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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.
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"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
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.
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".
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"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
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 ??
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.
If it can not be controlled, it must be destroyed.
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.
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.
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
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.
welcome into Soviet America!
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.
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.
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 Microsoft giving the source code to Windows to the Chinese government is a bake sale
God Fucking Damnit
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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>
not under the Patriot (insert here the version in roman characters) Act!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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?
"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!
Yup. This has been pointed out on Slashdot before, and is just as true now as it was then. Either Microsoft is guilty of terrorism, treason, and espionage, or Jim Allchin is guilty of perjury. Of course, no charges will ever be filed. Hitting a student who made the mistake of putting a few hundred MP3s on an SMB share with a $96 billion lawsuit is a much better use of the Justice Department's time and effort.
.. 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.
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...
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.
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.
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."
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...
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.)
without research, the bad people will gain an advantage, and we can't have that.
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.]
This caught my attention. I would like to know what information you base that statement on.
What countries are you speaking of, specifically? What criteria would you consider while determining those countries' levels of "Marxism/Socialism"? Which terrorist organizations were funded by these countries? In what form did the funding come in? Are there any dates or locations you can associate with these supposed collaborative efforts between the forces of communism and terrorism?
Just curious.
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..
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"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."