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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
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
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".
------
"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.
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?
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.
Well - just a couple of non-serious points:
a) GPL lets you hide altered source if you don't give the program to anyone else.
b) I don't think the evil terrorists would care if they weren't allowed
welcome into Soviet America!
and Microsoft giving the source code to Windows to the Chinese government is a bake sale
God Fucking Damnit
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.
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.
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.
...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.
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>
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!
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.
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.