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Why American Corporate Software Can No Longer Be Trusted
jrepin writes "There is a problem with proprietary, closed software, which makes Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the first Pirate Party, a bit uneasy: 'We get a serious democratic deficit when the citizens are not able to inspect if the computers running the country's administrations are actually doing what they claim to be doing, doing all that and something else invisibly on top, doing the wrong thing in the wrong way at the wrong time, or doing nothing at all. ... In the debate around the American Stop Online Piracy Act, American legislators have demonstrated a clear capability and willingness to interfere with the technical operations of American products, when doing so furthers American political interests regardless of the policy situation in the customer’s country."
Well if you deal out Microsoft, Apple And Google, you are left with not much but Linux as an alternative! I for one would love to see this happen as resources and money would have to be poured in to make Linux distributions and applications that were world class!
How about instead of constantly changing usernames to escape your negative karma, you try learning how to form a coherent sentence?
And it was ever trustful, in the first place?
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
Since everyone overseas is already worried about keeping their data in the United States because it can be interfered with or seized by the government at the whim of a panicking Congressman, or leaving money in the country because of our constantly fluctuating tax laws^H^H^H^H^H loopholes, and left extremely wary of even doing business in the country (we're rapidly becoming small potatoes in an international context, globalism strikes back) -- this is just a natural extension. The US already bans imports of electronic goods from China for being used in government or defense applications, which is hilarious because our manufacturing base is gone.
Is that you, Richard Stallman? Are you in disguise?
Recent SOPA decisions highlight the lack of technical knowlege in the legislative body of congress, yes. Also, they show how powerful lobbying efforts can negatively impact the legislative process.
However, no evidence is offered in TFA that supports the major assumption that "American Corporate Software can no longer be trusted for anything".
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
We can trust that it isn't sending stuff back home without telling us - we can discover that because software not by that vendor is on the router.
What else matters, really? If it's phoning home, we can detect it.
If you're worried about data logging locally, you can always use truecrypt or similar to protect that from falling in anyone else's hands.
This has very little to do with America. It has lot to do with the Homeland which is a new thing.
I assume that you are talking about conventional software you buy and install on your desktop/laptop/tablet/phone. But what about cloud-based services (Salesforce, Google, iTunes, etc.)? They are exposing an interface and set of functions but the rest of it is not transparent. This class of software is probably where we should focus anti-SOPA efforts...
Supreme Granter of Doctor of Obviology Letters ("A FIRM Command of the Obvious")
Not even commenting on the article's content, is it really better to trust a pirate?
Yea, that thing at the top, it's called a subject line. It's where the subject goes, not the start of the post. What really makes your rant impressive is that not only did you attack me for posting anonymously while posting anonymously, but if I follow your retarded rules for reading a thread, your post reads:
"China does the same stuff how the hell is 'China does the same stuff How about instead of constantly changing usernames to escape your negative karma, you try learning how to form a coherent sentence?' a coherent sentence?"
And for the record, my original post was in fact coherent, grammatically correct English, and I post anonymously because I'm keylogged at work for compliance reasons and all the admins abuse it to hack each others accounts.
I have been pondering for a long while on whether America is a Fatherland or an Motherland but you certainly make justice with your case in that it is a Homeland. All this Homeland "this" and Homeland "that." I think it's safe to say, we are at home, when we are in America.
One of the major arguments for SOPA have been the trillions of dollars of theoretical losses of sales by the Media companies. As has been pointed out repeatedly ad nauseum, these losses are only theoretical.
But has someone on the senate actually done some estimation of possible loss of revenue, if the internet actually becomes splintered and USA loses its control? Or of even more foreign governments just turning to open source solutions, instead of to, say Microsoft? China, for example, is a big competitor already for the control of internet. They control a sizable part of it already. Let us say that they actually get it in their head to actually set up an alternate mechanism and act as the controlling authority? Even USA doesn't really dares to stand up to them... so all in all, we are talking of China ultimately controlling the distribution of said media/softwares, and who knows what terms they will set for the USA based companies?
I will admit that chances of above happening are remote at the moment. But what are these media folks, and their employees in the senate, smoking? Why even take the chance?
If you use Android, you should check out the Guardian Project.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
The difference is the ideas. The idea of America is being lost. What is leftover when that is gone is just another place. May as well be called just Homeland. The ideas that are traditionally associated with America are not espoused by those that use the term Homeland.
"Homeland security" is a euphemism for the doctrine of applying the same ham-fisted methods of control to citizens of the USA that the US government applies abroad.
Hate Week? TFS and TFA are about American corporate software. I thought it was Hate Century. And, I got an early start in the last century!
What surprises me is that people do actually "trust" the software on their machines. Not that I have any use for kiddy diddlers, but we've read a number of stories of diddlers deleting shit off their machines, just to have Windows serve the "deleted" data up to law enforcement. If that happens to diddlers, it happens the same way to anyone else who might want to hide something.
Trust? I have nothing to "hide", really - but if I decide to delete stuff, dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda Trust? Not in this lifetime!
Yes, I know there are legitimate technical uses for all those logs that Windows keeps. Unix-likes tend to keep some of the same sort of logs. But, those logs are transparent to the users. At least to any user who isn't a total noob, or a complete ignoramus. Windows? Didn't they do away with DOS, and continue to hide more and more of the mechanisms of the operating system from the non-tech users? To even view the OS files, I have to bypass a smokescreen, telling Explorer, "Yes, I really want to view C:\Windows folder!"
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Confuscious say, "man who leap off cliff, jump to conclusion."
Be that as it may, it remains true that when someone clearly has ulterior motives, and offers you a tool without allowing you to see how it works, you have good reason to be distrustful.
Security-critical environments are one of the few places where open source should be a must.
No it was not, but that's not the point. Congress can order technology to restrict freedoms outside America. That was only theoretically the case before SOPA and similar bills. Now, there is no reason to assume that the American government is not interfering with any technology you can't inspect yourself.
Or to remove the double negatives: Now there is reason to assume the American government is interfering with any technology you can't inspect yourself.
You need a new job. And your admins need to be fired.
Just saying. I'm keylogged here too, but the admins are watched as well.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
We all know that SOPA is all about the money (I'll ignore the "everything is" argument, for now). Money the *IAAs feel they are losing, money the politicians have accepted in campaign contributions... Even the advertisements trying to drum up support for SOPA are about all the jobs (money) that will be lost if this doesn't become law...
Every argument I've heard has been about ideals and technology... We all know how politicians and corporations feel about ideals. Freedom of speech, Impossible to implement, Would break the very foundation of the web, etc... All meaningless to these people without a dollar sign attached to them.
This is the first argument I have heard that directly turns the tables. "Pass SOPA, and we will no longer trust any software produced by a US company." This would affect many more than just MS, Apple, and Google... How many PCs will Dell, (or HP, or Acer, or...) sell outside of the US if they are not allowed to sell them with (or without) Windows? If Dell et. al. are forced into producing computers with Windows installed for the US market, and %NotWindows% for the rest of the world, how long before they decide it isn't worth the effort, and just pick their favorite %NotWindows% for the entire line? How many jobs will be lost if no one in Europe is allowed to use Photoshop, MS Office, iTunes, AutoCAD,... The list goes on and on.
Do I think this is likely to happen? Not really.. But it makes for a good advertising campaign against SOPA.
In what way does SOPA order American-run corporations to sabotage their customers to further American policy? It sounds to me like he's arguing that the US government is forcing Microsoft and Google to harm their customers - perhaps through destroying foreign documents or secretly sending state-secrets to the United States government. Is this some part of SOPA that I'm not aware of?
Or this:
In what way does SOPA interfere with the technical operations of American products?
These quotes reflect pretty much the tone of the entire article, and I can't figure out what he's talking about. Earlier he talks about how everyone runs software from Microsoft or Apple. In what way does "taking websites off the internet" interfere with the "technical operations of American products [such as the construction of software by Microsoft and Apple]"?
Quite frankly, when I read the article, I'm completely confused by what he's alleging is going on. It's all very vague and conspiratorial. I can't figure out if Falkvinge wrote the article half asleep, whether he's going off the deep end and falling prey to strange conspiracy theories, or if there's some aspect of SOPA that nobody's talked about (which seems unlikely, given the amount of press I've seen about SOPA).
Those who will be affected most by SOPA are those who rely on American billing, search and advertising services.
It doesn't matter if you are running Linux, if you are hosting content that is flagged for violating copyright law, then you risks losing your advertising revenue.
The solution to the problem is to use services in other countries than the US. Whether you are running Linux or Windows is irrelevant.
I find this sort of thing rather amusing. You didn't trust closed source software...
So you download ten million or so lines of source code from some anonymous server, written by thousands of people you've never met and will never know. You then build it using even more software and libraries and tools running under yet another OS, and you then install it on hardware with its own BIOS and roms and controllers.
Hundreds of millions of lines of code you've never seen, and never will see...
And yet the end product of THAT result is somehow more trustworthy.
Right.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
It's a Foster Motherland.
I have been pondering for a long while on whether America is a Fatherland or an Motherland...
You insensitive clod! America is and must be a Parent-Land, utterly free of sexist gender-laden stereotypes.
Oh, wait, that "Parent-Land" term might be construed as ageist or anti-youth. Uh, America is and must be an Infantile Parent-Land! Now that's more like it.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
"Why American Corporate Software Can No Longer Be Trusted"
This should read:
"Why Corporatations Cannot Be Trusted"
And I'm not sure TFA answers that very well.
Today's global economic situation is not much different than that of 1932. After years if not decades of reckless investment, currency and market manipulation, leveraged investment, and rapacious profit-making, US corporations and banks conspired in a way that ultimately led to a economic meltdown.
In 1929 they didn't need computers and software to do this. They needed a willing and complicit Legislature, courts, and government agencies. The results then are well known, as they are today.
We started back down this path in 1999 with the repeal of the Glass-Steagell Act. Couple that with the continuous pressure to expand home ownership, a Federal Reserve inappropriately tasked with controlling inflation and economic growth, and lack of oversight into multiple industries (Accounting firms audting a corporation while their banking divisions floated the IPO, for instance) and you had the makings of a perfect storm. It came.
Corporations, by design, cannot be 'trusted' to act in the 'public interest'. They need to be at least minimally regulated, if for no other reason than to prevent the most egregious abuses.
What this has to do with software is beyond me. It's more than that, a lot more.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
On one hand Slashdotters are yelling about how untrustable corporate software is, an on the other had they are yelling about how much they want the ability to hook up their personal laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc. to the corporate networks when they go to work. WTF!? Come on guys, give your fucking heads a collective shake. What's it to be then, the corporate software is safe enough to expose your personal devices or it's ... what?
This is why I never could fucking understand this "I want to use my own laptop or smartphone at work" bullshit. I have never wanted to or trusted a corporate infrastructure enough to have full access to their systems; and conversely allow them to have access to my personal devices. If they want to have accounting and software tracking software look at the various nodes (and unless we're talking seriously small start up companies, they all do this), then I want them to supply me with a laptop, PC, tablet, smartphone, or whatever else is needed.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Person who founded a party supporting the pirating of software doesn't like the corporate software business model. Film at 11!
Seriously, why does anyone give a fuck what this person thinks, especially when his stance pretty fucking well known? You call this shit news?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
"In the debate around the American Stop Online Piracy Act, American legislators have demonstrated a clear capability and willingness to interfere with the technical operations of American products, when doing so furthers American political interests regardless of the policy situation in the customer’s country."
Not quite. Should read:
"In the debate around the American Stop Online Piracy Act, American legislators have demonstrated a clear capability and willingness to interfere with the technical operations of American products, when doing so furthers American CORPORATE interests regardless of the policy situation in the customer’s country."
There. Fixed that for you.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
We can't trust any American corporations? Not even FSF?
Ah, the title doesn't match the article.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
What about single mothers, you insensitive clod???
If you really want to get paranoid, you won't be using computers at all. You can't trust the software, even open source unless you've personally reviewed it all including the compiler. Even then you can't trust it unless you've reviewed the OS, BIOS and verified the design of all hardware in your system (including input devices down to the chip level.) Even then, you'll need monitor every byte of traffic on your network link (since even open software has vulnerabilities you likely didn't find in your review.) Still safe? No, because there could be listening and/or other devices anywhere, even inside the concrete blocks that make up your house. (e.g. a filter outside the street that modifies your network traffic.) Heck, even if you are Microsoft you can't trust your OWN software because there are too many cooks in the kitchen, as it were. None of whom were fully vetted.
Basically, guaranteed trust is a myth. You have to trust some one and some things or you are basically useless to society and will die of starvation (trust your food and water?) This article is either the start of a scare tactic against US companies and/or a poor attempt at bringing some rational thought to congress. Even if the US isn't doing crazy things behind the scenes, I'm sure China and most other large countries are.
I don't know, but it works for me.
And this comes from some dude named "Anonymous Coward" who has a horrible reputation on Slashdot.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
My ubuntu 11.10 is fully up to date, plus both Firefox and Java up to date and Pogo works fine! I do hope pogo is worth living with know security holes in your system!
I would rather have an eternity of software freedom at hand. The Linux kernel is obviously robust, portable, capable, scalable, and proven. But in some distributions Linux is not entirely free because Linus Torvalds' fork contains non-free binary-only software (see the linux-libre project for a fully free Linux kernel). Also I'd hope for software freedom and not a particular approach (this OS, that kernel, etc.) because there are other free software programs that shouldn't be forgotten just because they're not a part of a complete GNU/Linux system.
Somewhat similarly regarding the headline for this article on /.: I don't think the true hinge of this issue is nationality or incorporation. These aspects are the true hinge of trouble in other issues (wars and suppressing democracy, to name a couple issues more significant than free software), but here I think that software freedom needs to be the focus worldwide. As time goes on I think more people will realize that software freedom can have life and death implications for ordinary people, particularly where people wear medical devices inside their body without any control over that device's function or any ability to inspect what that device does.
Digital Citizen
TFA specifically is about why American corporate software can't be trusted - because of SOPA.
As a result (of SOPA), American corporate code cannot be trusted from this day onwards...Therefore, the shift (away from Microsoft and Apple), needs to start as soon as possible.
He then goes on to say don't shift to Android because that's also American-made. Again, it's referring explicitly to the rules imposed by SOPA.
Well, that's one of the nice things about Linux in general. Security through obscurity! How many times have we been told, right here on slashdot, that no one even wants to hack into a Linux machine?
And, those known security holes on on HER machine, not mine. uname tells me that I'm not on Ubuntu at all: Linux sabayon 3.1.0-sabayon Since her machine has nothing of commercial or financial interest on it, I'm not about to fight with her about updating! At most, a hacker would get some personal details, which she would probably just laugh at - as she twisted the knife in his gut.
(Have I ever mentioned on slashdot that my wife's female relatives all seem a murderous bunch? Lots of "late husbands" died under strange circumstances after pissing their wives off!)
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
You gotta be keylogging me...
Seriously (and partly OT): What the h*ll has happened to employees standing up for their rights to guaranteed privacy as long as they perform their duties?
Doubleplusirony. We're discussing govt involvement in software performance while being keylogged.
Whohaddathunkthat. Priceless.
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
You forgot NetBSD, you insensitive clod
I have no such expectations of privacy at work. My duties are monitored and evaluated. If I make use of 'my' workstation for personal purposes, I am actually using the company's workstation.
I can't access web based or personal email at work - primarily to complicate transferring data to non-company storage. I can't access Facebook, Linkedin, and a host of other social systems. I can't access a multitude of sites that are either known to provide information about compromising systems, or are known to host malware of any sort. I cannot use several commenting and interaction systems such as Disqus.
Antivirus software is the least of the security measures on 'my' workstation. The corporate LAN, both wired and wireless, require certificates for me to connect. DLP processes on 'my' workstation track every read and write. Specific filters look for characteristic types of data, and prevent its transmission in emails and instant messages. Documents of al types, even text, are required to be categorized by the nature of their confidentiality, and are blocked from being stored on certain storage if they require more security than is afforded by that media.
Email can be encrypted by a method that requires the recipient to register at the corporate website to read and interact with it. Certain data cannot even be sent encrypted without specific certificates that are given only to employees for whom this is a required function.
Mind you, I have the privilege of using removable media. Not many employees do, or need to. I need to share data with non-corporate entities regularly. I assume my activities are scrutinized.
And yes, I post to Slashdot from work. Not now, but that's one reason why I share a little more info.
In the largest, most vulnerable corporations, the stakes are much higher than most people imagine. And the largest corporations are the most vulnerable.
And ultimately, everything here and in similar forums on the Internet is cataloged, analyzed, and processed. By several entities, here and abroad. It's not like Slashdot is a secret. Pretty much everything without an HTTPS in front of it is no secret, and some of the HTTPS stuff is also.
Privacy is what you do by yourself.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Makes you think of open source and how few abuses it has been applied to. Is it immune to abuse? Probably not but it seems that it's pretty hard to hide abuses in and generally does things that are good in the short term and great in the long term!
Is it underfunded? Of course, it challenges the power elite who are terrified of an efficient transparent economy more than any act of war or violence.
Is is tampered with? Surely. But on the whole it just keeps getting better and better!
and I thought he was nutty, but possibly right. As time goes on, more and more I am convinced he is right. My notes from his presentation - Richard Stallman at the Yorktown High School Libre Users Group
USA is still number 1 destination for FDI
Casteism
I didn't mean removing but combining with...
I agree. I never use my work e-mail for personal uses, or vice versa. If I'm giving my dentist, or anybody I deal w/ on a personal level, my e-mail, they get my gmail or yahoo mails. If I'm giving an e-mail to someone I'm dealing w/ as a part of my job, s/he gets my work e-mail. In fact, at work, I can't access personal e-mail for good reasons.
That way, my work life is completely separate from my private life even w/ e-mails.
copy and paste to the rescue!
Cheap storage VM.
In the UK, we have the Privacy In Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 and the Data Protection Act 1998, which, between them, legally guarantee a certain expectation of privacy from nosy sysadmins or managers. There are some good laws here, thankfully; employees should always know their rights.
CheShA: Manchester Breakcore / Drill and Bass Yes I'm a s
Nothing to hide? Then drop your pants please.
I think people telling that they have nothing to hide just seem to have forgotten that everyone deserves a lil bit of privacy sometimes.
"we are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
Besides the fact that we all sometimes engage in psychoanalytical games, in the rest of the time we concede people their own freedom. For software, there are different schools of thought. One says that your property ends at your fingertips, everything else belongs to someone else. In particular, your PC, your phone, and any other electronic appliances you use belong to their vendors, who deserve the right to observe, guide, and censor whatever you do with them. Another school says that when you buy an appliance it becomes your own property. Since PCs are not believed to have free will, you don't feel a slave driver when you want them to do exactly as you say. You may consider them an extension of yourself.
I'm assuming you only posted that to show how to form an Ad Hominem fallacy. Since the logic of the articles seems fairly spot on, as far as it goes.
It's was an issue as far back as equating encryption to a weapons export - but there was at least a fairly solid line drawn around the encryption issue, and the legal levels that were available were sufficient for most purposes at the time.
This political game extends that type of interference, not as a specific category you can plan and compensate for, but as a vague category manipulated by large corporations in accordance to their momentary short-term interests, possibly negotiated behind the scenes of even the political system; The results of those negotiations might not be strictly legal even within this framework, but since you won't have the opportunity to even be aware of them until the hammer comes down, that does you no good.
Under those circumstances, remaining coupled to operating systems subject to that kind of intervention is stupid if not suicidal.
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
So, your belief this is meaningless is based on the assumption that:
The multiple of two completely unsupported percentages
(a=0.01% Capable of reading source code, *b= 5% Willing to read source code and inform the Public) * #c Open Source Users
is smaller than the multiple of
(x% Capable of Reading Machine Code, * y% Willing to Break the Law to Reverse Engineer that Machine Code, but are honest enough to inform the Public) * #z Closed Source users.
I don't think your logic holds up for any sane set of number c, x, y, and z, but let us be empirical about it -- do something the Government does not like on your equally safe closed source operating system and we'll find out.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
+1
Then explain the KDELook bug Pug, which was there for over a year unnoticed? or the Quake bug? your logic fails as you automatically assume that because someone CAN do something that means it DOES get done, which just the two above bugs proves is total horseshit. And reverse engineering for security research is quite legal friend, don't know where you got your info but all the major AV firms do that 5 days a week and nobody says squat. Hell it was Russinovich at MSFT Research that came up with the info on the Sony rootkits and published exactly how it worked by reverse engineering and i didn't see anybody knocking on his door.
But frankly all this flag waving and fangirl horseshit really doesn't surprise me anymore, mikey 400 accounts is right that /. = stagnated. Hell they might as well change the name to boycott Novell for all the FOSSie trollbait bullshit they post here now. Lets be honest a minute, okay? your OS has less users than JavaME, a shitty cell phone OS used by Fred's on $10 phones. No how many top shelf researchers and programmers are bothering to ON THEIR OWN TIME look through millions of lines of code for a hidden bug? Not to mention the "Whose watching the watchers" problem of hidden code in the compiler could make any inspection shit so you'll have to write your own compiler while you're at it. I stand by my statement as the above bugs and the hacks Linux has seen lately (which I'll be happy to link to BTW, I could wallpaper the page with them if you wish) shows that just because you have the code don't make it a damned bit safer or more secure than anything else.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.