a free ride. Ironically in this particular issue it is a free ride to try and get ahead of free competition...
no kidding, but you've got an uphill struggle in the USA trying to convince anyone that a woman should be anything other than a stupid, sunbed-tanned, bottle-blonde, fake-breasted, collagen-lipped, lipo-sucked, sparkle-toothed, botox-riddled whore.
That was classic intercourse!
You know, if we just went ahead and killed all the fucking sand niggers, we wouldn't have to worry about any of this terrorist shit anymore. And let's be honest, who would miss them?
This is what you can do with a can of gasoline and a lighter. One person decided to commit suicide - and he didn't want to die alone. The eventual death toll was something like 168.
What the fuck are you going to do that's so deadly with a copy of OpenBSD? Write it to a CD and try to bludgeon somebody to death? Use it to design "w34p0nz of m4zz d35tRukt10n"?
Political lobbyists and the US government are refusing to use the best tools available. They are placing this country in danger and are total asshats for bending over so that Microsoft can ram them - AND THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE US - in the ass with Microsoft Windows.
With luck, those responsible will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
It's not about a free OS but about Open Source.
Double plus thinkgood.
Those wanking us-morrons an rightwing jews want
every nation, that is not a vassal or feudal nation
to them, to be less than a third world country.
This proves that the us looks at the rest of the world solely from a military and profitable
perspective.
The us is our enemy. And its enemies are our allies!
Petrol empowers, Power generation plant empowers, The printing Press empowers, are they going to halt the product of this stuff too?? Idiots!
There was an unknown error in the submission.
The ones who sit down and think out their responses, always wind up with the 500,000th post on an article, and by then the moderators have moved on.
This is an excellent example.
ivern76 is explaining what he believes is DARPA's perspective on the issue... which is... "Why fund a project we can't tightly control?"... and in my book that is spot on. I don't agree with the implications that the DARPA people are implying, but if I were ignorant of the motivations behind it, I would certainly have a better idea of it after reading the above.
I sure hope this results in ivern76 getting a few points for insightfulness.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
There is a naive notion going around that hiding your secrets is a proper way to do security. This makes sense to many people because they are making assumptions about how well things are hidden and how "secret" secrecy really is.
I think of it the same way that I think of airport screening. Since the terrorists were arabs, the naive solution to finding terrorists is to simply stop every arab man woman and child and be done with it. It makes sense, right? Forget all the claims to political correctness, and think about it "logically". If the terrorists are all arabs, then by searching all arabs then you will be securing your airplanes, right?
Wrong, of course. Becuase you can't search 100% of the people, by selecting a non-random group you will be searching, all it would require is to find a single non-arab terrorist and the next thing you know a plane is crashing into Los Angeles.
This same naive logic is what makes windows look so secure. Because you can't see teh source, of course you can't find the holes, right? If the holes can be exploited, they eventually will be, and if they are really subtle, then only a select group of really hard-core bad guys will know about it, and YOU are probably not in that select group. You will never know that they are currently controlling your network, becuase the chance of you finding that hole and knowing to patch it is nil.
Mmm yes. My girl's lineage is Iraqi and she is gorgeous. Just that touch of exotica that you can't always put your finger on... Eyes that will lose you for years. *sigh*
By the current (and unelected) US administration's definition, pretty much anything anyone does is considered a terrorist activity... except for terrorizing French people and people that have the gall to excersize their rights to free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of/from religion and pretty much anything else that gives people like George Bush and John Ashcroft bad dreams and acid reflux.
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. - Tennessee Williams
And it sure seems that for a guy who feels "redeemed", Theo is pretty honked off.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Red Flag Linux (Chinese), read a review here.
and Microsoft giving the source code to Windows to the Chinese government is a bake sale
God Fucking Damnit
Ask why the same logic is not applied to Windows, when its level of technology would enable nationstates as much as any open source...
Backdoors, man. Backdoors.
Remember the NSAKEY?
Just ask terrorist states for money! According to DAPRA, they'll jump to invest in better security for their nuclear physics research, party secrets, encrypted messages to sleeper cells and other evil deeds. With BSD license, they will be able to examine the code and see that there are no loopholes. And, OpenBSD project will be more ethical than before, since it will be taking money away from terrorists rather than aiding them for free.
On the other hand, terrorist states might point out that OpenBSD will empower domestic opposition to create social unrest in secret. Then just take their statements back to DAPRA and ask them to fund OpenBSD as a form of information warfare. At the usual price that government pays for munitions. Then, OpenBSD project can easily buy RIAA and provide bored sysadmins of secure systems with some BSD-licensed entertainment.
People with more than two hands might ponder if exporting Microsoft software to terrorist states is a better form of information warfare.
Well, it makes perfect sense that if the government wants to gain an edge over terrorists they should develop something behind closed doors and not share it with terrorists.
The problem with this decision isn't in some moral analysis, but with the cost factor. For what they were going to pay Theo (and get), the federal government and even its most efficient contractor probably won't even have any code written by the time they burn through that much money. And while there's something to be said for getting what you pay for, we all know that doesn't apply to government spending.
During this time of massive tax cuts and a dead-flat economy, our government should be operating lean. And in this case, we all know supporting OpenBSD would not be compromising quality for the sake of cost.
The only question left unanswered is...How important is our ability to hack terrorists' systems?
I personally would be doubling the money to OpenBSD if I were in charge.
After the September 11th attacks occurred, Congress was pretty quick to start investigations into what the intelligence and law enforcement communities could have or should have done to prevent it.
In many ways, the idea of "opening up for review" the processes of those organizations isn't all that different than having the source code open for those interested in the security of a particular codebase to be able to serve as an outside monitor of the developer's security team.
Few people would suggest that the law enforcement and intelligence communities would be better off doing their own reviews, when such practices prior to 9/11 showed such little progress.
OK, so terrorists may well be using OSS, but given their disregard for the law, they're probably using Windows too, and without paying for it.
Yes, OpenSSH might pose a problem for the military code breakers, but let's not forget: terrorists are not automatically stupid people. Osama bin Laden is university educated. Non US citizens are perfectly capable of developing encryption algorithms.
If you want to find out who really help terrorists, look to your governments. The US government supported Osama bin Laden in the 70s. The US government supported Iraqi factions in both the recent, and early 90's, wars with Iraq -- let's see if, in 20 or 30 years time, these groups are considered terrorists when they become disillusioned with US influence in their lives.
The forthcoming Stevens report in the UK indicates that key figures in the British police, army, and possibly higher-ranking organisations, backed loyalist terrorists in the 80's and early 90's in Northern Ireland, in the murder of suspected IRA terrorists.
The US, British (and many other) governments contribute far more to terrorism than software will ever do. The assertion that terrorism is the reason for pulling out of supporting OpenBSD and OpenSSH is ridiculous and misses the point entirely.
"The noble art of losing face will one day save the human race"---Hans Blix
Doh! That won't work either!
...
...
Ummmm.
Throw any Muslims off maths courses
Doh!
Retrieve every programming manual and any Math paper that might possibly help terrorists.
Doh!
Don't let any non-Americans have computers, calculators, pens or paper
Doh!
I know! Eat some apple pie and bomb the bastards!
Yeah! Solution.
Computers are confusing to some people. Anything people don't understand can be used for terrorism.
God spoke to me
Timothy is chipping in with his 2 for the Microsoft marketing drive starting tomorrow, Thursday.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
That would be Halliburton... anyone asking Dick Cheney about that these days ?
To say that Open Source helps terrorists while closed source and big business don't help them is just plain rubbish. Lets play the following game
1) Where does Bin Laden get his money from is it
a) Oil
b) Sell Red Hat
c) Oil
2) Which of the following held senior positions in organisations that were associated with terrorism or "evil" states
a) Dick Cheney
b) Donald Rumsfeld
c) George Bush Sr
Answers are
1) a or c.
2) all have held senior positions with organisations that have either supplied facilities or arms to Iraq. George Bush Sr was also involved in the Iran/Contra scandal.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
you see a black screen. some annoucer in an ominous voice says
::camera pans out further revealing withe curves against the black::
::camera continues to pan, we see some patches of orange::
::camera reveals tux the penguin against a white background camera fades to black::
what if the axis of evil had the same powerful technology you had?
what if they could have thier computers running for more than 2 dasy without rebooting?
well they can
linux and terrorism.... harmless?
WTPOUAWYHTTOTWPA
What's the point of using acronyms when you have to type out the whole phrase anyways?
I must admit I am quite puzzled by all this and why the grant has been suppressed. Surely DARPA has no interest in stopping OpenBSD development or even just slowing it down since they use it themselves. However they say it is for security reasons. Shock horror, terrorists could be benefiting from the use of Open BSD too!!
I am wondering whether DARPA could not have plans to try and do development from the current Open BSD themselves?
Check the Open BSD copyright policy again. There's nothing preventing them to use the source for their own closed source or open source software, and while Open BSD is available to everyone, they could keep it for themselves.
It's the only explanation that makes sense that I can think of. Obviously I may be wrong and the real explanation could be one that makes no sense.
if (!used_by_good_guys) { ...
blow_up_in_faces();
exit(1);
} else {
Sometimes the only answer to stupidity is even more stupidity
Good grief, giving people too much freedom is just as dangerous as giving them too much democracy. They might elect [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/n ewsmakers/1952981.stm]the wrong people![/url]
"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its people," - Kissinger
sounds like Non Open Source is better because it is controllable (in what ever way) by the state?!
It is better for a minority - I am sure.
Do you think companies could afford to "share" their trade secrets?
how IT is changing the world - http://max.zamorsky.name
Any terrorist group smart enough to use a computer is bound to be smart enough to pick up a cracked version of windows... Just because openbsd is free does not make it easy to use or the obvious choice for a terrorist group
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
see post title.
The system is broken, hardcore. Now if you release open source software you are aiding terrorists? Ever since the "Stella Awards" I've always wondered where America was going. Criminals can sue the people they are robbing if they get hurt. Then the RIAA starts prosicuting fans. When it comes to Microsoft ... you name it.
It seems we are justblowing up the world!
The funny thing is CHILD PORNGRAPHERS can - I'd link to the story, but news.com took it down, actually got off because his computer was hacked into, and he didn't get a search warrent, but not the RIAA!! If that bill passes they won't need a search warrent, just look up legal hacking on google...you'll get tons of links on it.
Oops I'm off the subject.
If we are all on the same page, and reading the same stuff, then we all know what the other guy can do. So why would open source be so bad, and as far as documents ... there are documents for everything
> This 'Homeland Security' and ferocious anti-terrorism behavior is getting seriously out of hand.. its an enormous overreaction and its starting to make the USA look very very silly.
HS is just another government agency doing nothing but to help corporate, in this case, security companies and what not (and of course, defense contractors in one way or another). The comment is silly; absolutely silly. Terrorism has nothing to do with free software or not even computers probably.
While we realize that the comment made on free software is silly, we also want (or demand) representation from major media. Why are we also not getting the info that people who say things like this are just doing their job? Why are we also not getting the info that someone says that free software is evil because his employer (true employer) wants him to say so?
First amendment; freedom of speech. Yes, everyone has a right to say what he wants to say. If one believes that free software is evil and it is the root cause of terrorism, he has the right to say so and I even defend his right. But once again, the problem that I see here is that we are not told why he is saying what he's saying, which gives people opportunity to judge whether the comment is silly or not.
Guns enable common criminals, but i dont see arms companies suffer for that?
Government and industry long ago discovered the usefulness of sociopaths. A sociopath is forever evaluating for items that can be used as a crowbar to forward an agenda. Can provide an edge in a clinch. Can devise plans a normal person would blanche at.
But it's a double edged sword. Sociopaths are cold and destructive human beings. Let them have too long a leash, and things will start breaking. And if you're foolish enough to let them hold powerful positions directly, you'd better watch out. Because if there was ever a human being that deserved the label 'evil', sociopaths would win hands down every time.
Oops hit submit too early. Let's try that again.
Timothy is chipping in with his 2 cents for the Microsoft marketing drive starting tomorrow, Thursday. I really wish there were a way to block both the ads and the shills/astroturfers.
The high level of security potentially available from using OpenBSD has been named as a worry. A number of posts have mentioned the nebulus terrorist threat and touched on the effects of lobbying. When you take into account lobbying from software companies, then the other real targets are nation states like Germany.
If Germany goes with Linux, BSD, or one of the other Free or Open Source operating systems, then they remain beholden to neither Microsoft nor the White House.
If, on the other hand, F/OSS is blocked then they suffer not only financial punishment for the recent UN Security Council issues but also stay on a short leash:
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
like Israel and the USA. It could also empower terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and Hamas, to the extent that they use computers. The same is true for closed source software; even if it can't be sold to those groups, what makes you think they'll not steal it if they feel they have a need to use it? After all, they are terrorists.
Also keep in mind that terrorism is the weapon of the weak. If you can't afford to spend billions of dollars on tomahawks, you have to find other options. Suicide bombings are cheap, effective, and safe (after the bomber has blown himself up, he won't talk to the authorities). And terrorists aren't just assholes who enjoy killing. They are people who strongly oppose a certain situation, so strongly, that they spend time, energy, and money fighting it. Terrorism is a sign that something is wrong, and you'll see that in the bulk of cases terrorism is directed against some oppressor.
I am not a terrorist, nor do I approve of terrorism, all I'm saying is that terrorists aren't the only bad guys. Enjoy flaming.
disempowers the All Too Powerful
which is nice
Might as well blame the Wright brothers for 9/11.
The months are just too short. I can count the number of days on one hand.
Are you saying there is something wrong with that?
You cannot know what DARPA is basing its decisions on. You can only speculate. Without any other information than their generic explanation, you might as well be talking about cheese, or the moon.
As if a simple administrative burden could stop the "bad guys" of the day from getting what they want anyways...
Proof: how could Iraq, despite an UN-sanctioned world-wide ban on arms sales, get state-of-the-art weapons?
How can anyone even THINK that "the bad guys" couldn't get all the software they want the same way that they could get weapons?
This is ridiculous...
no... not anymore. it has become: "by the money for the money." but we need to protect our funds so maybe: "by the military for the military in the name of peace" would be more appropriate.
The US now has a huge disconnect, both in terms of what it thinks of itself and what it feeds its own population. The longer this goes on, the more they will scare you into accepting their patriot acts. Meanwhile across the world, it has become hated and no doubt people will remember and gang up against the US whenever they can.
Propaganda, simple associative logic, and little or no reason has pervaded the public debate for a while. Meanwhile thinkers, people a society should respect, are getting branded leftists, antipatriotic or at worst - terrorists.
Free societies have a right to free opinion, and cases like this only go to prove that freedom in the US is an illusion. States tody are becoming a veneer, a thin peel of illusion laid out over the collective eye to help the companies and businesses that control this illusion make millions.
The Bush administration remains a shallow president and the greatest threat to the US till date. His policies will, and have, stoked the worst fires of the middle east. The harvest of this will be seen across the world; sudden mad acts of terror will continue to plague countries that are seen as allies for years to come.
On the whole, the US govt does seem quick to justify stupid acts like withdraw funding for BSD. I, nor do a lot of others, see the connection. Why this anonymous post? Well i have no intention of joing the brotherhood of victims that are on parade now.
Hope sense prevails.
Uruklink.net can still be found from google's cache. There is a "Best viewed with MSIE" phrase at the bottom of the page.
I also remember that I cheked the OS of that box on the day the war begun. Netcraft claimed it ran Solaris 8 (but surprise, surprise, can no longer find it at all), so may be the question is not just about software...
if you want to catch terrorists, there are two ways:
The second method may have one disadvantage: You may find a terrorist where none has been before looking. This is like a self fullfilling prophecy. By declaring people to be terrorists you can make them to be.
Serious: I'm more scared by the changes to the political systems than by the Al-Quaida. The "war on terror" has become a convenient handle (also in europe) to push for changes that have unacceptable before. The result may be the destruction of our ideals (a free society) in the name to defending them.
Yours, Martin
P.S. My definition of terrorist is "someone who is using violence against civilians with the goal to use the resulting scare/horror to force them into an action they wouldn't do by free will". This definition has become very unpopular after WWII because it included too many winners.
Yesssss, terrorist state, LOL !!! You've forgot to use 'evil', 'liberty', 'mass destruction' ....
;)
.... great days for dicatator and terrorist, thanks Mr from CIA ;)
Do and learn your US-embed lessons
Anyway, all the Army want is money, all they need is more and more money.
If you ever manage to find a weapon that generate a life, call me, plz.
Weapon are made to kill... whoever uses them.
At the same times, sadam and bin are still running
nope, I hope you're very happy together
In truly free society such arguments are bogus (because IMO in truly free society there is nothing like todays terrorism).
But we do not live in free society because world is not free. Even if we assume just few countries, which are most free, that still is not truly free society. Because we are at best in the middle of the road to free society.
And while we are not free, various governments often choose and implement various half solutions often represented by "restrict freedom" tactics to achieve something (by "something" I mean "hopefully good things for citizens").
And half solutions ... well, are ussualy short sighted and dangerous themselves. Sometimes even more dangerous than the problems they are trying to solve.
So pursuing freedom and happiness by restricting our own freedom and happines because of terrorism of others (or copyright infrigements over internet, or whatever) ... that sounds strange.
hany
Don't mind the corrupt ramblings of an increasingly paranoid and delusional regime.
I mean, I don't believe the friendly neighborhood mumbling vagrant who keeps pointing at people and telling them that they're satan. Especially when he points at me.
It's not the locksmith's fault that criminals use locks just like everyone else. It's not his job to give the police a key.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Yeah, and like communism, BSD is dying.
Science promotes terrrorism.
Open-source anthrax anyone?
If MILITARY research into bacterial warfare hadn't given terrorists a handbook for growing and distributing anthrax, then terrorists wouldn't have the expertise to grow and distribute anthrax, would they?
Let's outlaw military research FIRST, as that seems to be where most threats are coming from.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Privacy, that eliminate accountability.
Laws that take away the right to protect oneself and one's family.
Airbags that kill kids and small adults.
Homeland Security
Homeland Security is just the latest realization, and not all that much of a surprise.
I think that a few people here could benefit from some history lessons. Not necessarily because it would prove their views wrong, but because it might make their views a little more plausible.
There is nothing particularly new about this sort of policy. The US has for a long time done its best to suppress certain types of research, keep certain research results secret, and keep certain types of technology out of the hands of hostile powers. All three of these policies have been *very* effective in maintaining the military superiority of the US, and in slowing the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. With respect to all three of these weapon types, and a host of other fields of technology with military applications, other nations are still struggling to replicate research that the US carried out 50 years ago.
So, when people say that "this kind of policy never works", the military guys are going to say "BS, its been working for 50 years." When people say that "it just harms research in the US", the military guys are going to say "well sometimes it is more important to stay ahead of the other guy, than to just get ahead". When people say that "research will just progress faster in other countries" the military guys will just point to 50 years of the US successfully staying ahead of everyone else.
Objecting that such policies are *in general* a bad idea is not going to impress anyone who actually has a clue. At the very least you need to show that there is something special about software technology that will prevent these policies from working. You will have a hard time of course because these policies have already been applied to software for decades.
Now the problem with open source is that there is no way to control it, so there is no way to implement the kind of policy outlined above, except to kill it (or discourage it), and have everyone use closed source, which can be controlled to a significant degree. If you want to persuade the Feds not to do this then you will need to come up with some sort of argument for why open source is worthwhile, even though it can't be controlled. The arguments mentioned above are not going to cut it, so someone had better think of better arguments before the Feds decide to give M$ a free hand in implementing trusted (read controllable) computing.
US officials report that their weapon inspectors have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It's an Apache server.
"This is VERY strong evidence", says the cheif Inspector. "They could use this server to calculate ballistic paths of shells like we did with ENICAC in WW2. And these shells can be LOADED with chemical and biological agents".
In other news:
A group in Sweden has filed a request to their government to initiate "Operation American freedom".
"Yes it's true, and we are considering this", says a high swedish official. They have a very weak democratic system. The last election was a joke. They still have the death penalty, that we banned two centuries ago. They have nukes and chemical weapons and they do not follow the UN recommedations, but invade other contries at their own discretion.
"I know we are a small peace loving country with limited military resources, but we have to do this. This nation is a threat. And with determination and creative behind enemy lines warfare we will see this through. The American people deserve their freedom. I know many Americans say they dont want to be set free this way because many innocent Americans will die, but they have been blinded by their enslavement. This evil Bush regime must come to an end and their weapons of mass destruction (Like Apache servers) must be eliminated.
The Vikings will set the American people free. We feel obliged by future generations and god(Thor with the hammer).
Cheers. Patrix, Sweden
What do you think? Do you think that, if someone is violent, it is justified and sensible and okay to be violent in return? The U.S. has a Christian-influenced culture, and Jesus Christ recommended against being violent in return, but what do you think?
If you think that violence justifies violence, then here is a result that may amaze you: Most people in the U.S. don't know this, but the U.S. government has secretly sponsored violence against Muslims and Arabs for many, many years. So, if you think that violence justifies violence, the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York was justified.
What is the cause of terrorism? The cause of the present terrorism against the U.S. is the constant violent interference by the U.S. government with the governments of other countries. I did some research about this and found a collection of links: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories. If I know more about U.S. government violence than you, it is only because I began being interested in reading about it about 30 years ago, and when I see a relevant article, I read it. There is a huge amount of material available to read.
My own personal view is that I'm against fighting violence with violence. I think that the least sophisticated way of relating to other people is killing them.
Should the U.S. government get into gun battles with Muslims? There are 5 times as many of them as there are U.S. citizens, and they have less to lose.
I have never heard of anyone in the U.S. government who is against Arabs or Muslims specifically. The people who create the violence are only looking for someone to kill. They are equal opportunity killers. They killed more than 2,000,000 Vietnamese, for example. (Vietnamese still die whenever an old land mine explodes.) They killed 6,000 in Panama. The U.S. government has bombed 24 countries in 58 years. By that measure, the U.S. government is the most violent government that has ever existed.
It's time to consider these issues carefully. The world could become a lot more violent. It has been more violent in the past, and it could become more violent again.
You don't really love your country if you only give attention to the beautiful things.
Jesus Christ! What the hell is wrong with the GWB administration? France opposed the war with Iraq because on the grounds that there is no sufficient evidence that Iraq has not destroyed its WMDs - and now after the war, the evidence is still missing! So far France seems to have been right and these morons are still intent on "punishing" the France for trying to prevent this unjustified, unilateral war (the true motives, of course, were regime change, oil and GWB's personal issues with religion and his daddy).
BOO! TERRO
open development of technologies leads to the bad guys getting a leg up on the good guys
Windows suddenly sounds less evil when then told me Open Source assists terrorists.
Someone told me Open Source rapes pregnant women and molests children in the street too. We've got closed-source proprietary software wrong all these years.
God saves us
However, in February, Microsoft signed a pact with Chinese officials to reveal the Windows operating system source code. Bill Gates even hinted that China will be privy to all, not just part, of the source code its government wished to inspect.
Given the evidence suppporting Jim Allchin's testimony, the Microsoft corporation is behaving traitorously, by exposing national security issues to untrusted foreign governments.
The question behind it is: Is technology and progress good or bad?
If we look back and see how much money North American, European and Russian economy made with selling technology (i.e. weapons) to those 3rd world states becoming the alledged terrorist states of today, blaming Open Source is really a silly point of view. (The only difference: There is nothing to sell here.)
Because behind Open Source there is no short-sighted political interest (if any). Behind supporting regimes there is.
Today, certain US politics put the 'Terrorist' label on whatever they like. It's just ridiculous.
USA must overcome their trauma and go back to careful and educated political stategies instead.
And go on developing Open Source with all the other developers round the globe.
Yeah, isn't it funny, USA is supposed to represent freedom of speech and democracy. Last time I checked democracy allowed differing opinions!
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
...you're pissed because you didn't think of it first. There's always next time.......loser....hahahaha.
By Drunk... I am NOT God!!!
Secure, free Open Source enables terrorists to terrorize as much as pie enables fat people to get fat. It's the same old argument people have had since the invention of an object that could be used for good as well as evil. Hell, a stick can kill if it's weilded correctly. It can also prop open doors, be used to play fetch, be burnt for warmth, or hell, even be used to ward off a potential attacker.
To the Government of the United States of America: offering up as much money as you did was a mistake. Obviously someone regretted it and made up a lame excuse to take it back. Fortunately, your stupidity goes without damaging any part of Open Source or OpenBSD in particular, as Open Source does not depend on disgusting amounts of "donation" money. If you want OpenBSD, download it like the rest of the world. Unless you want to "free" Canada as well.
...are still terrorists.
Whereas George Bush says: "Iraqis, we are not out to get you. We want Saddam.", Osama Bin Laden says: "We will kill you all indiscriminately to frighten you into doing what we want." i.e. TO CAUSE WIDESPREAD FEAR.
Bin Laden never said that. He's not out to "kill us all". He has defined several political goals, and has expressed a willingness to export death and violence to achieve them, in what he sees as defense of his community.
But then, so has Bush. "We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of this great nation.", quoth he. This, from a man who considers himself a devout Christian.
As far as I can tell both of these men are terrorists. To hell with both of them.
The Medellin Cartel in Colombia used an AS/400 bought through a US shell company to analyze phone records and identify moles in their organization. Since they are now officially "terrorist" (hm, bombing people in their own country did not count before according to the US' high moral standards), we need to ban the sales of all computers. Period. Terrorists can use them. And phones. And since trucks and horse-drawn carts can carry bombs not authorized by the US government, those are banned too. ... hey ... now we're Afghanistan!
And TV's and Radios
The only people being hurt by the kind of rhetoric spewed by the neocons like Ashcroft and his cronies is the US people, the US economy, and US freedoms. Writing an OS is a pain in the a**, but it's not that hard, and people are kidding themselves when banning OSS in the US is going to make the world safer for them.
- - - Non Caffeine Drink or Drink Error
...and I'd just like to say that we in the "Allah will boil the bastard yankee infidels in Hell" faction don't really use OSS - we're mostly into playing Halo on Xbox... oh, and SIMS... and as long as we can check our hotmail accounts (probably the most useful terrorist device on the web) we're happy.
Here it is, it's short and out of context, but it's also the entire quote provided by Theo:
I wanted to update you on the situation with the Univ of Penn. project. As a result of the DARPA review of the project, and due to world events and the evolving threat posed by increasingly capable nation-states, the Government on April 21 advised the University to suspend work on the "security fest" portion of the project.
Now where does it say in that "open source is bad"? Could it be that the government has decided other threats are more immediate to address with DARPA's limited budget? I mean, we know Theo has never stirred up shit for the fun of it. </SARCASM>
According to this logic, maybe Theo should ask North Korea to grant the OpenBSD project some funding.
Once again this is American Goverment Paranoia reaching ever higher levels. It would be funny if they weren't dragging the world to WW3 with their paranoia.....
Probably most of the US funded ones do (IRA, contras etc.) but the Muslim ones no doubt carry small watering cans into the toilet to wipe their bums with. And get it (the water) all over the floor. Argh!
not to troll here, but you can't run all over the media making anti-war statements then not expect the military to do something to your funding. I mean, come on, duh.
Would you buy a car from a salesman that was ranting about how crappy a driver you are?
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
likely corporations taking advantage of the current situation. its not like that hasnt happened before during a war.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
Just that touch of exotica that you can't always put your finger on...
mmm yes, like the fact that she might assassinate you one day?
Open source doesn't create terrorists, terrorist create themselves!
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
I don't see what AMD has to do with this
>The war could be wrong ... ...
>And terrorism is of course wrong
Why the distinction in certainties? 'War' and 'terrorism' are only the labels used to apply value judgements to activities.
Terrorism is defined as such by the attacked party. Instigators of an 'armed struggle' refer to it in terms of fighting either for their rights, or against their oppressors.
I'm not defending, or attacking, any particular actions. But the label it is given does depend on which side is providing the view.
not under the Patriot (insert here the version in roman characters) Act!
Microsoft should name its next operating system "Enduring Freedom" and give it even fewer working features so that they can follow the governments example of restricting freedoms recklessly claiming it will prevent terrorism.
They could even make us fill in the words "under god" into the pledge of allegiance during login to prove that we are not terrorists ourselves or terrorist sympathizers.
That Will Stop Them!!!
**When craziness is bliss, 'tis folly to be sane**
If the US wants to stop terrorists getting hold of bad things, then the various US government agencies should stop selling them!
Democracy? Let me see... you've got somehere between 280- and 300 MILLION citizens in the USA and by some absolute miracle the current king/president is the SON of the previous Republican president. What are the odds? It's a plutocracy you're living in, your American dream means NOTHING.
Bill of rights? Don't make me laugh - how does racial profiling, Guantanamo Bay and the Disney coyright extension fit in with THAT?
That was classic intercourse!
Let's remember why the German Army abandoned Microsoft. Their internal emails were going through Denver, and that was out of the box Windows.
So I think that it's pretty clear that Microsoft *already has* backdoors for the NSA to insert their noses. Of course, that means that there are also backdoors for hackers, but the US government is going to consider that a reasonable cost-benefit ratio, and just nail individual crackers to the wall.
But you cannot do that with Open-source software, with any reasonable effectiveness.
So it isn't saying that OpenBSD causes or aids terrorism, but just that if people have an alternative to the NSA's preferred choice, then they won't be open to snooping. And the NSA feels that snooping is 100% necessary, now that we have terrorists in the world.
Actually, I think that this *can* be good, if OpenBSD abandons America and its dependency on DARPA [also the NSA]. What began with PGP and US/Non-US distributions is going to have to extend just a tad farther, to "Non-US/whatever they'll let you have" distributions, and all based outside of the US. Not good for Americans, but excellent for *future* Canadians, French, and Germans.
While I'm at it, though: may I also drop a note? This last Iraq war shows that the internet, with its spammail system, is completely controlled by DARPA. Why not take the opportunity to design a completely different, parallel system that is *not* based on the US military? And while you're at it, make it unspammable. Then people can use Microsoft SpamOut look, or they can go over to OpenBSD/Linux, and get a whole new system. We have the optical cable sitting around -- why not jump for it? Start it with a conference in Europe, and let it go from there.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
The DOD guy tries to make it sound like they do not want good security available so they do not wish to fund BSD. Cool. That is their choice (Might help explain why W's admin pushes MS everywhere ).
But the Feds help fund SELinux which is suppose to be Linux becoming more secure. So the real question is,
does W's admin consider this a threat?
If so, why have they not stopped it entirely?
Are there openings in Linux that have been missed?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Since the Middle East is the hotbed of terrorism, we will be suspending the introduction of democracy into Iraq until we've educated the Iraqi's out of their terrorist tendencies.
This is of course BS, as you can revert the arguement/FUD completely. F/OSS is protecting us from terror, as we can or could see through the binaries. Imagine Omar bin Coder gets employed by MS. Imagine he manages to hide a backdoor in 'Windows for Platoons'. We, the good guys, wouldn't notice untill it's too late.
...
.sig
So proprietory soft helps spreading terror! Nuke Redmont!
Okay, forget the last sentence. Although
--
still unable to steal a funny
Could you please send the statue of Liberty back to old Europe? I've heard it's feeling awfully depressed these days....
This and other international security secrets were from Matrix 4 at www.matrix4.net
Because if BSD is dead... terrorism is dead.
Props to the administration for this astute observation and logic!
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
Blame Canada
Like terrorists dont use a pirated copy of windows like everybody else!
:)
The message is: Open Source is too secure
"The Government on April 21 advised the University to suspend work on the "security test" portion of the project"
I would imagine any intelligence agency worth thier salt has a database of security holes they can exploit against a target of os X on hardware Y with app Z. Many of them not reported to preserve thier use for espionage.
They were probably pissed off when they suddenly found themselves funding the closure of security holes they paid to have found and hoped to use in the future.
Maybe Theo got it all wrong. They were actually hoping Theo and his pals would just get drunk with the money and piss about, rather then fix those pesky security holes. The money was really ment to be free as in beer!
Our free and open society surely supports terrorism too then. Why don't we just get rid of our current governmental system and install a dictatorship. I'm sure that'll make us more secure...
Stop using dirty open source, written by scruffy smelly american hating terrorists!
And start using software written by good old Americans boys, who break the law to get ahead, just like Uncle Sam!
OK, is it just me, or has GW Bush just finished heavying the DOJ for a soft anti-trust settlement with Microsoft. Now is he doing the same with Department of Defence by getting them to withdraw funding to software projects that competes (either directly or indirectly) with Microsoft?
You can't beat the value of a generous campaign donation!
...has been lost completely if a terrorist can be defined as someone who uses or promotes a operating system.
First, SUV drivers were terrorists, now programmers, who next?
While this explanation is somewhat lacking and terse, it does not say "Open Source Enables Terrorist States". I didn't know what the "security fest" portion was, so I did some googling, but didn't find anything obvious. Just the same, there's a very tangible difference between deciding to not fund an open-source-related security-related project and deciding that open source is terrorism. Maybe we could get a little more information before going hog wild with the paranoid fears?
To be sure, it does sound pretty darn paranoid, but I'm dealing with third-party information that seems designed to be inflammatory. And inflame it did.
Also, while I don't believe in security through obscurity as a general principle (which is implied here), there are still a number of people, even some Slashdot readers, who follow the principle in some respects. For example, the large number of people who get upset when some releases an exploit without contacting the vendor first.
I also wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some other reasons why the grant was pulled (or not given?), but again, I'm lacking information.
But, by all means, go crazy with what little information you do have!
trying to get 'one over' on the enemy's intelligence has always been a way for researchers to do the impossible; remember the enigma machine? they said that was impossible to crack and was of grave danger, but if the secret services had taken such a defeated attitude (which they did actually; until a polish genius showed them it was likely) would they have gotten that upper hand on the advancing nazi army? i think not...
even the claim that terrorists use open source software (especially really geeky and amazing stuff like OpenBSD) is a complete joke... i come form northern ireland and i can assure you that the sight of a computer only rings bells of "how much can i sell that on for?" in the hearts of terrorists. (oh wait! arnt we the perfect model for peace and we dont have terrorists anymore, silly me...)
yet again america needs to get a grip on itself and take a good dose of reality...
After the bombing of the FBI building in Oklahoma, I was in Arkansas talking with a good old fashioned, gun owning red neck. He told me in a hushed voice, "You know, I wouldn't want to live in a country where you couldn't do something like that".
Being that the kind of controls required to stop such things would be so over the top, we would have no freedoms at all. Looks like the goverment is heading this way.
My gawd whats next, closing libraries!
Come the revolution, the Bourgeois, Capitalistic, "A PARKING STICKER HOLDERS", will be first against the wall!
How come the National Riffle Association isn't considered to facilitate terrorism? I mean, if developing and using OSS facilitates terrorism, what about promoting free possesion and use of firearms?
--insert obligatory BSD-is-dying blurb here with every instance of BSD replaced by 'Terrorism'--
Learn from the mistakes of others. There isn't enough time to make them all yourself.
Buy from Microsoft...or the terrorists win.
Oil is the single thing that enables terrorism.
--
"What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
... it's about government control. Should you be scared? Yes!
Commercial software:
If you are a terrorist you are not allowed to download our software
Now for a moment inside the brain of the terrorist:
"blew up a few people last week, don't care if I get caught of if I die. So breaking this "law" won't change a thing."
In short: Open source or any other software enable the terrorist just as much at this moment. Maybe that palladium will change is for ever. That means that the goverment (China/US/Australia) will have control over everybodies machine, and open source will then be eliminated (Else the US will bomb you as being a terrorist state).
This looks like reason to protest very loud. No more just online protests which are not heard, but really go onto the street, protest DMCA, ritual burning of CD's, block the entrance to some of the companies which want these kind of restrictions for a prolonged period.
This is the only way it works. Look at the environmental organisations like Greenpeace having impact which freedom of speech communities can only dream of. We have to get into the mind of the so called "Joe Sixpack". Get him to protest with us.
That is my point.
I don't know of ANY conflict where terorrist groups have been involved where the terror has stopped or been significantly limited through the first two options. Even in cases where an entire terrorist organization have been obliterated, as long as the underlying issues are still there new people take their places. It may take time, but it's happened over and over again.
Not only in third world countries - Britain tried to crush the IRA for decades. It was first through peaceful negotiation that the IRA got enough pressure from Irish republicans to stop it's violence, leaving only fringe groups with minimal popular support to deal with.
If the US keeps on down it's slippery slope towards totalitarianism, you won't need terrorists to feel unsafe - the government will be more than enough.
Exactly! You can't fight lack of education and desperation with guns and bombs, unless you plan on committing genocide. Try education, understanding, communication. Those are the "weapons" in a ware against terrorism. What scares me the most is my WHOLE LIFE I'll be dealing with backlash from the current administration, and my children will be suffering the damage done to education and world relations.
How come every terrorist laptop or computer they find is running Windows?
Obviously highly secure systems, like cryptography, are relatively immune to software/network based attacks. This is why it was illegal for so long. But it is too late, the crypto cat has jumped out of the bag.
Now, the battle is not for keys but for control of the OS so that spying can take place before things get encrypted. The government seems to be saying their infowar capabilities depend on buffer overflows and script-kiddie-like activities in commonly used software which scares me! It makes me think the government has suddenly discovered that keeping the least common denominator very insecure and well identifiable (i.e. porous networks, weakened keys, GUIDs, 0wned operating systems, closed source security) will make it easier for them to catch enemy agents.
This means there is a danger that the U.S. government will also find it is in its best interests to subvert as much software as possible. Still feel safe with those RPMs? How about that up2date agent there? Is the Microsoft software update agent meant to keep users safe, or to enable surveillance?
The government seems to feel it is not in its interest to promote secure practices, lest it lock itself outside of the henhouse. I don't see how anyone can help but suspect duplicity to some degree when using commercial closed operating systems (MS Windows) given the government's current stated intent of removing all potential weapons and sharp corners from circulation.
The answer is that anyone can use open source software, not just terrorists, and the availability of high quality secure software is more important for maintaining freedom from persecution than is the need to protect against terrorists. There are constitutional problems with the current attempts by the U.S. to turn back the clock.
"Open Source software is free! It must support terrorism!"
....Right. I'm sure the terrorists, who are plotting to murder massive amounts of civillians, and generally commit acts which'll get them shot anyhow, really give a flying fuck about EULAs.
Like terrorists are sitting around now, in some dank cave.. "Oh.. Oh.. Oh! Osama! Osama! It says here we can only use this copy of Microsoft Jihad on one computer! But we can use this KHoly War on as many as we want!"
"Praise Allah, let us use open source!"
The open/closed source debate, and freedom to access the code, appears to be a serious question until you realize something.
How many moles are working in Microsoft? How dangerous is it to run their software? Does anyone know?
Oh, wait! *Russia* knows! China probably knows! Just not the US government, because they're big and bad and sicced the DoJ on 'em before.
Mmm, I smell some corporate welfare in the air. Pity, it's for a corporation that doesn't bloody need it.
This may or may not have anything to do with it... but Theo apparently has made a bunch of anti-war comments to the media, to the tune that he hoped his grant was taking funding away from the US-led war effort in Iraq. here a link... and here's another
Now, I'm not here to say that Theo's not entitled to his opinions; he unquestionably IS entitled to them. I would point out, however, that it's not a good idea to publicly bite the hand that's feeding you. By injecting a political viewpoint into this grant, Theo put the DARPA folks in a quandry, and while it may have had nothing to do with the grant cancellation, it certainly did NOT help matters.
Focus on coding and doing what you love (if it's all about the software). I'm not saying high-profile people can't have opinions... they just need to be careful about where they voice them, and be prepared to deal with the consequences if they use their position to advocate a viewpoint (ask Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins about that). It's not wrong to speak up... you've just got to be ready to deal with the fallout.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
> Theo de Raadt, the OpenBSD big cheese
Cheese of every country, if you're being threatened by US, come to France (before we're nuked).
Flamebait,eh?
5 48 ,00.html
We have a few witless bible thumpers in the audience tonight!! Don't forget to waste your mod points on this one too!
Anyway, yeah, here's another one!! If you can't beat 'em, watch them beat themselves:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,941
That is the politically correct position at this moment I think. All that OSS stuff on my home PC. As soon as I get back from school I am gonna be a good American and /dev/zero > /dev/hda
#cat
A Constitutional Democracy of the people oppressed by a Capitalist Republic sect. Separation of government and religion is Constitutionally mandated (somewhat ignored), but separation of state and business/industry.
Many politicians and business people insist that getting government out of business is vital to the national interest, but (I believe) getting business out of government is vital to the destiny of humanity.
A Capitalist (oligarchic) republic "can be" just as absurd and cruel to humanity as an Islamic (religious) republic. Both are oppressive to humanity.
I support Democratic government, Capitalist economy, and Individual freedom and equality of rights.
OldHawk777
Reality is a self-induced hallucination.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
What's sickening is your opinion of the body of ELECTED officials
The 'elected' part is arguable. I'm not kidding.
Do you really believe that America was not at much greater risk of being subject to terrorist attack from opportunistic extremists as we go to war against an insane regime already proven to be capable ___(Fill in the atrocity)___?
I really believe America is at a greater risk of terrorist attacks now that we are occupying a Muslim country in the middle east. Being happy to see Saddam go is *not* the same as believing that Bush is acting in the Iraqis' best interests. In any case, we weren't so worried about Saddam's atrocities back in the 80's when he was committing them; back then, he was useful to American interests, so Rumsfeld flew over there to kiss his ass.
The opportunists you should be wary of are the repressive dictatorial regimes in the Arab world that squander their countries' resources, enriching themselves, and fomenting religious fervor among their people in hopes that they overlook their own pathetic existence
You mean, like, our biggest ally in the region, Saudi Arabia? Hussein suppressed religious fervor. Or maybe you were talking about our ally Gen. Musharraf, the military dictator of Pakistan, a country which housed (prob'ly still does) more Qaeda training camps than Afghanistan?
like the rest of the slashdot community, you are just a liberal extremist
Umm... nearly every nerd I know is a libertarian. Disbelieving Bush isn't about liberalism.
If I thought that there was even an outside chance that this war was about freeing the Iraqi people...
---------
get your war on
Uh, did you seen the new Toyota pick ups in Iraq?
They support terrorists!
Perhaps the US should make a new example in Hiroshima?
Ciao ;-)
Alvar
News on CNN: Suicide pie kills USSR nurses
ODEM.org Tour (about censorship)
"Democracy? Let me see... you've got somehere between 280- and 300 MILLION citizens in the USA and by some absolute miracle the current king/president is the SON of the previous Republican president."
Even more fantastic considering the majority did NOT vote for him! They voted for other guy didn't they?
Also, are you aware that there is STILL a Swedish citizen kept captive at the Guantanamo base - no charges have been issued, no sign of life for the last 5 months, no nothing. Just vague promises that he will be 'released shortly'. We of course believe he was tortured to death a long time ago. Will Sweden even get a 'sorry, shit happens' when the truth comes out? Or will it be 'Sweden must be more cooperative or else face the consequences'..
Oooooooo it drives me MAD! MAAD!
I don't think palestinians have computers, let alone use open source software. And even if they did, they are entitled to, since software is neither good nor bad by itself. And even if they use open source, how can they harm us ? I don't see the connection. What they would do to harm us ? any code contribution filled with back doors will be caught in the blink of an eye. It is silly to claim that the use of open source software by terrorist groups makes the software bad.
:-)
On the other hand, we have rogue nations. But the analogy is the same as with terrorist groups. Even if these nations use OSS to power their research or to drive their missiles, I still can't understand how that makes OSS bad. They can use illegal copies of Microsoft Windows...would that make Windows bad software (TM) ?
Maybe the gentleman that said so has connections with a big non-OSS company(*cough* MS *cough*). It's not unusual to find ties between businessmen and high-ranking military personnel. After all, the bussiness deals of the Pentagon are worth millions, and software is involved in most of these projects(gone are the days of simple mechanical devices, everything is software-driven).
Another possible explanation is that some important people don't want poor countries to be developed, and OSS surely helps towards that direction. Poor countries means cheap labour, exploitation of natural resources and low prices, big profit for them.
What else shall we hear about open source, I wonder...some people can't stomach the fact that something so valuable is given for free...damn you Linus!!!
.. is that this comes from the samer people who sold Iraq chemical weapons and now are running to try to get thyem back. Hilarious to me! Really! Yeah, I know, it's not that hilarious because it's stupid and makes us think how stupid is army. Gladly I'm a brazilian!
Hell, totalitarian regimes benefit from the easy availability of light pickup trucks that can be used as assault vehicles. Better stop making them.
I bet Craftsman tools are sometimes used in making pipe bombs. Better stop making wrenches, and for that matter, pipe. It's enabling technology.
This is just another step by technophobes to try to slow down stuff they don't understand. It's really starting to bug me.
Well after reading the recent stories on Cisco adding back doors to allow law enforment agencies to snoop on network traffic, it really seems that the US government doesn't want anyone to be able to communicate without their being able to snoop. It really makes me wonder if snooping functionality is already in Windows? I'm sure the government has already asked for it. How else could you explain the anti-trust lawsuite going away so easily? If Windows already has government snooping capabilities built in, then it's in the governments best interest to keep Microsoft dominent on the desktop. ... Or have I seen one too many episodes of the X Files?
Reading the statement by the Darpa representative carefully is important. It could also be interpreted that they don't want to fund someone who has a political view that is different than that of the U.S.
The representative never said that DARPA's viewpoint was that terrorist states were using open source. She said:
"...due to world events and the evolving threat posed by increasingly capable nation-states, the Government on April 21 advised the University to suspend work on the "security fest" portion of the project."
This doesn't imply that the U.S. thinks that open source is a terrorist tool. It just states that Darpa's view and I think largely because of Theo's comments they want nothing to do with this project.
Theo should be ashamed of himself for using his position as the project leader as a platform for his political views. It undermines the efforts of everyone else who worked on the project.
It's the same thing as a movie star using their position as a pulpit. No one cares.
for terrorists to use Windows (probably have some back doors built in for them to use). With Open Source, they can't have a back door because it would be quickly found. With obscurity, it will take longer to find and when it is found it's just a "bug".
I mean, you could almost argue that most things could, in some sense or fashion 'support terrorism'.
Let's face it, there is no way to possibly live in peace around the world. I mean, who would want to? Think of how incredibly boring life would be if there was absolutely nothing happening anywhere. BORING! I mean, think about a visit to the doctor's office and how it is in the waiting room, noone talking, no real noise, just sitting there waiting quietly. People do it because they have to and you think people in this world would actually live their lives that way? It just simply won't happen, as much as we might like it to.
Get used to how things are, because it's only going to get worse...
Open source software to me is a manifestation of a free exchange of ideas... ideas so valued that they can be (and are) "exchanged" for money as well.
Should University educations become limited in their scope unless students pass security clearances?
The thing that "gets me" about the current "war on terrorism" is how much damage has been done in the wake of Sept. 11 to the ideas supposedly in conflict with said terrorists. This will be their legacy and ours to bear.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? - Joshua (Wargames)
Next step is for OSS systems to be re-classified as a munitions, and since its "aiding terrorists", via the patriot act, it will be banned and all major contributors will be 'detained'.
Don't laugh.. its coming, they already restrict the export of commercial software such as MSWindows and PGP for this very reason..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Obviously, this is a positive step forward. Free and Open Source Software, particularily a security focused Open Operating Systems like OpenBSD, is the worst the kind of terrorism.
Its not like the good ole money-making, capitalist terrorism like drugs, music piracy, and copyright litigation....
Oh no, its Communist! Communist terrorists are out to threaten the American economy and the rich American way of life.
We are through the looking glass here people. Don't support OSS and if you have in the past, go out and buy a Chevy Tahoe as penitance.
Capitalism! It's in you to give!
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -Tom Waits
Perhaps we should outlaw wrenches because without wrenches you could not build a car, a car that ultimately could be used as a car-bomb.
Software is a tool, much like a wrench or screwdriver. It has no morality, it is neither good or bad (in the moral sense, we all know there is bad software out there). The people that use it determine wether it is being used for good or evil. If product "A" is not available, they will simply move to product "B" and get the same results.
I know I am stepping slightly away from the article here but...
Frankly, I suspect that it was only a matter of time before someone started to equate terrorisim and open-source software. Not because they are related at all but simply because the P.R. budget for open source software does not have the funds available to defend against the allegation.
It is up to individual orginizations (be they governments, companies, schools, or rotary clubs) to determine what they want to fund. If they conclude that they may be funding something an orginization that they fundamentally oppose could profit from the project they are funding, it is certainaly their right to pull the funding.
I have to wonder how the seeds of this decision were planted. Did a company approach them and say "Look, you are builing something that you have no idea how it will be used and are placing it in the hands of your enemy?" If so, perhaps the company's motive wasn't so pure. Perhaps there is a profit motive that influenced the decision? That I may have a problem with and from where I sit, it seems likely.
The real problem is how the G.W. Administration and the Military defines Terrorist States. It's a dangerous us-and-them attitude that is completely out of date and distorts our relative weaknesses/advantages dealing with "them". If a whole nation-state and most of its people support terrorists and other questionable policy, like nuclear proliferation, then we should take a defensive posture against them. This is no different than the defensive posture against any other potentially threatening nation, like China.
I'm not even going to take the moral high-road here. In pure Machiavellian politics' terms, the best way to neutralize a threat is to become a means to the enemy's ultimate ends. The G.W. hardliners reject this because they refuse to see the humanity of these people. Poor arab states are populated with people who have not learned concepts like "rule-of-law" and "sanctity of human life" and "people have inalienable rights". The poor, uneducated arab hoi-polloi doesn't recognise those particular carrots dangling in front of them. G.W. and his people think that makes it impossible to deal with them. No, that makes it difficult.
What we need is an enlightened policy towards terrorist states that includes the entire spectrum from friendly, stable, peaceful, democratic nations all the way to unpredictable, dangerous, junta-of-the-day, dictatorships. Things like promoting human rights works to pacify entire nations. Promoting the idea of "limits on powers of government" doesn't sit well with dictatorships' ideas on sovreignty, but in a purely Machiavellian tone: it is wisdom.
You hit on a very important concept, but you fail to underline the dangerous truth behind it. The reason things are so tense between the USA and all these poor countries that harbor terrorists is that our societies are so different. We are advancing and delivering a richer curriculum to more and more of our own people, while "they" are getting less and less. The difference, the gap, is widening, and it has as much to do with our advances as it does with their stagnation. The gap is why G.W. and his people feel so frustrated trying to find foreign policy that fits.
G.W.'s foreign policy is a step away from Bill Clinton's "engagement" policy wherein the USA compromised little by little to achieve social and economic footholds in societies with which we have weak diplomatic security. To my knowledge, we contiune that with China. They are an advanced society with much more in common with the USA than others. The tough ones take a couple of generations to make that kind of progress.
Conceded: the older people in the power seats of those nations are just too slow to chnage their attitudes. However, their children, especially their teenagers, are psychologically and developmentally receptive to American doctrine of rights and limited government, etc.. The real crime is that THOSE ARE THE PEOPLE WE SHOOT! We shoot our own opportunities. We shoot ourselves in the foot. If they begin to percieve us as the means to a better life, the support for terrorism will evaporate (over time). Can we wait to deal with immediate threats? Maybe not. Should we undermine our own long-term agenda because we won't be in office to take credit for the success? NO.
The bottom line is that YOU must get OFF YOUR LUMP and vote G.W. out of office. Aside: we must concede the right to keep and bear arms to the rural America that supported G.W. so staunchly.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
OpenBSD is too secure for DARPAs liking and doesn't seem to contain backdoors?
With that kind of recommendation, I consider switching my server software to OpenBSD.
Open source empowers everyone! ...
It brings capabilities of all sorts to the "Common Man", and gives much more control and "power" to anyone who uses it
If the user happens to be a terrorist, or a "terrorist oriented" nation, then, well, you do the math...
But no more than guns, or the Internet, or POTS, or Agricultural technology, or medical technology, or etc. etc. etc.
Most anything that you or I would find particularly useful, or empowering, a terrorist would also.
That is one of the fundamental risks of cool technology.
Remember the articles about Saddam ordering PS2s for weapons guidance systems (I dunno if they were accurate, but it proves the point, nontheless).
I'd say the more informed and educated your populace is, the better chance you have of having a stable and productive society. The more stable and productive a society, the less chance of extreme groups gaining popularity and sponsoring terrorism.
One way that people become informed and educated is through the Internet. To access the Internet, it takes hardware, software and bandwith. One of these things can be gotten for free; the others become cheaper on a regular basis.
Check out Geek Corps for an example of a group that is taking this theory and running with it. They are trying to bring the Internet to the citizens of the world. I think it's a noble cause. People often argue "give them food, water, etc", and of course they are right. But in the long term you need an educated populace that can be informed about the world about them to have a stable society and to make informed decisions when participating in their country's political processes. In the long run I think "free software" == "real freedom" for places that have oppressive governments.
(I speak only for myself, as always.)
Read the U.S. Constitution. The Electoral College elects the president. The state legislatures are responsible for selecting their representatives to the Electoral College. Nowhere does it say that the president is elected by popular vote.
The state legislatures have mostly decided that they will select Electoral College representatives (Electors) based on the results of a popular vote within their state. If the popular vote fails for whatever reason, it is still the constitutional responsibility of the state legislatures to select Electors.
The popular vote is not the key to the presidential election. That misconception has been deliberately promulgated by the Democrats. The Electoral College system will not be changed in the foreseeable future and the Democrats have not helped their constituents by encouraging them to misunderstand the process.
When special forces got into iraq and Afghanistan, they did not find Linx, or BSD, or any other open source OS's. They found WINDOWS.
At least people making comments like this could do a little research first.
I thought terrorist states were caused by my countries short sighted foriegn policy decisions...
Not to mention the giving of Weapons of Mass Destruction to know killers and tyrants because it suits our purposes in the region.
All along, it was OpenBSD's fault. Man, now I feel like a putz for actually thinking OpenBSD was good.
Geez, next I'll find out "Peanuts" is anti-semetic!
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Let's ground all airplanes. They also enable terrorist activities. And while we're at it, let's outlaw the sale of knives and shutdown the postal service (bio-threat distribution channel).
"Replicants are like any other machine. They're either a benefit or a hazard. (...)". Same applies to open source and free software.
The beauty of free and open source software is that it enables _________ (anything).
It enables companies anywhere to try and find a cure for cancer. It enables schools to teach children. It enables hospitals and doctors to take better care of their patients. It empowers users. Whoever they are. Just like an airplane. Just like a knife.
"Does open source and freely available security support terrorism by its very nature?"
Why, yes of course. As do guns. Hell, THE INTERNET supports terrorism by its very nature, following the same logic. Freedom of Speech ?= Terrorism.
I love this plan. By cutting off terrorists' access to computer software, they will be thrown back to the stone age and become much less a threat. Because terrorists don't have any money to purchase software from legitimate companies like Microsoft, they rely totally on free software like BSD and Linux.
By eliminating those free software projects we can effectively stop terrorists from obtaining the vital software they need to build bombs.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Does open source and freely available security support terrorism by its very nature?
Yes, it supports terrorism just like other things that terrorists use to live and do their jobs. Things like clothing, telephones, buses, automobiles, closed source software, money, knives, guns, school classrooms, etc.
Any intelligent person will recognize that free and open source software is only one of many tools that a terrorist might use; it is not some critical key or linchpin in their nefarious schemes.
Few people are really willing to think clearly about what the real roots of terrorism are and how best to address those causes.
However, on a bright note, it certainly is some kind of vote of confidence in free and open source software that authorities in the U.S. government think it will be too useful to terrorists. That fear, even though it is exaggerated, is still an answer to the question:
Next thing you know some radical will be claiming that free and open source software will be useful to businesses, governments and individuals, too.What will come of society if that happens.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
That's like saying AK-47's support terrorism.
"I couldn't agree more, except for the fact that in america, the masses are in power.
... just in case you haven't realized, America has become a democratic dictatorship. Those with sense are at the mercy of the one in power, and he was put there, not by the vote of the populace, but by $100 million of corporate lobbying money.
Err
America, the land of the "free".
Maybe I am a bit too paranoid - but does anyone have a non-paranoid explanation?
There's been a backdoor since Windows 95. Can't remember the specifics, but somebody broke down a security .dll and found two passwords- one was for MS, nobody could figure out for sure what the second one was. Then, apparently, in a Win 2k patch, some MS guy forgot to remove the comments, and I believe the line went something like this: //MS Backdoor Key //NSA Backdoor Key
So yes, boys and girls, it's there. They've had the capability. Just like the MS Admin account in XP. Can't see it, but it's there. They can COMPLETELY control your machine. And you'll never know it. (cept for the bandwidth...but from what I hear, they only hit those on high speed anyway)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Anything that empowers people can/will be misused by a few. But freedom's worth that price.
Perhaps some of them should look at how life is lived elsewhere on the planet to see just how lucky they really are. Other countries have lived with terrorism for decades, and survived without declaring farcical Wars, or subverting all their nation's values.
I wonder if in the developed nations, people today feel too safe - in evolutionary terms, we're so used to having so many things to be concerned about, that we don't feel right without any and so invent them...
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Finally a voice of freaking reason on this subject!
For those of you who haven't been in charge of a DARPA contract, there are very specific rules on how money can be spent. There is some speculation that Theo's hack-a-thon violated these rules, so the 'Work Stop Order' came down as a response. It most likely has nothing to do with terrorists, open source, anti-war statements, or beer.
Good god, people! All of this attention is NOT going to benefit these kinds of projects in the future!
Cat, the other, tastier white meat.
OK, so I guess the American Government shouldn't use Microsoft because they have shared their source code with China. Don't you think it is MORE scary to have close source code given to a country that does not like the US, then to use OSS where at least everyone has access to it?
AAROUGH...
Allowing people to post to /. as Anonymous Cowards allows people like me, Saddam Hussein, to anonymously disseminate anti-American sentiment! /. must be shut down in the name of Patriotism! It's the only American thing to do!
Me, I'm just glad the bombing's over. Thanks, guys. Would you mind cleaning up after yourselves on the way out?
You know what else enables terrorist states? Sunny skies and clean air. I picture them just soaking it up, those damn terrorists. What we need is a gooood lonnng nuclear winter.
"How about guns? Terrorists use guns... is our military industry to be forced to stop selling guns too?" is a more sensible one, especially given the source of many "mass destruction" weapons circulating the world today.
Here's the way it works: anything that the terrorists can use to aid in their attack is hereby no longer supported by the US Government. Take plants, for example.
You see, plants possess the ability to produce oxygen, which terrorists use to breathe. As they are breathing, they have a tendency to attack the United States. Therefore, plants are obviously a threat to national security. This explains why the US refuses to sign the Kyoto treaty. They've also begun to burn every national forest, and are paying lesser nations (through devious trade agreements) to destroy all the rain forests in the world.
Down with plants! They are the tools of the enemy!!
--Mid
De Raadt was reasonably certain that his comments led to the funding cuts, and he was shocked by Smith's statements.
"A tenured professor was telling me not to exercise my freedom of speech," he told The Associated Press last week.
Ok, I previously had no opinion on this topic, but now I do. Theo, learn what free speech is.
Nobody passed a law to say you can't speak. No jack booted thugs broke into your house and dragged you out of bed at 3am...
Apparently you have the Susan Sarandon / Tim Robbins concept of free speech, which is "I can say anything I want, and and NOBODY should be allowed to respond to it."
BTW, I'm not for the war either, but I'm smart enough not to bite the hand that feeds me and think I'll still be fed.
Support the OpenBSD developers by getting a 3.3 CD $40 or for Europe EUR 45
There is a new Tshirt: 3.3 Tshirt $20 or for Europe EUR 20
The new 3.3 poster is very nice too, get it for $10 US or EUR 14 in Europe
If you prefer OpenSSH, have a look at this new Tshirt OpenSSH 2 $20 or for Europe EUR 20
thank you.
The man who said this have no idea how easily closed source software can recruit terrorist. The other day I were using Windows98 for about half an hour. If the package did not contain a picture of drugs againts insanity, al-quaida would have me recruited without much effort.
...a nation that sacrifices its freedom for security deserves neither.
(seems a relavant point to keep in mind)
...and the small man versus the corporation and the intollerant religious zealot and the teacher in the inner city and the child pornographer and the poor missionary to the third world and the despots that opress the missionary and the researchers that fight genetic diseases and so on and so forth....
Basically this is the gun control argument all over again and the real question is do you give up your principles and freedom because bad people can profit from it? The answer is not if you're true to the spirit in which America was founded. But then who really cares about that when you can call someone a supporter of terrorism and get your political agenda pushed through?
Software, much like a gun or knife or stick, is just a tool, it's the person holding it that you should hold accountable not the inanimate object.
Get AI working and then we can have a real philisophical discussion around this that doesn't have easy answers but until then it's pretty straight forward and only bureaucrats and politicians can really fuck it up and make it complicated.
It's not about that, it's about built-in backdoors in commercial US software. How many of them exist without anyone knowing about it?
I've heard this a couple of times now, and its left me wondering if we should outlaw pantyhose and Halloween masks because they enable bank robbers.
I do a lot of embedded development and I remember one of the SH4 reference boards having a wonderful license which basically forbade any terrorist or military use. Of course people that think violence is a good idea aren't going to be slowed down by a license but it still was a nice touch.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Any achievement of technology or culture has the potential to empower terrorist states. Open source software cannot be singled out. The real issue is the moral choice: are all of these achievements to be used for good or for evil?
Why is open source any more of a threat than just copying the latest MS disk? MS argues that they have the best operating system ever, so steal that one. Big companies have disks floating all over the place with the keys prominanly displayed on the cover. MS tells you how to add new drivers etc.. How is open source any more vulnerable to misuse than any other operating system?
Besides there is no fun in "stealing" from people who just give you their code!
This just in! Air has been discovered to support terrorist leaders. All air will be immediately removed, please see your local Beaureu of Wasted tax money Agent to apply for a permit to breathe again. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Patent: from Latin patere, to be open
I thought it was said that _piracy_ helped terrorists. So, I must ask: why, if they have all the pirated software they need (and money from it), would they want to be sure they're in full compliance with software license agreements? Surely if they're set to kill masses and sell software that they have no rights to, they wouldn't have anything against using that pirated software themselves... Or is it something about how OSS is so much more powerful than things like, say, Windows?...
-DrkShadow
For those who still are not clear on america's (the gov't, the media, corporations, and anyone else wanted to sway the popular opinion of Joe "I hates them 'ragheads' what done blowed up our tow'rs" Public.) current favorite propaganda tool, it works like this.
1. Target subject
2. Relate subject to terrorism, no matter how irrevelant or ridiculous or completely unfounded the relation may be.
3. Watch majority of public fall in line (while small intelligent yet insignificant portion realizes your smear campaign is complete bullshit.)
The GPL will force them to return all of their changes to the kernel and we can review their patches and keep track of what they are up to! It's all a very sneaky calculated move. Stop complaining or you'll screw it up.
With the EU and European governments funding open source projects, and the US government now pulling the plug and pushing people in the direction of insecure, closed-source products because of political contributions, with no peer-review of the code, we're going to see the Shuttle vs Arianne all over again.
Let's see the US using IIS and Europe cleaning up the hosting market by using Apache. Let's face it guys, Europeans invented the Web, and US business never did get its head round the openness part of the whole concept.
Now I certainly don't want to take a sour grapes attitude towards anyone lucky enough to work on free software for a living, but where did this sense of entitlement come from? This isn't a case of "The Man" trying to explicitly or passively interfere with the development of free software. It's just that the gravy train came to the last stop. Regardless of whether this actually -is- the product of some paranoia-induced scenario involving miffed beuracrats or moustache-twirling evildoers, all that happened was that they turned the money off. I don't see any moral obligation for UPenn, DARPA, Dick Cheney, my mom, or anyone else to fund OpenBSD. "Thanks for all the money, DARPA, sorry it had to come to an end. Let us know what we can do to convince you to keep springing for the Mountain Dew and motherboards." You know what government they should really be pissed at? Eretria! AFAIK, Eretria hasn't spent one dime on funding OpenBSD. Coalition of the Willing, indeed! Brian
I didn't pay attention to politics until my country started to scare me. Recently.
I was watching the news and saw that some terrorist organizations are known to use cars and even pickup trucks in their operations. Since american manufacturers produce cars and might unknowingly be aiding terrorists we shoud consider much tighter control and use of these forms of technology. I also feel that since terrorists might send letters to each other or even write notes in pencil that Interpol and other international security agencies should work to limit public access to the post office and #2 pencils. Those who do not remember history will be forced to repeat it!
These people are just shills for M$.
When will the M$ zealots ever give up??
I guess not as long as us nix zealots breath free air....
This guy has no idea what he's talking about. All my car-bombs and sniper rifles run WinXP...
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
What we need is a nice safe secure police state, and nightly bed checks by the secret police. And no slouching!
Sure we will have given up all our freedoms, but at least we'll be SAFE!
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
If you were in Baghdad, do you think you wouldn't be scared?
I would be scared. But I would understand that the goal is not to scare me. They day after the fall of Baghdad, the people did not cower in their houses afraid that American troops would come and kill them. Rather they took to the streets (in both good ways and bad ways) because they understood that they were not the targets. Consider if Osama Bin Laden somehow conquered New York city. Would you go to a rally in Times Square confident that his troops wouldn't hurt you?
I said: Whereas George Bush says: "Iraqis, we are not out to get you. We want Saddam."
You responded: Is George Bush trustworthy?
It doesn't matter. The goal of terrorism is to send a message. If George Bush sends a message that he doesn't want to hurt people then he isn't engaging in terrorism. If he hurts them anyway, especially purposefully, then he is engaging in treachery, not terrorism. Next you'll be claiming that when chemical companies dump carcinogens in the river they are engaging in terrorism. Why not just attach the word terrorism to everything we don't like?
Preach it brother.
I support most of the actions of the Administration, particularly in foreign policy.
This action, however, is shortsighted. Dumb. A big fucking mistake. 10 pounds of stupidity in a 5-pound bag.
NSA, if you're reading this (and we all know you are :), thanks for a nice after-dinner "snac" of consolidated security tips I can pass on to my users. I humbly submit that the "Secure American b0xen against furriner 0wnij" part of your dual mandate demands that you deliver a righteous bitchslapping upon the right people in the right places as regards open source development.
Politicians don't listen to geeks, because we don't speak politician. They might listen to you.
If, by definition, an OSS OS is a threat to national security because terrorists use it, then corporations such as Microsoft are suddenly the good guys because they perpetuate closure against the public, allow mass distribution of vulnerabilities to propogate unchecked, take more than 24 hours to fix those problems, have a higher stock value? Are they really saying that they're merely too lazy to sit down and learn things? They think that because they've already graduated that any new sort of 'way' is simply wrong and must be scrutinized as such because it has had the time to develop into a much more mature environment that is 'free' from direct control? If they want control over it in any way, they'll take the time to learn the system, particularly if the current alternatives are really that insulting to their level of so-called intelligence. Oh, but don't let us, the people, have our voices heard, after all, money talks and bullshit walks.
Wouldn't terrorists just as easily pirate commercial software. I don't see how free software would make things any easier for terrorists who, by their very nature, would have no moral qualms with pirating commercial software. Seriously, are terrorists going to print their newsletters in OpenOffice or a pirated copy of Word?
Ahhh yes.... A new freidn added to my list. I love giving people that green dot when they say something really cool.
Un-news
Open source certainly DOES support terrorism. So does freedom of speech. The right to keep and bear arms does as well. I, personally, believe that farmers are growing food and offering this food (at fair market prices, of course) to terrorists to sustain them. I've heard that some of the oxygen produced by trees in countries such as Canada and South America are allowed to drift to places like Pakistan and Syria and are breathed by terrorists who need that vital oxygen to keep them going while they plot against America and its allies.
Terrorists would have it just as hard as me trying to configure BSD. I'd say it's a weapon AGAINST terror!
:)
Stable, Solid and a Complete Fucking Mystery...BSD is for me!
It is typical of this american administration in an attempt to line its own pockets, after all free software - no tax dollar. The markets are so reliant on M$ that they let them off on the antitrust siut.
Does american freedom of speech aid terrorism? that has gone. Does the war crimes tribunal aid terrorism? Bush opted out of that.
Does domocracy aid terrorism? (in the wrong country - probably) at least Saddam got a majority vote - one up on Bush.
As a British citizen, my stake in this is the blind americanisation of our culture, ideology and worst of all business practice. You can take your two faced ideals and try to push them onto somebody more stupid than yourselves (If you can find them).
Just to remind all you rednecks that the biggest supporter of middle east (and UK) is America. To the tune of 3 Billion in military aid to Israel to maintain more breaches of UN resolutions than Saddam himself.
If you have the ability to deliver a message to a large group of people, you should use it. Especially when it can further the political ideas that you want to foster. There is nothing wrong with this. Otherwise, we'd have to say that the opinions posted here on Slashdot are the same.... No one cares. I say that's false. Apparently someone does care, otherwise no one would be responding to any of these posts. To quote Depeche Mode:
You can't change the world,
but you can change the facts.
And when you change the facts,
you change points of view.
If you change points of view.
You may change a vote.
And when you change a vote.
You may change the world...
That's what most "political" posters try to do here every day. They try to change the facts. Theo was just "changing the facts" just like we do. No crime there...
you know the rest.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
> Does open source and freely available security support terrorism by its very nature?
/. in general - indicate), proponents of open source are in their vast majority on the far left of the political spectrum. And in the recent century, ESPECIALLY recent 20 years, left wing has been a lot more supportive of terrorism - on all levels - than right wing. Please note that i'm not saying that every individual open souce developer supports terrorism. Just that as a mass, their combined views help terorists, whether the people hlding them intend to or not.
1) Software is a tool, like any tool it supports whatever goal (freedom or terrorism) the user of the tool supports.
2) HOWEVER, open source *community*, unfortunately, supports terrorism by nature. No this is not a troll, so please don't moderate as such even if you disagree with my political views. Hear me out and if you disagree, tell me why my logic is at fault.
Why is it so? Because (as most comments in this thread - or on
- Financial support. Yes, I know that CIA financed Mujaheddin. But socialist countries (openly admired by many on the left) have supported/created almost every other terrorist organization out there, and i'm not even mentioning that most of those organizations are officially "marxist", or "socialist", or otherwise left-wing.
- Political support. Whether or not you are pro-Israel or anti-Israel, ONLY those on the left wing have ever issued any statements other than condemning murder of innocent civilians without any attempt to justify them. Those one the left range from "we will condemn them only after they stop occupation" to "it is a valid weapon in the fight against stronger foe".
The same exact pattern repeated itself after 9/11 towards US. Those on the left often view terrorism as an excusable method of doing things.
- Opposition to anti-terrorism. Ranging from general "anti-US-ianism", to opposing any forceful method to stop terrorists because you don't condone forceful methods. Willingness to believe every word Saddam's Information Ministry said over what US press reported (no offense, but having lived in USSR - which was far freeer than Iraq - all I can say to those who think so is taht they are dumb morons with no clue as to reality of the world).
If you don't believe what I just said on in the second point (about political support), or the third one, just read comments in this article carefully.
-DVK
"The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it"-R.A.Heinlein
Open source has gotten along fine without subsidies from the government, and can continue to do so. If De Raadt wants to have his meeting he should solicit donations to pay the hotel bill and forget about convincing the government.
Posting the IP just invites people to attack it. The only benign use would be reverse nslookup, but even that isn't much use to the LAW ABIDING.
I guess you think it's legal and fun to hack/DOS/annoy someone because they post something on a message board that YOU don't like.
Oh, and by the way, the real trolls use proxies, so all your packet storms and syn floods would be aimed at a legimate service, ASSHOLE!
(former) as privacy czar.
What do you REALLY expect?
Accepting a man's money, you are beholden to him and eventually accept his ideology. Similarly, those who take government grants are in a clear danger of (and I would argue obligation to) this.
... an Empire.
Those who support the government or takes its money or favors will eventually be called upon to support the Imperial model.
De Raadt and his people may find themselves in need of financial support, but they can't continue to avoid submission to this ideology.
... and it's still possible to do so without encountering a lynch mob.
... until Corporate American lawyers make their case in the courts that Open Source material is a de facto violator of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
The USA government is currently into transformation of a Republic into a world power
Once the meta-phrase "supports terrorism" was used in relation to their work, no official, judge or jury will help their case. Obviously, by my tone here, I think that de Raadt and his crew should ditch their naivete about the matter and separate themselves from the Empire's demands. It's still legal to develop software for anyone to use
P.S. It's still legal
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Ironically, we might get there by giving unjustifiable power to the government to protect us from imaginary fears. Might I offer a quote:
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger." [Emphasis mine]
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
That is the most absurd thing I've ever heard (or aleast in top 5). I read recently that open source implementations of TCP/IP tend to have better code (less buffer overflows etc) and that OpenBSD tends to be on of the most secure OS's.
The world should recognize a Konzentrationslager when it sees one.
And poke her, with the soft cushions!!!
This is representative of the change in American outlook in the last 30 or so years and even more so under this current administration.
Specifically, there are two main points that have changed dramatically from the ideals of the forefathers.
America was founded on the principle that the little guy can beat the big guy and equality for all. The idea that the government should support rising individuals over the large groups. This is evident by the anti-monopoly acts and also the basic tenets of Democracy.
As someone else had mentioned in, America is no longer a democracy, rather an Empire. We [as in the administration] often talks about supporting democracy worldwide, however, in actions, we support oppression and dictatorship over the choice of the people. Throughout the last 30 or so years, there are numerous examples of this. Even now, are we going to let the Iraqi people have a democracy? According to recent reports, the Iraqis want a Islamic government.
Now you are wondering how this relates to the article. Because of this mentality, we [the administration] want to be able to have direct control of everything. This is contrary to the open source mentality. In open source development, no one person has direct control over the development. Even if there is, people can branch off and do there own thing.
The American government likes the large corporations like the Microsofts of the world. If they want something done, there is a single point of communication. If they don't like something, there is a person/group that you can go to.
I'm sorry, I was going to analyze this further, but don't have time right now..
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
Everyone knows that Linux supports terrorists!
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
There are a number of middle-class Americans and British people who have died in this conflict. They are not poor or oppressed. In fact, in terms of US forces, they are all volunteers!
I know people with jobs and kids and house payments who volunteered to be a part of the US military, and are putting their lives on hte line for me and for my family.
Some of them would be called "extremists" by the slashdot crowd, and yet they today are half-way around the planet, willing to die.
Just because they have money and responsibilities does not mean that they won't die for something important.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
You say "truth cannot be known"
:)
Can you say that absolutely?
BTW - I would submit to you that the Inquisition was *not* about truth, but rather a corruption of the teachings of Christ.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Theo de Raadt wrote:
Nice to know the ACLU is there to defend de Raadt's Constitutional right to taxpayer money.
If there is no absolute truth, then might makes right.
What Saddam did to his people was right, and by definition, what we are doing in Iraq is right.
In fact, if I'm more powerful than you, then I get to define what is right - even if it means killing you!
And - how can you know that "the only absolute truth is that absolute truth is a myth to comfort the simpleminded"?
One of the tests of a worldview is whether its adherents can live integrally - according to the consequenses of their views.
Relativism collapses under its own weight. It cannot stand.
You may claim to be a relativist, but I submit to you that you must live your life according to absolutes.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
see you guys in prison!!!
Anything you can think of "empowers terrorists", likewise, anything you can think of restricts terrorists...
Examples:
Computers - crypto, word processing, virtual reality games, training videos, etc. - all can be used by terrorists for their nefarious purposes, or can be used by the "good guys" for their purposes... Do we now ban computers? Nope...
Vehicles - gasoline, diesel, oil, etc. Used to transport good guys to whack bad guys... Used by bad guys to transport their stuff to try and whack the good guys... Do we now ban vehicles? Nope...
Chemicals - used by everyone in some way or another for something... Do we ban these? nope...
I guess what I'm getting at is that banning 'things' because they 'might' be used by a terrorist in commission of some terrorist act is asinine. You could ban *EVERYTHING* and the terrorists would still have use of their body parts to attack with - what then?
The only way to resolve the problem is to innovate. And I don't just mean weapons - how about actually figuring out what the craziness is being caused by and negotiate it out?
Why not just attach the word terrorism to everything we don't like?
Why not just go to war with everything you don't like? (Drugs, Poverty, Terrorism...)
Score -1: Tin Foil Hat Needs Readjustment Alert.
Agree that this is an equally Orwellian abuse of language.
The current administration was elected by the supreme court. Stop listening to the revisionist histories of the neo-con pundits.
Wow, dude, you've got a lot of hatred welled up right there. You know, when people are forced, through brainwashing or other means, to believe something that can't be backed up by facts, they usually respond to differing opinions with the piss and vinegar stated above.
French people are disgusting cowards.
Ahh, yes, respond with childish name calling, how quaint.
Those pieces of shit desecrating the graves of the brave souls who laid down their lives
Who is desecrating whose graves? I don't understand.
whom they considered a close personal friend (why else would they have so fully supported the nazi regime, fucking cunts.)
Close personal friend? Fully supported? Wow, some people will believe any of the spewage that comes off Fox News these days. Here's an idea, go check some history books, and not ones written recently by neo-con pundits. I'm talking about factual history, here, not revisionist history. Oh, and more name calling. You're showing your IQ here, careful!
Why don't people like the guy above ever whine about Germany? I mean, didn't they, too, oppose this war? I don't hear anyone wanting to rename the "Hamburger". Or, maybe it's that the neo-cons might have to give up driving their BMW's and Benz's. Why just France? Is it that maybe some people just have a deep seated hatred of France, and now feel it's open season?
To sum up, fuck France, and fuck you hippie.
Yes, that's nice, thank you.
That being said, I support your right to spout your ignorant comments and remind you that a lot of blood has been shed to protect that right.
You don't support my right to free speech, people that disagree with the president are trying to protect your right to free speech! That's all a lot of talk to make yourself look a teensy bit better after that diatribe. You don't understand even the basic concepts of free speech. If you did, you might stop to consider the reasons why so many people, hippie and yuppie, left AND right, regardless of race or economic status, do not support this war. And if you want to talk about bloodshed, yes, a lot has spilled to protect our rights, but a lot has also been spilled to protect the rights of oil companies. Have you noticed that nothing at all has changed in Iraq since before the bombs started falling? Except maybe the fact that more buildings have been destroyed. You just wait another 5-10 years, you'll see that Iraq is no freer, and yet another dictator will be in place under the supervision of the US. Diplomacy was working, the inspections were working, but good ol' W had to keep rattling his saber and mouthing off (kinda like you are) and that's pretty much what pissed Germany and France off. They don't like Saddam any more than we do. And if you want to play the WMD card, yes, France sold them weapons... gasp! So did we!!!!! Who's the real bad guy here? And if you have a problem with something that Jacque Chirac (he's the president of France, did you know that?) said, why do you have to roll the entire population of France up into one generalization? My guess is that you probably have racist tendencies, which goes back to my earlier statement that you know NOTHING about free speech.
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. - Tennessee Williams
And with Microsoft's latest effort to try to make their OS's as "secure" as possible, shouldn't all these people picking on opensource be targeting Microsoft as well, since they are now SECURE?
You mean the one where they give copies of the source code to the information warfare departments of all the major powers (including the US's former enemies - Russia and China), but still keep it a "secret" from the public-sector crypto and software scholars?
B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
... similar to the market share amongst non-terrorists. Microsoft clarly supports terrorism and the death of innocents.
...
The only difference is that opern source indirectly supports terrorism. Microsoft supports terrorism and profits from it
Why would this be a troll? Saying that I added someone to my friends list should be off-topic at worst... Idiot moderator.
Whoever thought the new millenia had no surpises in store, that y2k was the measure of things to come, that now we wouldn't have a blade-runner future.. pshaw.
Terrorists lurk around every corner, and some even in broad daylight. They have "Free Software" T-Shirts on, and dirty bombs in their backpacks.
Did you think "we won the cold war"? Who's "we"? What's "cold war"? What's a communist? The poor Russians who could barely keep food on their tables?
Open and free? Pshaw. Lamer talk for communism. There, I've said it.
Osama bin Laden uses OpenBSD. Iraq's IT dept. contributes half of the man-coding-hours to the project. Syria and North Korea write the device drivers, thinnly masquerading for the real ICBM control systems they are. We're screwed! They've had us all along and all we could talk about was KDE vs. Gnome. How naive we were!
Stallman is the next Hussein. Dirty commie in libertarian drag.
God Bless America! Let's Roll! Support Our Troops! Down with !
Exactly my point. You said it in 405 chars, I said it in 38. ;) CNN and FOX get too much attention as it is. Leading a link there would only further promote them and their imbalance. Of the other news sources CBC is probably the most (culturally) accessible to 'Mericans yet, in quality, one of the top two English news sources for now.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
About Persian women:
Two little words:
Christiane Amanpour
Interesting merge of French and Persoan culture:-)
If you have read any of the Null-A books by A.E. van Vogt you may have a vague idea of what general semantic is.
Recently I have started to read Science & Sanity, the first book introducing a general non-Aristotelonian system, as opposed to the restricted, non-Aristotelonian systems developed in different sciences (e.g. non-Euclidian geometry and non-Newtonian physics (quantum theory and relativity)).
The reason why this post is not totally off topic is because in a null-A system (null-A stands for non-Aristotelian) you reject the principle of excluded middle, which states that something is either true or false, black or white... without any possible value in between, like fuzzy logic in CS.
Rejecting it means that you have to look at the world with all its shades of grey and its absence of any absolute truth, you don't tend to see one side as being right and the other being all wrong, all good and all evil.
Another reason why null-A systems are relevant to the current discussion is the rejection of identification, that a word is not the object it designates, that even an object or a person is not the same from moment to moment. In an ever changing world, what may be true at one point may not be true at another point, so how could anoybody have any absolute truth?
Of course the problem is that terrorists are not teached to look at the world that way. Actually, the problem is that almost nobody is teached thus, making all of us more or less susceptible to go crazy and crash a plane in a building, kill those that criticize and oppose us or use our military might to invade a much smaller country and getting call to calling those that disagree with us traitors*.
Maybe null-A systems are not the answer (I am just starting to study it so I don't really know much yet) but there must be something better than the current way humans react with the world and each other than this and general semantics is a step in the direction of finding because it is at least looking for it; which makes it worth looking at in my opinion.
* And in case you don't get it I am not just talking about Saddam invading Kuwait here.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,