Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Investigating Sale of Snort as Security Risk
msmoriarty writes "The Associated Press is reporting today that the same U.S. committee that approved the Dubai ports deal is 'strongly objecting' to Israeli-based Check Point's acquisition of Snort's parent company, Sourcefire, because it doesn't want a foreign company to own Snort's underlying technology. According to the article, the broader 45-day review process rejected for the ports deal is already underway regarding this transaction, and 'secret' meetings between the FBI, DoD and Check Point have been held."
Well the govt starts programs then pays their buddies newly created company to provide a service. As opposed to the government providing the service itself. All in the name of 'smaller government.'
Well, selling of the company comes with the territory.
After I saw this article headline and for a few seconds before I read the actual article summary, I was just sitting there dumbfounded, going "wait, so that War On Drugs thing is still going on?"
You've got to love how the post can have no mention of exactly what Snort is or the objectional underlying technology actually is or does.
Is the worry that the Israeli company will change the license? If they can't do this, what is the security risk? If the technology is open source, does it really matter what country the company that owns it resides in?
Whether or not the committees's qualms about Snort are justified, bringing up the "ports deal" is a useless flamebait... We all know perfectly well, that it was not the fact of the government ownership of the Dubai company, that is the real problem with that deal...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Obviously, none of George Bush's friends or cronies have any financial interest in Check Point...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
This is ridiculous. The Israelis are our allies. I would never allow the sale of any company to muslims because in some way, somehow, money will trickle back to pro-terrorist organizations in the dump they call the middle east.
So they learned from the huge row erupting from the Dubai deal, and are doing a real review of any foreign company to avoid another fight. Isn't that what you'd like (if you think controlling access in this manner is a good idea in the first place)?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I'm a little confused here. Isn't Snort nothing but a sniffer? How could this legitimately create a problem for the U.S. government??
But isn't Snort Open Source? Doesn't that mean that the "technology" is already *out* there?
Could this just be another bogus attempt by the Bush's krewe to "spin" things, and make it look like they actually care about the US surviving another 200 years, as opposed to preparing for "The Rapture" that Fundamentalist Christians have been saying is 'comming soon', for the past 1,000 years?
Good thing there are term limits!
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Wow your ignorant.
Check Point's website has some decent info about the acquisition, albeit somewhat fluffed with marketing. They also have a pdf FAQ regarding the acquisition.
It's not a "troll". There is quite a bit of evidence that the port deal has to do with money interests of friends of GWB, otherwise the White House would not have push for it. Speculation maybe, but not a "troll".
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
This seems to be a really dumb move. Its basically telling the world that its ok for the US to take over foreign companies, but its not ok for foreign companies to take over a US business.
What doesn't make sense is Snort is OPEN SOURCE. So if someone wanted to do something to the US computers, they would have already done so. There are lots of highly skilled network layer programmers all over the world that are capable of reporducing snort's functionality. This deal will just screw the US company involved, nothing more.
When both countries and people have run up debts that they cannot service they have to be prepared to sell off things to repay those debts. Warmongering is an expensive exercise, you have to pay for by selling assets. US, get used to the idea; it will happen more and more in the future.
It is a dumb move, but you're not making sense. Foreign companies buy controlling interests in US companies all the time. And the company Dubai Ports wants to buy is British owned anyway.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A fit of irony.
From the bottom of my slashdot page:
How's the wife? Is she at home enjoying capitalism?
WTF? I like it though, one of those wierd ass random things that makes you go huh...
The Port deal was much ado about nothing. The Dubai firm was not really taking over the ports so much as taking over management of a few cargo docks. They would have nothing to do with the security operations or the overall port management.
Security operations are managed by a range of government agencies, and the overall management is usually handled by the city or county port authority.
The Checkpoint/Snort deal is quite a bit more interesting. The likely concern is that if the US government relies on the technology as part of a security infrastructure, they may not want to give control over that technology to Israel. However, as long as Snort is open source, then it seems to me that this is largely a moot issue. It seems that the appropriate response would be to contractually require Checkpoint to continue to offer Snort as an open source package for as long as they maintain it or derivative works.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
ummm dude... go back and read the time line.. The Checkpoint deal _DID_ happen before the whole port thing blew up...
Geez, any organization that wants to use the Snort source against us just has to check out the code from the CVS tree. Maybe the US is afraid they're going to corrupt the rules set? Then what are they (whoever buys Snort) going to about http://bleedingsnort.org/ ?
A Snort is a large piece of construction equipment which a tiny bird thinks may be its mother. I'm not sure what the security implications are.
That's a pretty paranoid thing to say.
As much as I love Israel, I would be against this transaction on national security grounds.
:D
I am also against the port deal also on national security grounds - although the deal has been blown out of proportion.
I support rewarding our allies like Israel and the UAE based on their contributions.
It is quite reasonable to prevent FOREIGN GOVERNMENTs and FOREIGN COMPANIES from owning key assets in the US however.
While foreign investment can be a good thing I particularly object to ANY FOREIGN GOVERNMENT ( don't care if it's the UAE, or a more traditional ally) managing our ports.
Semper Fi Carry^H^H^H^H^H Linux on!
I find it a bit ironic that the US is concerned about a lack of security from Isreal. Frankly, I think their track record is far better in that department than ours is. Wether you neccessarily agree with their politics, you gotta admit, those guys know their security.
Maybe these people should have been paying attention to IBM a bit more and actually putting forth effort to block the sale of their PCD to Lenovo.
Oh, wait... we gave China a blank check on trade. And yes, that sucking sound going towards China is our jobs leaving.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
What a nonsensical article.
First, the title implies that this whole fiasco revolves around Snort, which is absurd. Snort is an open source program, anybody in the world has free and total access to its source. The only relation here is that Sourcefire was founded by the person who wrote Snort.
Secondly, I fail to see how the Dubai ports mess relates to this. It seems like the person who wrote this is just talking out of his ass and really has no grasp of what is actually going on.
Great work. Thats some top notch journalism, keep it coming!
There is good reason for this--
The israelis have been busted twice backdooring equipment into US govt and military,
COMVERSE Infosystems, an Israeli company which supplied wiretap equipment (snort for phones..) we itself reverse wiretapped by the israelis to do surveillance on US law enforcement.
AMDOCs also was busted as billing records for US companies were illegally being used for intelligence.
There's just this very strong anti-Arab streak in American society lately. What can I say, I wasn't a big fan of Nazi Germany either.
You can blame this flamebait on AP, not slashdot, since it appears in the article.
On the other hand, Linux ... well, all those hackers are probably putting in backdoors all the time.
</sarcasm>
First, I should point out that some of the other posters here seem to think Sourcefire == Snort. It does not, although Sourcefire's products have some dependency on Snort as a general engine. Sourcefire's main product line is actually far deeper than just SnortOnABox -- it delves into areas like vulnerability management and event collection/aggregation, things that "open source" Snort does only if you have a really good administrator who knows how to piece together all the various moving parts into something manageable.
Second, it's remarkable that the DoD would question Check Point's intentions. If they truly cared whether this particular deal was in the best interests of "national security" (whatever that happens to mean today, then they wouldn't use Check Point's firewall products either. But they do! The US Navy uses Check Point firewalls in great, prodigious quantities -- enough that they need Check Point's ISP-class management console software to run all of them! And they're not the only branch of the military using it, not to mention the multitude of other Federal agencies.
This sounds like a reach to me. Something based in rumor, started by a politician, that has to be ended by the press finding the real story inside the rumor...
What is the big deal? Snort is open source. It can be forked if concerns about foreign ownership prove true.
In the case of Sourcefire, I suspect the goodies that go into the US Federal Govt's version of Snort are more 'interesting' than what you and I can download. And, whether it's more interesting or not, hiding information from one's adversaries isn't all about the latest rocket science. A look at what used to be classified shows that it's what seems mundane that's the most important to hide. "When is Admiral Yamamoto's plane leaving?" "Uday is in that house." "The FBI standardized on Snort 1.5.x."
It's nothing to transfer Sourcefire's IP, or the cubes where the work really gets done, or the sales and customer support data to Haifa or Tel Aviv.
Compare that to P&O's sale to - in essence - the Sheik of Dubai. The infrastructure P&O runs stay in the US, the dock workers and their management up several rungs remain American. There's pissing and moaning because Al Qaeda has links in Dubai. No shit. Dubai, Singapore, Lichtenstein, to a large degree Israel, on and on... sucessful small nations have to be hard core entreprenuerial to stay afloat, which means everybody and their uncle are running contriband and shady deals through them, in addition to Costco's jugs of olive oil. Tax havens, duty free ports, and other such city-states of commerce don't stay in business by asking too many questions.
Luke, help me take this mask off
...a copy of Jurassic Park had travelled back in time and they'd misheard "raptor".
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
To my knowledge there has never been a problem with the UAE making such sales.
Furthermore, we have trouble the Israeli spying on the US. Jonathon Pollard was caught and imprisoned for selling information to Israel.
Have there been similar cases with Dubai?
There are other legitimate concerns about Dubai, but given that the sale of Snort involves technology, it can't really be compared to the port operations. I nearly always favor Israel in its dealings with the world, but that doesn't mean I would trust it with all our technology. I would trust it to run a port though.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Whether they should have blocked or not, who knows, but a lot of IBM employees can testify that a) the government reviewed the deal with interest and b) steps have been taken/are being continuously taken to comply with government security demands with respect to this deal. Considering all the stuff that went Lenovo wasn't exactly anywhere near special (pretty much southeast asian made systems to specifications and testing in the US), and the steps being taken are doing a pretty good job of keeping Lenovo and IBM separate, there is admittedly little risk with respect to that deal.
Ultimately I suspect the same sort of thing will happen with this case, but it won't be so tricky since it doesn't involve a foreign owned company taking ownership of part of a company and sharing a campus with an American company with some potentially sensitive data. I guess the deal itself may be more questionable due to the potentially more sensitive nature of the transfer...
In any event, neither occurance has a potential for security issues similar to the ports deal. This article was little more than an excuse to discuss the ports deal on slashdot, IMHO.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Bush wants to hog all the snorting for himself!
Also, maybe during the 45 days they can find out what "open source" means, and how that Israeli company can already own and modify a copy of Snort.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
I'm pretty sure it's possible for the US government and large corporates to receive the source code of the commercial product as part of an agreement, or have it deposited in an escrow (as was demanded by clients which did businesses with startups I worked with).
May be US must left other projects made by foreign teams like a lot of free software out there and finally install Windows in every equipment, soon we will have firewalls with TCP/IP stacks written in C#, may be in VB too :-)
Exactly how is that something a "good" person/group would do?
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
This reeks of "Playstation 2's are super computers", government-backed marketing spin.
$100 says Check Point/Sourcefire released this info themselves to get more publicity.
Sssshhhhh be vwey vewy quiet. I'm hunting secwets! eheheheheheheh.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
...think of drugs when you read the headline for this story?
Ok, in all seriousness isn't this just an example of a powerful lobby group (in the case of Dubai) and a weak lobby group (in the case of this Israeli frim)? I do think it warrants discussion that foreign ownership of intellectual assets seem more problematic to the government than the ownership of physical assets. Personally, I highly doubt an Israeli comapany is as much a threat as a UAE state run company -- and if it is just "foreign" ownership that is the issue, both deals should be nixed.
Of course, we know that foreign ownership isn't the issue, or we wouldn't keep letting China and other nations "own" our debt.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
-Gandhi
I find the summary to be borderline trollish flaimbait. It seems to draw the conclusion that the U.S. committee that approved the ports deal supports Arabs but when it comes to Israelis, it rejects the deal. Many have already clearly pointed out in the comments that the security of our ports still must conform to U.S. standards and is open to surprise spotchecks whenever they are necessary. Our ports, our soil but the profits go to a foreign company--in this case the UAE--instead of a local American firm. Ports in Oakland, California are owned by the Danes as are many other such operations. The Arabs in the UAE have a vested interest in making sure that the port succeeds to the sake of profits. Another little cited but obvious fact is that when a foreign company puts money into a tangible asset such as a port or bonds, etc. then the United States can sieze that money if it suspects terrorism. To draw a Arab versus Israeli bias at this point is ludicrious. I'm actually surprised the summary didn't go as far as to call the U.S. committee anti-Semitic as so often happens when something doesn't go Israel's way. The problem is that an executive on Sourcefire's board happens to be the author of Snort. Snort is used to protect many computer systems within the government and military. Knowing how slow these beaurocracies move means that if the Israeli company were to find holes in snort, they could spy on U.S. systems. Would Israel spy on the United States? Yes, it has happened before. Links are available here and here (An Israeli mainstream paper!) and here and here (disappeared, linkrot? google cache of article.
When Arial Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel, openly bragged on October 3rd that, "We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it", why should I not find this statement objectionable, and anti-American? I whole-heartedly support this inquiry because the Israelis cannot be trusted with our (American) interests.
Amusingly, both Congress and the White House have spent more time investigating the Isreali-produced Snort than they have investigating either the Dubai buying US ports or making a deal to allow India to receive US nuclear technology even though they won't permit inspections of their military nuclear facilities.
Hypocrisy is rampant.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Hard to dismiss cronyism legitimately for the ports deal, or, conversely, if you reject the concept of cronyism you can't accept that other activities of the US government are not malicious in intent.
This administration has overseen fairly egregious violations of citizen's rights in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in the name of national security. We have been asked to sacrifice a significant deal of privacy and had privacy in some cases taken without knowledge to them for the purposes of national security. I disagree with these policies, but can logically see the correlation between what they demand and the justification, though it appears to be more a believable excuse than true justification. Despite my worries about these occurances, this in and of itself doesn't prove any malicious intent rather than an overly paranoid reaction with good intentions.
Now this ports deal comes along. I won't say outright that the deal decreases our security enough to seriously worry, but it at the very least has the potential to increase it enough to give us pause. At the same time over-zealous wire tapping and arrests without due process are occuring in the name of national security (in many cases to no effect at all on our safety), the same administration turns around and say a purchase of port terminals by a foreign body is nothing to worry about and all, and in fact so little to worry about they should skip the requisite review process. Add to this that while the foreign entity has been cooperative and an ally, suspicious things have happened around them that either suggest that some people within this entity are not friendly, or that they are legitimately friendly, but unable to properly implement sufficient security measures, either way means extra care should be taken with such a potential deal. This is logically opposed to the behavior with respect to everything else this administration has done/called for along these lines. The very fact the administration involved itself so quickly and so adamantly to the point of waiving standard procedures for the UAE just seems highly improper, even without the context of being otherwise over-zealous paranoid everywhere else.
If the administration hadn't taken an intense interest in this, and if it wasn't occuring in a context of overly paranoid national security measures, I wouldn't think twice about it, but all the indications are there that something significantly improper is going on with this ports deal. Dubai may be correct in every way how they deal with it, but Dubya is certainly making the deal look bad by meddling with it so much.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
William Reinsch, a former senior U.S. official who participated in reviews under President Clinton, said the Israeli sale involves more dire security issues than the administration's recent approval for a Dubai-owned company to take over significant operations at six major American ports.
"This raises a lot more important issues," said Reinsch, a former Commerce Department undersecretary. "The most important case is where we're making an irrevocable technology transfer to a foreign party. Port operations raise security issues, but the ports are still in the United States."
Umm.. Ok. Enough said. Flamers will always be flamers. Get your flame thrower and stick it up where sun don't shine, sir.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Under the sale, publicly announced Oct. 6, Check Point would own all Sourcefire's patents, source-code blueprints for its software and the expertise of employees. ...
Reinsch, a former Commerce Department undersecretary. "The most important case is where we're making an irrevocable technology transfer to a foreign party. Port operations raise security issues, but the ports are still in the United States."
Patents == Forever? What do they mean "irrevocable"?
Employees == Slaves.
Dude, you're moving to Israel! Maybee that's a stretch but the panel and the companies seem to think they own their employees. How insulting, but that's what a NDA is all about, isn't it?
Software freedom is important. Having the source code is useless if you don't have the legal right to compile it, change it and share it with your friends. Software patents, NDA's, closed source binaries keep you from doing what you want with your own computer. The DMCA will keep you from sharing what you know about someone else's stuff. What you find is that the "owner" holds the card you need. All the anti-competitive games people play have more serious consequences than meets the eye.
Lawmakers are more aware of the consequences of the laws they have written than you might give them credit for. US "Ownership" of whole categories of computer function is clearly the intent of much recent IP legislation. RIM's problems make sense, viewed through this lens. It won't due to have foreigners buy or otherwise enjoy that ownership. It makes me sick.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Mmmm... yeah. You see, all nerds have to administer at least one network. Did you see the memo about this? So if you could just start to administer a network now that would be great, let me go and send you that memo again, Thanks.
Web Developers: Celebrate to our roots! Animated Gifs and Tiled Backgrounds, dont let our history die!
But you have to remember that this is all politics. According to the people who work in the ports themselves, the only thing that will change after the Dubai deal is who signs their paychecks. All they do is unload shipping containers off ships, and they don't even know what's in those containers. Customs takes care of security after these things are loaded on trucks and are on their way out of the port. This is similar to the way an airline brings you to an airport, and then Customs checks you out before you waltz past them and out of the airport. If Dubai Airlines, if there is such a thing, wanted to buy a terminal at JFK, in order to provide direct flights to the U.S. for Middle Eastern businessmen, the politicians wouldn't say a word about it. They didn't say a word about Dubai buying a third of DaimlerChrysler. It's all a matter of politics.
Back to Snort, I think it's ridiculous to raise a stink about an Israeli company buying Sourcefire, especially since it's a security tool, and guess what, the Israelis know a thing or two about security. In fact, Israeli security experts and the Israeli military have been providing training to U.S. military and government personnel, especially after 9/11. Why should that be OK but not the purchase of Sourcefire? Not only that, but if you go to Israel, you'll see Microsoft campuses, Intel campuses, and lots of other technology company campuses, all over the country. If it's safe for them to be over there, it should be safe for Sourcefire to be there, too. So there's nothing to worry about...
Muslim nutjobs and US fundy loons are the Israeli military-industrial-likud party complex's biggest assets. Money is money, always a lot of money to be made and political power to be accrued by keeping things stirred up. See: "cold war". see "WW2 as an antidote to the global great depression" see "patriot act approved again because of war on terror" and etc.
If there aren't enough "threats" or "problems", there's less of a need for "strong government leaders" and "important defense establishment" types. So, lacking real threats they artificially manufacture them (reichstagg fire, 9-11, 7-7) or delibarately pick at scabs, like the "muslim cartoon" scam going around. Nothing like riling up the natives to "prove" you need an increase in budget for your cavalry,and why you should "choose strong leader leadbottom because he's tough on..." whatever. Pick a boogeyman, it doesn't matter "drugs", "poverty", "terror", whatever. As SOON as you need a "war" on it, some big corps gonna make a REAL BIG chunk 0 change on the deal and some big megalomaniac will get elected president or imam or ayatollah or prime minister or grand exalted cyclops. Always been that way.
War is a racket, always 99% conjob. Follow the money and who winds up with it, follow the power and who winds up with it.
copwork101 = motive, means, opportunity
it ain't rocket surgery
I'd say somebody at Checkpoint didn't pay the rent. You can't have corruption with just a corrupt government. You gotta have corrupt influence-buyers as well. Being Israeli, you'd think Checkpoint would have been familiar with the concept.
Besides, their firewall is targeted to lazy admins. That's why they sell so many. Snort doesn't fit their target audience.
Actually, most people are against it because they just found out ANY foreign company was allowed to operate the ports. Well, to be fair, what I have read the past week and discussed with friends. No one knew! This new proposed one being an arab nation was just frosting. Most people (including myself and I am something of a newshound) just assumed that US ports were operated by--US people. Previously this wasn't really pushed as news, and frankly, no one should expect that every citizen is 100% fully cognizant of all the little minutiae that goes on in running the nation, that is an impossible task.
And you missed the joke. "NEIN", as in GERMAN, anyone? I don't believe EITHER of these deals is really all that significant, although both are interesting. I'm guessing that this deal goes through just like the Dubai one did, in all honesty.
Omeg La. Rofl Leh.
Seems to be about the only thing they felt like blocking.
Port == OK
Port sniffer != OK
No, I thought I had it for a moment there, but I just don't get the connection either.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Port SNIFFERS...
I guess they don't Israel sniffin' around US ports (vessels OR networking)... Wait, are we talkin' 'bout the same government that spends BEELIONS on Israel, AND sells them almost the latest in US aircraft? Well, hell, Israels electronics and their intelligence agencies are reputed to be THE best in the world...
Also, IF Snort's "underlying technology" IS open source, then opposing this transaction shows just how much the administration fails to "get" open source.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I am astounded! This is completely absurd. The "technology" behind Snort is NOT rocket science. They can get the source for Snort (earlier versions at least!) even if they were clueless enough to not be able write it themselves. What could possibly be gained by blocking this sale? It would provide no extra security since the sale offers no threat that does not already exist! Sheesh. I am almost embarassed to call myself an American at this point.
strike
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
I mean, an Israeli company buying a company with a pig as a logo?
you sell the country and profit...
... ???
Meanwhile, in Soviet Russia,
Sorry, I was responding only to this statement, not the FA. So frankly, I was off topic.
But one could also agrue... just becasue you let the dog walk doesn't mean you can't yank back on the chain every once in a while to remind them who's boss >=)
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
This was brilliant. I think the security implications comment sealed it for me. Priceless.
Isn't snort something you do with your nose (http://www.answers.com/snort&r=67)?
it's not the silver anymore... you're selling your tools to put food on the table and have pretty gew-gaws for your women... Pretty soon you'll realise that without your tools, you won't be able to work to bring in money to pay the rent.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Who cares if the quote is fake? Few people would be shocked to find out that he actually *did* say that after all, and that's the problem.
Isreal has attacked our forces on purpose. They've spied on us. They torture people to get their intelligence. They are occupying land that was not theirs in any recent time that they stole from others to begin with. They've violated more U.N. resolutions than Iraq despite us actively trying to quash as many as possible in the security council. They have nuclear weapons. They keep palastinians in walled-off gulags.
I mean come on, by any objective measure we should be mortal enemies with Israel.
Remember, all of the people involved in the Oklahoma City bombing were Americans. We should immediately ensure that none of our ports (and none of our port-sniffing software) is in the control of American companies! :)
Yes. I mean mainstream. You see newspapers and news magazines with national distribution mentioning Slashdot topics and occasionally even citing them or, worse, the posted responses.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Considering that CheckPoint is a jewish company and USA is the 52nd state of Israel, I cannot comprehend their worries. America serves Israel and Israel makes sure arabs and muslims do not dare to deny OIL from America, there isn't the slightest shade of distrust in this happy pact. America has long given all of its secrets to Israel and the jews are nowadays more technologically advanced than the anglo-saxon race! For them Snort is like a Commdore-64 to a 64-bit PC guru, hopelessly obsolete.
Israel does control America. In fact they got rid of one president, JFK, when he refused to look the other way about the secret A-bomb making activity at the Dimona rector. Thanks to Mordechai Vanunu we now know that Mossad bragged about shooting Kennedy. By 1967 Isral was using its then four A-Bomb stockpile to blackmail USA into accepting their invason and occupation of arab lands or they will start a world war by nuking arab capitals, which would lead to end of USA via MAD exchnage with the USSR. In 1973 when arabs tried to regain the occupied territories, jews used their 25 A-bomb and 5 H-bomb strong stockpile to force America to ship them more than 200.000 tons of military supply in just a few days or they would nuke North Africa and the middle east. They even put A-loaded figter-bombers on display so US satellites can confirm they are willing to go down, taking with them everybody else, like biblical Samson did.
Nowadays Israel has 220 to 400 atomic warheads, yet America is totally mum. Israel is the third strongest in nuke count, behind USA and Russia, stronger than France, Britain or Red China. However, in contrast to those, the jewish nuclear program remains void of supervision and is actively being hidden from international inspectors. Yet everybody talks about how dangerous Iran is. Ridiculous. It is the zionist entity that threatens the world peace. The fact that Israel was the closest ally of South Africa during the whole apartheid period and actually gave six nuke warheads to that white-supremacy negro-hater country shows the utter falsity of western ideas of moral Israel.
The zionist entity has nothing to do with the Holocaust, the millions of lambs of God who were slaughtered and cremated by Hitler. Israel is a spartan type military state where palestinians are the helotas. Zionism is the racist idea that jews are a superior race and should not be bound by basic morals to other humans when realizing their aims for biblical borders. (E.g. the destruction of the Morocaan Disctrict of Jerusalem, the expulsion of millions of Holy Land arabs, the destruction of potable water plants in occupied Lebanon, etc).
But Israel serves western aims well. Fear of Israel bans arabs and muslims from denying crucial oil to America. For Europe, the existance of Israel is the sign of "success" of the Holocaust, since there is no longer a massive jewish population presence in Europe any more, most survivors and descendants emigrated to the zionist state. Europe is happy about getting rid of jewish masses and retaining only a thin jewish elite in the press, media and finances, so everyday european people need no see jews on the streets daily. What they don't consider is that the massive jewish invasion of the Holy Land resulted in armed occupation of lands where arabs have been living for 1500+ years (even before Islam began!) and millions of palestinians were expelled, many, many killed. One nation of people were trampled upon in the interest of another nation of people and the big world powers. And the wronged nation is called terrorists if they dare to turn themselves.
I am, as a hungarian kid, saw the first color TV in 1982 in a shop (rare at the time in the soviet bloc) it was showing news of lebanese children hit by napalm, cluster bombs and FAE aerosol bombs during the siege of Beirut. I can understand why arab children want to be martyrs in the fight against zionism.
It has nothing to do with ethnicity, country of origin or race. The problem is, if you scratch off the surface of a moderate muslim you'll find a raving religious fanatic, which is capable of strapping a bomb to his body and is willing to kill you and twenty of his own people for any percieved slight.
Lets be real here for a second. Snort is a hacked up version of tcpdump with a config file.
You are putting too much effort into this. We are, after all, discussing the policies of the Bush Administration. They have given America a whole new meaning for the concept, 'Intelligence Brief", and early in Mr. Bush's first term, gave us a brand spanking new oxymoron, 'National Security"
In that light, the thought processes from which their concerns were distilled, become crystal clear.
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
If the US were really worried about security as it relates to Checkpoint, they might have started with Firewall-1, a firewall product in common use in the US. The idea that they'd now be worried about snort seems laughable.
While I don't necessarily agree with the premise, here is the 'real deal', it doesn't surprise me to see this come up as this issue was raised when they were first bought behind closed doors where I work.
Basically, throughout the US government, there are 'sensitive countries', some of them are obvious: China, Russia, etc. Some of them are non-obvious: Uzbekistan, Sudan, etc. Some of them don't really make a lot of sense because we've already given them so many secrets/money/etc: Israel (keep in mind your grandparents are probably older than the Israeli nation state yet Israel is the world 4th largest nuclear superpower, obviously we gave them a slight helping hand).
That said though, the Israeli's are obviously not satisfied with nuclear secrets and billions of dollars in military aid, as they have routinely and agressively committed acts of espionage against the US. Checkpoint was already rejected in many government agencies because of these reasons.
Snort is used throughout many areas of the government, entire facilities are built around the various NIDS systems on the market (ISS, Snort, NSAs, etc), however most often the backbone of these facilities is Snort. Which when you consider that checkpoint was already rejected, and then sourcefirce is bought this creates a crisis as now a company that was rejected owns the code being run in numerous installations throughout the country and world, which means a whole lot of trouble for a lot of people. So in that sense, trying to stop them makes some sense, as this means it wouldn't leave tons of people scrambling to fix the problem due to a 'fluctuation in the open market'.
Whats stupid to me is that these types of things should be planned on and contingencies created when you start using an product, because we failed to plan doesn't mean its the fault of sourcefire or anyone else. Really what you guys should see this as is similiar to the government speaking on blackberries behalf in court because a shutdown of their services would affect many feds.
Wait, you're trying to claim that the US government is preferential to arab countries over israel? Riiiight. Way to ignore pretty much the last half a century of history.
...are you my mother?
Checkpoint is a security company that makes money. Sourcefire is a company that makes money. Money + Money = More Money. I doubt Checkpoint has any ill intentions.
Besides. EVERYONE has access to Snort's underlying technologies. You can download it at will!
I'm particularly concerned about the hypocracy in the House and Senate these days. Globalize, but isolate?
Apparently they think that if push comes to shove, the US can take the ports back by force. The problem is that simplistic view of the situation. Ports are highly automated, and good security measures (access controls) could lock out our ability to run the place in the event of a hostile takeback. You have to control the technology to run the port. So they're concerned about computer security technology (snort) leaving the country, but they're not concerned about who controls the tech that runs the ports that sustain our economy. Someone needs to open their eyes a bit.
Did you see the president bumbling and stuttering through his explanation of this? In mid sentence he would realise that he is saying the exact opposite of all of his previous terrorist rhetoric, it was pretty funny.
So we let a forgien company control our ports with no worries, and concern ourselves with
the proliferation of tcpdump -vv -d -s 1500 | grep 31337 ? Dumb. I think I will buy that little house on PEI.
Not to say snort isn't good software, but the technology is pretty obvious.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
How? Because, being nerds, it's encoded in our DNA? We're not born with the knowledge of all things technical, we have to acquire it, and where better than Slashdot? The best posts on the forum don't assume that the reader automatically knows what's being referred to, they spell it all out.
You get the gold star for most random capitalization.
Also you get the award for the best fake number. BEELIONS? Is it a number, or is it some obscene hybrid between a bee and lion?
HEheHEheHE, I MIGHT have BEEN THEENking about Carl SAGAN, Iiiii.... supPOSE.... (or, but, not kirk...)...
From time to TYUM, I PONDER the VASTness and beauty of the Cosmos... I relfect I mean reFLECT upon the BEELIONS and BEELIONS of STARRSSS in the UINIverse....
(Actually, I kinda miss "Cosmos" and "In Search Of"...)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I don't doubt that the concers are very real to many people. However, they are based on misinformation and therefore ought to be corrected with facts.
The media has portrayed this as the Dubai company taking over the management operations of our ports. This is simply not the case. Of course if it were, I would be very worried too, but then we should not allow any foreign entity to manage our ports (I don't care if it is from the UK or UAE).
Again, what has happened is that a business from another company that runs some facilities at some ports has been bought by a a firm from a third country. This is not the way it has been portrayed by news organizations and hence while there are concerns, they are misplaced.
If the news organizations were right, I would be advocating purchasing the ports back as eminant domain and running them by the cities and counties. But the ports in question are *already* run by the cities and counties, and all that is at stake is the equipment at a few terminals to load and unload cargo.
I fail to see how it is a terrorist threat for the business operations of a few cargo cranes to be managed by Arabs as opposed to Brits.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
For an instance where Israelis and US government got caught collaborating on using software to spy on allies as well as enemy states look at the PROMIS* / Inslaw scandal:
l aw.html
http://cryptome.org/promis-mossad.htm
(most detailed in allegations, but read critically)
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/INSLAW/
http://wired-vig.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/ins
(First issue of Wired - more on the DOJ's role in attempting to crush Inslaw.)
*PROMIS was and is the super-meta-database software for intelligence-gathering / analysis and prosecution management sold to dozens of different countries. It had a back-door built in which allegedly allowed surveilance of intelligence operations even of non-networked computers through spread-spectrum emissions from the dedicated Prime computers on which it ran. Inslaw made PROMIS but the DOJ tried to put them out of business by not paying for the software as contracted. The back door was not Inslaw's doing, AFAIK.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
From the article:
"This raises a lot more important issues," said Reinsch, a former Commerce Department undersecretary. "The most important case is where we're making an irrevocable technology transfer to a foreign party. Port operations raise security issues, but the ports are still in the United States."
I think this is dumb.
Having access to the ports operations would give one the knowledge on how to bypass whatever security provisions are in place. Pure and simple.
No need to have Al Qaeda working the waterfront to smuggle materiel. Just figure out how things are done and act accordingly.
The Republicans are screaching the loudest about the ports deal.
Each party is worse than the other one.