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Open Source Spying
eldavojohn writes "The New York Times is running a very lengthy but amazingly interesting article on the short history of open source software and information on the inside of the intelligence community. The article discusses the transformation of the intelligence community from fighting the Cold War with traditional information exchange to fighting terrorism today utilizing things like wikis & blogs. From the end of the article, 'Today's spies exist in an age of constant information exchange, in which everyday citizens swap news, dial up satellite pictures of their houses and collaborate on distant Web sites with strangers. As John Arquilla told me, if the spies do not join the rest of the world, they risk growing to resemble the rigid, unchanging bureaucracy that they once confronted during the cold war. "Fifteen years ago we were fighting the Soviet Union," he said. "Who knew it would be replicated today in the intelligence community?"' You may recall that the CIA now has their own classified Wiki. I think it's interesting that the 9/11 Report recommended that United States agencies such as the DoD, CIA & FBI learn to share information more freely to overcome terrorism and now they're turning to internet community applications to accomplish that."
There's a big difference between a Tom Clancy fantasy and reality. These agencies are nowhere near as competant as the conspiracy theorists think - I'll guess that after a long list of dramatic failures the agencies of other nations will not trust US intelligence unless it is verified from another source. There's even loonies that think polygraph tests and torture work to find out if people are telling the truth at the top of some of those agencies. The famous link between Saddam and Bin Laden shown to the world - ravings of a drowing man who knew barely anything about the organisation he hadn't been in for long.
I think it's interesting that the 9/11 Report recommended that United States agencies such as the DoD, CIA & FBI learn to share information more freely to overcome terrorism and now they're turning to internet community applications to accomplish that.
Very interesting, but certainly not surprising. Tools such as Wikis and blogs have exploded in popularity with the private sector because they are easy to use and more efficient than available alternatives (if any exist). It makes perfect sense that government agencies would be looking to harness those same advantages that have worked to the benefit of the public at large.
I think one of the most interesting things to me in my limited dealings with unclassified DoD communications contracting is that these government entities do not have an aversion to or ignorance of the available OSS technologies. On the contrary, they frequently have a strong desire to use these tools, but they're waiting for budget money to contract someone to tell them how to use it properly and securely. Unfortunately they often end up waiting far longer than they should.
If you are weak, let your enemies think you are strong, for they will be afraid to attack. If you are strong, let your enemies think you are weak, for they will attack the ground of your choosing. - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Thing is, I think Clancy didn't to too badly when showing that actually half the time the intelligence community doesn't know what's going on, they're not omnipotent, and that communication is very far from perfect; with multiple levels of bureaucracy, personal matters getting in the way of getting things done, and the occasional bout of duplicity.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
The only problem with Sun Tzu's words is that "your enemies" are not always easily distinguishable from "citizens of your country who have done nothing wrong".
Which is exactly the issue that intelligence agencies are dealing with.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
So we should tell them everything that we are capable of?
Like it or not, this is an information war just as much as it is a religious one. Terrorists/Guerilla troops never purposely attack strong locations. If we can mislead them into thinking a strong location is weak, they will attack it (and hopefully lose). If we can mislead them into thinking a weak location is strong, they will not attack it. It is that simple.
What you imply is that terrorists drive down the street weilding rocket launchers and attacking every target, regardless of tactical importance. In reality, they seem to be targetting places where economics (Trade Centers), politics/leaders (UN buildings) and transportation (planes, trains) are located.
If you put up a facade that one particular UN building has impossibly tight security, do you honestly think that they will target it because the "Great Satan" is there?
If you disallow intelligence agencies from using your software, it's not open source
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I most certainly do not want the NSA to have any software at all.
Then realistically, you're going to have to stop developing not only open source software, but any software at all.
This is the flip side of "information wants to be free" -- once it is free, it's really free. Proprietary, open source, whatever; once the bits are out there, they're not going back. Microsoft cannot stop people from using Word to write documents critical of Microsoft, or Visual Studio to develop software that competes with Microsoft's offerings. The NSA cannot stop people from using SE Linux to securely store, process, and transmit information that might be detrimental to the US. China cannot stop its citizens from reading web sites which contain content the government doesn't like; neither can Iran. And you, once you write a piece of software that might somehow be useful to some spook in some three-letter agency, and release that software into the wild, have absolutely no control over what happens afterwards.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Anything would be better than the annoyance of having to be at an airport for two hours, ditch most carry-on items, and submit to ridiculous searches and checks.
.45s right next to the boarding gate, and any passenger who wants can pick one up for the flight, dump it in a similar bin when he gets off the plane at the other end. We'll put in some .38s for the grandmas, too.
Christ, yes. I say let's dump the entire security/screening circus for passengers, and instead put a big bin of
I can't imagine anyone would even attempt to hijack a plane ever again.*
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* And just to pre-emptively answer any pussified whine that oh no some innocents might then be killed, or a plane depressurize from bullet holes once every half-century -- yup, all true, I admit it. Neanderthal that I am, I prefer to die like a man than stretch my throat like a sheep for the slaughterer's knife. And it's OK with me if folks who think otherwise continue to stand in line for the full cavity search before boarding Mommy Knows Best airlines.