FCC Rules Open Source Code Is Less Secure

An anonymous reader writes "A new federal rule set to take effect Friday could mean that software radios built on 'open-source elements' may have trouble getting to market. Some US regulators have apparently come to the conclusion that, by nature, open source software is less secure than closed source. 'By effectively siding with what is known in cryptography circles as "security through obscurity," the controversial idea that keeping security methods secret makes them more impenetrable, the FCC has drawn an outcry from the software radio set and raised eyebrows among some security experts. "There is no reason why regulators should discourage open-source approaches that may in the end be more secure, cheaper, more interoperable, easier to standardize, and easier to certify," Bernard Eydt, chairman of the security committee for a global industry association called the SDR (software-defined radio) Forum, said in an e-mail interview this week.'"

Comments

The best kept secrets...

[madhatter256]

Open Source Security sounds very much like an oxymoron. It pretty much is if you think about it. How can you make something secure if your enemy knows how the lock is made, how everything else works. How can you keep your house safe if the locks are made so that anybody knows how they are made and know the weak points and can easily pick them? People pay top money for security and they sure as hell won't go for something that is openly available, even the people they are trying to secure their items from.

From a consumer standpoint OSS is good, but for government agencies, private industry, rich art collectors, etc. They'll want something unique and something only the owner and the creator will know how it works.