Sacrificing Security for Freedom Breeds Tyranny
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 2
The turmoil that Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America have confronted throughout their history was, and often still is, rooted in the fundamentally undemocratic nature of states in those areas, and in the inability or unwillingness of those populations to act to change the status quo.
The United States is a fundamentally different kind of nation, because security and national identity are rooted in its diverse citizenry's allegiance to the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and similar cornerstone documents, as well as the citizenry's mutual adherence to the civil constructs outlined in those documents. Contrast this to the linkages in traditional states between national identity and race, religion, ethnicity, family status, and accident of birth, and the linkage of security to the military and police powers held by the governing elite and that elite's safety and preservation. We can find in those nations ample evidence of the willingness of a few to curtail the freedom, or lives, of many others for their own self-interest and comfort.
The current fears and apprehension in the U.S. have led to a number of racist acts targeting Islamic facilities and followers of Islam, as well as a considerable amount of ill-informed and bigoted expression in the media. This ugly turn of events parallels reprisals against Americans of German ancestry in both World Wars, and, of course, the forced internal exile to internment camps of Americans of Japanese ancestry in World War Two.
When Americans voice a willingness to sacrifice freedom for personal security, they forget that security without freedom is impossible.
...if the so-called "community" would spend less time playing wannabe lawyers arguing about licensing minutiae and spend more time developing new applications for users. The users you need to attract have never heard of Richard Stallman, buy shrinkwrapped software (including Linux, if and when they do use it), and judge an OS by the quality and range of applications available to run on it.
Endless iterations of the same traditional Unix toolset, tools for the server side, and attempts to mimic Office and the Windows interface, won't cut it. Be imaginative.
When I've tried to explain Linux to people who make corporate buying decisions, their questions boil down to: Why buy a cheap knock-off when the real thing is available?
(Please try to refrain from the usual/. insults to users as too stupid to know what's good for them. In reality, they decide your future.)
>> Now slashdotters will claim, correctly, that the spec is incomplete and constantly changing...
Doesn't XML represent a potential "open" data exchange tool that changes and grows about every 5 minutes?
Isn't it grand that people affiliated with or paid by companies making money on open source are so disinterestedly helping the State of California save money?
Don't try to mandate government purchases of any kind of software. A company selling open source is just as capable of ripping off California as is Oracle.
Serious efforts to ward off the threats posed by the DMCA, the RIAA, etc., don't get any help from/. posters who seem bent on exercising the phony "right" of the post-adoloscent crowd to avoid paying for property that other people are trying to sell.
You don't get to pick which laws to obey unless you're willing to risk arrest and trial. Laws are broken for a lot of reasons. But, whatver the reason, it is still breaking the law. The one that applies here is that a lot of people don't want to pay for software/music/ movies or whatever. Technology gives them the means to engage in theft, so they're doing just that. They point to the selfish behavior of large corporations and their ability to influence politics as if they are the very first people on the planet to discover that money wields power. Their perversion of the open source/free software ideology gives them some words to mouth off with when someone wonders where they get off exhibiting such fundamental disrespect for the laws others live by.
I'm surprised, but then, not too surprised, at the number of posts here that castigate Apple as "evil" for doing this. They are in keeping with the widespread notion that "belief" in open souce/free software gives you a right to steal with impunity. I doubt that's what Stallman had in mind.
Many seem to argue that Apple has a moral obligation to allow anyone to reverse engineer any of their products and do with them as they see fit. Some appear upset because Apple is using open source in a commercial product, rather than simply making their own products open source. Others just seem to be on a sophomoric rant against all businesses, as if they are the first in human history to notice issues with unbridled self-interest.
What obligation does Apple have to pay attention to any of those opinions?
I really don't care what Apple does or doesn't do with iDVD -- the ongoing emphasis on copying music and movies plays right into the hands of the media corporations, obscures the true importance of this copyright debate, and diminshes the chances to defeat some really bad legislation -- but a quick check of my OS X license shows it contains the standard prohibitions of disassembly, reverse engineering, etc. Such language has been used in proprietary software licenses for decades. If you violate those terms, you risk Apple's reprisal. Offense should be taken only by those who believe open source/free software represents a moral crusade to eliminate all closed souce. To the contrary, open source and free software are interesting and effective development and distribution models. They are not something to "believe in".
Difficult to argue with that assessment, except to say that it remains the exception rather than the rule. You'll have to admit, I think, that many comments here seem to approach this copyright fuss as if it is the first foray into real-life politics for most of the posters (and it likely is). Hence, the apparent shock that corporations and individuals actaully do adhere to the profit motive and often behave in a narrow, selfish and short-term manner.
(Remember, too, that many people honestly believe that individual decisions to maximize short-term gain act, collectively, to maximize the long-term interests of the entire community. I think that's debatable given historical eviddence, but so is the notion that the majority will start to behave altruistically, sacrificing their short-term needs to the long-term community good.)
In the context of the current discussion, I think there is a conflict between a focus on the political effort to change the legislation controlling use of copyright, and a more millenial attempt to change the way corporations do business. Concentrating on the latter puts the former at risk. Supporters of the former need to get some of their own legislation into the mix, rather than simply working to defeat Hollings, etc.
All that stuff is in their terms of use because it's all still illegal. Expecting an ISP to openly countenance or advocate any illegal activity is a bit like asking a private toll road operator to put up signs saying "Feel Free to Speed. Everyone else does it."
This is a political battle, not an ethical battle. It will take all the help the "community" can find to win this. (Problem One: Very few people outside the community even know there is one.) People should be happy that Verizon is speaking out, and stop quibbling about their motivations.
>> It's all about money. It's always all about money.
An accurate assessment, but you almost seem surprised. Businesses are created to make money. If they happen to sell something socially useful, so much the better, but a business that neglects to make money is eventually called a failure.
>> Verizon is essentally a state sponsered monopoly
Huh? Where I live, you can't buy services from Verizon for any amount of money.
Verizon is a (big) regional supplier that owes its existence to the court-ordered breakup of AT&T a number of years ago. It's no more state-sponsored than, say, MCI.
Whether it is software development or paving the parking lot, if you've been burned in the past by going with a bid that is one-third the going rate, it is unlikely that you will go there again. Business do want to save money, but, more importantly, they must prevent damage to their operations and infrastructure. Saving $10k doesn't do you much good if you lose $20k in downtime when you have to take systems offline to fix them. That concern is a big part of the mix.
Apple does not have a monopoly on making and selling computers. If they did, you'd be using one. Apple does not have a monopoly on operation systems. Again, if they did, you'd be using their OS.
What Apple does have is a very tightly integrated hardware and software platform that they have managed and protected for years. Part of that entails copyrights, trademarks, and a helluva lot of very good brand marketing. Apple has every right to aggressively market their products and take legal action against anyone they believe is violating their copyrights or trademarks, in the intersts of protecting the value of the Apple brand.. They are under no legal or ethical obligation to share or "open" anything at all.
There's a direct parallel with the auto industry, where each manufacturer markets what is, in reality, a product that does pretty much the same thing as all it's competitors. In order to differentiate their products in the minds of consumers, each manufacturer goes to great lenghts to convince consumers that their brand delivers something unobtainable elsewhere.
So, if you wanna buy a new Volkswagen, you have to buy it from Vokswagen. It's obvious, though, that they don't have a monopoly on car sales.
Same with Apple. All general-purpose computers do almost exactly the same thing. All OS's do pretty much the same thing.
Sometimes it pays to remember that before Microsoft established its stranglehold, the personal computer market was a pretty competitive place: Apple, Commodore, Sinclair, Acorn, Coleco, etc. Each sold a combined hardware/software platform. Plus, a whole gaggle of vendors marketed their own versions of DOS on the PC platform, version that you could not buy from MS.
Agree that Linux has along way to go before becoming commercially viable on the desktop, but chasing Win32 API's and apps is a dead end. Why play in a game in which you allow the other side to set the standards and write the rules? E.g., you see many reviews comparing KDE/Gnome to Windows. How many people in the Windows world ever compare Windows to KDE or Gnome? While many here and elsewhere enthusiastically compare (and advocate using) the barely-born OpenOffice to the well-seasoned MS Office, how many non-open source advocates think OpenOffice is important enough to reverse the comparison?
The way to increase use of Linux on the desktop is to develop innovative applications that leapfrog Windows. Stop trying to convince people that traditional Unix apps are all they'll ever need, if only they'd buckle down and study. Forget about the virtues of the underlying OS as a selling point. Just make it reliable enough that people can forget it's there.
Don't harp so much on the "it's free" aspect. A lot of people can afford to buy commercial software. For them, their time is more valuable than the money.
And for God's sake, please finish things before you release them. Tossing umpteen versions 0.0XX out to the open source community is a proven development model. Outside that community, however, many people will walk away from a disfunctional early release and never come back.
Bugger off. Taxes do not equal socialism. UK programming is better, on average, than programming in the States. As is any TV that doesn't depend on advertising revenue.
"Artists" don't produce TV shows. They act in them. They work for the network, or producer, or whoever.
I'm guessing we couldn't afford to pay for anything we'd want to watch if we had to buy programming directly from the producers. Especially because they'd need to jack up the price of any new program to recoup their costs in getting the first show out the door.
If the programming was any good, I'd put up with commercials. Problem is, it's almost all rubbish, on every network and channel.
Remember, too, even if you only watch a single HBO channel, you have to pay a cable/satellite company to deliver that channel and dozens others to you.
I'm stupid enough to pay a wad of cash every month to my local cable monopoly to feed me a bunch of useless programs I don't watch. If you're in the States, odds are your payin' someone, too.
Bear in mind that commercial TV is just that: commercial. From an economic point of view, it is an advertising and marketing medium for the sponsors. They'd run white noise if we'd watch it.
The best way to change television's "business model" is to turn off your set and cancel your cable or satellite subscription.
Personally, I'd opt for the UK's TV license fee scheme. A lot of Brits don't like it because it's mandatory and enforced, but the programming is better.
The "we got 2 hit singles and 45 minutes of filler" business has been SOP for decades. Often happens in order to quickly capitalize on a new band's initial success. Alas, many follks only have two decent pieces in them. It won't go away as long as the basic format for selling recorded music is something -- album, CD, DVD -- that packages several tracks.
The record industry suckers almost everyone into thinking commercial music is going to change the world. It isn't, but the con sure sells a lot of crap.
HMV is just trying to make some money here. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. They're in business to sell entertainment products; don't ever ever expect them to give it away. Why do you think they call it the entertainment industry and not the entertainment social laboratory?
One reason people might pay HMV a few bucks a month is for access to a wider range of music. The music on the P2P sites reflects the interests of the people who put it there, and they all seem to be 20-year-old college students.
1. "No harm, no foul" is not enshrined as a legal precept.
2. There's plenty of data inside and outside the government, on paper or on computers, that it is illegal for you to look at If you get caught looking at it, that's often called espionage. If someone screwed up and made it easy for you to spy, they'll face charges, too.
3. Changing or destroying someone else's data, i.e., property, will set you up for anything from vandalism to sabotage.
4. Guessing a password isn't authorization, any more than guessing a safe combination is. How about calling it attempted breaking and entering?
People seem to think that geeks are diferent and the fact that they know how to play with technology absolves them of responsibiity for their actions. I don't get
People seem to think that clever tech tricks will keep them ahead of politicians they don't like. I don't get it. All it will do is encourage draconian laws, like mandatory digital tags, mandatory hardware controls, and inspection and approval of code and code revisons before use on any network-accessible computer.
No government is ever going to allow something as important and, potentially, threatening, as the Internet to exist in uncontrolled anarchy. Radio and TV techs aren't allowed how to run that industry. Neither will IT techs. Sorry.
Breaking into government property is against the law. Doesn't make any difference if someone is stupidly exposing shares in the open. Just like it doesn't make any difference if you walk in to someone's office and walk out with the contents of their unlocked filing cabinets.
You can't defend it by claiming some higher moral right. Doesn't make any differencee if the data is in a filing cabinet or on a server. You can't justify breaking and entering or illegal hacking just by claiming to be "testing" security.
You don't want it to be illegal? Ok, suppose you're in charge of your company's network security. I successfully break in and steal data. Tell me how you're going to finese that by pointing to the morality of the thieves.
Windows sits on desktops across the government for the same reasons it sits on desktops everywhere. There's no excuse for sloppy security, but the feds cannot offer competitive compensation for IT workers (as well as a lot of other technical occupations). Federal agencies cannot unilaterally decide to fix the problem by increasing compenstation to match the private sector; they're legally bound by gov't-wide guidelines. And, these days, a political effort to raise the pay grade of IT workers across the board will run into the usual firestorm of opposition from the usual suspects.
Slashdot Mirror
The turmoil that Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America have confronted throughout their history was, and often still is, rooted in the fundamentally undemocratic nature of states in those areas, and in the inability or unwillingness of those populations to act to change the status quo.
The United States is a fundamentally different kind of nation, because security and national identity are rooted in its diverse citizenry's allegiance to the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and similar cornerstone documents, as well as the citizenry's mutual adherence to the civil constructs outlined in those documents. Contrast this to the linkages in traditional states between national identity and race, religion, ethnicity, family status, and accident of birth, and the linkage of security to the military and police powers held by the governing elite and that elite's safety and preservation. We can find in those nations ample evidence of the willingness of a few to curtail the freedom, or lives, of many others for their own self-interest and comfort.
The current fears and apprehension in the U.S. have led to a number of racist acts targeting Islamic facilities and followers of Islam, as well as a considerable amount of ill-informed and bigoted expression in the media. This ugly turn of events parallels reprisals against Americans of German ancestry in both World Wars, and, of course, the forced internal exile to internment camps of Americans of Japanese ancestry in World War Two.
When Americans voice a willingness to sacrifice freedom
for personal security, they forget that security without freedom is impossible.
...if the so-called "community" would spend less time playing wannabe lawyers arguing about licensing minutiae and spend more time developing new applications for users. The users you need to attract have never heard of Richard Stallman, buy shrinkwrapped software (including Linux, if and when they do use it), and judge an OS by the quality and range of applications available to run on it.
/. insults to users as too stupid to know what's good for them. In reality, they decide your future.)
Endless iterations of the same traditional Unix toolset, tools for the server side, and attempts to mimic Office and the Windows interface, won't cut it. Be imaginative.
When I've tried to explain Linux to people who make corporate buying decisions, their questions boil down to: Why buy a cheap knock-off when the real thing is available?
(Please try to refrain from the usual
>> Now slashdotters will claim, correctly, that the spec is incomplete and constantly changing...
Doesn't XML represent a potential "open" data exchange tool that changes and grows about every 5 minutes?
Isn't it grand that people affiliated with or paid by companies making money on open source are so disinterestedly helping the State of California save money?
Don't try to mandate government purchases of any kind of software. A company selling open source is just as capable of ripping off California as is Oracle.
Serious efforts to ward off the threats posed by the DMCA, the RIAA, etc., don't get any help from /. posters who seem bent on exercising the phony "right" of the post-adoloscent crowd to avoid paying for property that other people are trying to sell.
You don't get to pick which laws to obey unless you're willing to risk arrest and trial. Laws are broken for a lot of reasons. But, whatver the reason, it is still breaking the law. The one that applies here is that a lot of people don't want to pay for software/music/ movies or whatever. Technology gives them the means to engage in theft, so they're doing just that. They point to the selfish behavior of large corporations and their ability to influence politics as if they are the very first people on the planet to discover that money wields power. Their perversion of the open source/free software ideology gives them some words to mouth off with when someone wonders where they get off exhibiting such fundamental disrespect for the laws others live by.
I'm surprised, but then, not too surprised, at the number of posts here that castigate Apple as "evil" for doing this. They are in keeping with the widespread notion that "belief" in open souce/free software gives you a right to steal with impunity. I doubt that's what Stallman had in mind.
Many seem to argue that Apple has a moral obligation to allow anyone to reverse engineer any of their products and do with them as they see fit. Some appear upset because Apple is using open source in a commercial product, rather than simply making their own products open source. Others just seem to be on a sophomoric rant against all businesses, as if they are the first in human history to notice issues with unbridled self-interest.
What obligation does Apple have to pay attention to any of those opinions?
I really don't care what Apple does or doesn't do with iDVD -- the ongoing emphasis on copying music and movies plays right into the hands of the media corporations, obscures the true importance of this copyright debate, and diminshes the chances to defeat some really bad legislation -- but a quick check of my OS X license shows it contains the standard prohibitions of disassembly, reverse engineering, etc. Such language has been used in proprietary software licenses for decades. If you violate those terms, you risk Apple's reprisal. Offense should be taken only by those who believe open source/free software represents a moral crusade to eliminate all closed souce. To the contrary, open source and free software are interesting and effective development and distribution models. They are not something to "believe in".
Difficult to argue with that assessment, except to say that it remains the exception rather than the rule. You'll have to admit, I think, that many comments here seem to approach this copyright fuss as if it is the first foray into real-life politics for most of the posters (and it likely is). Hence, the apparent shock that corporations and individuals actaully do adhere to the profit motive and often behave in a narrow, selfish and short-term manner.
(Remember, too, that many people honestly believe that individual decisions to maximize short-term gain act, collectively, to maximize the long-term interests of the entire community. I think that's debatable given historical eviddence, but so is the notion that the majority will start to behave altruistically, sacrificing their short-term needs to the long-term community good.)
In the context of the current discussion, I think there is a conflict between a focus on the political effort to change the legislation controlling use of copyright, and a more millenial attempt to change the way corporations do business. Concentrating on the latter puts the former at risk. Supporters of the former need to get some of their own legislation into the mix, rather than simply working to defeat Hollings, etc.
All that stuff is in their terms of use because it's all still illegal. Expecting an ISP to openly countenance or advocate any illegal activity is a bit like asking a private toll road operator to put up signs saying "Feel Free to Speed. Everyone else does it."
This is a political battle, not an ethical battle. It will take all the help the "community" can find to win this. (Problem One: Very few people outside the community even know there is one.) People should be happy that Verizon is speaking out, and stop quibbling about their motivations.
>> It's all about money. It's always all about money.
An accurate assessment, but you almost seem surprised. Businesses are created to make money. If they happen to sell something socially useful, so much the better, but a business that neglects to make money is eventually called a failure.
That people ususally operate in their own interest seems to be a new concept for a lot of Slashdot readers.
>> Verizon is essentally a state sponsered monopoly
Huh? Where I live, you can't buy services from Verizon for any amount of money.
Verizon is a (big) regional supplier that owes its existence to the court-ordered breakup of AT&T a number of years ago. It's no more state-sponsored than, say, MCI.
Whether it is software development or paving the parking lot, if you've been burned in the past by going with a bid that is one-third the going rate, it is unlikely that you will go there again. Business do want to save money, but, more importantly, they must prevent damage to their operations and infrastructure. Saving $10k doesn't do you much good if you lose $20k in downtime when you have to take systems offline to fix them. That concern is a big part of the mix.
Apple does not have a monopoly on making and selling computers. If they did, you'd be using one. Apple does not have a monopoly on operation systems. Again, if they did, you'd be using their OS.
What Apple does have is a very tightly integrated hardware and software platform that they have managed and protected for years. Part of that entails copyrights, trademarks, and a helluva lot of very good brand marketing. Apple has every right to aggressively market their products and take legal action against anyone they believe is violating their copyrights or trademarks, in the intersts of protecting the value of the Apple brand.. They are under no legal or ethical obligation to share or "open" anything at all.
There's a direct parallel with the auto industry, where each manufacturer markets what is, in reality, a product that does pretty much the same thing as all it's competitors. In order to differentiate their products in the minds of consumers, each manufacturer goes to great lenghts to convince consumers that their brand delivers something unobtainable elsewhere.
So, if you wanna buy a new Volkswagen, you
have to buy it from Vokswagen. It's obvious, though, that they don't have a monopoly on car sales.
Same with Apple. All general-purpose computers do almost exactly the same thing. All OS's do pretty much the same thing.
Sometimes it pays to remember that before Microsoft established its stranglehold, the personal computer market was a pretty competitive place: Apple, Commodore, Sinclair, Acorn, Coleco, etc. Each sold a combined hardware/software platform. Plus, a whole gaggle of vendors marketed their own versions of DOS on the PC platform, version that you could not buy from MS.
Agree that Linux has along way to go before becoming commercially viable on the desktop, but chasing Win32 API's and apps is a dead end. Why play in a game in which you allow the other side to set the standards and write the rules? E.g., you see many reviews comparing KDE/Gnome to Windows. How many people in the Windows world ever compare Windows to KDE or Gnome? While many here and elsewhere enthusiastically compare (and advocate using) the barely-born OpenOffice to the well-seasoned MS Office, how many non-open source advocates think OpenOffice is important enough to reverse the comparison?
The way to increase use of Linux on the desktop is to develop innovative applications that leapfrog Windows. Stop trying to convince people that traditional Unix apps are all they'll ever need, if only they'd buckle down and study. Forget about the virtues of the underlying OS as a selling point. Just make it reliable enough that people can forget it's there.
Don't harp so much on the "it's free" aspect. A lot of people can afford to buy commercial software. For them, their time is more valuable than the money.
And for God's sake, please finish things before you release them. Tossing umpteen versions 0.0XX out to the open source community is a proven development model. Outside that community, however, many people will walk away from a disfunctional early release and never come back.
Bugger off. Taxes do not equal socialism. UK programming is better, on average, than programming in the States. As is any TV that doesn't depend on advertising revenue.
"Artists" don't produce TV shows. They act in them. They work for the network, or producer, or whoever.
I'm guessing we couldn't afford to pay for anything we'd want to watch if we had to buy programming directly from the producers. Especially because they'd need to jack up the price of any new program to recoup their costs in getting the first show out the door.
If the programming was any good, I'd put up with commercials. Problem is, it's almost all rubbish, on every network and channel.
Remember, too, even if you only watch a single HBO channel, you have to pay a cable/satellite company to deliver that channel and dozens others to you.
I'm stupid enough to pay a wad of cash every month to my local cable monopoly to feed me a bunch of useless programs I don't watch. If you're in the States, odds are your payin' someone, too.
Bear in mind that commercial TV is just that: commercial. From an economic point of view, it is an advertising and marketing medium for the sponsors. They'd run white noise if we'd watch it.
The best way to change television's "business model" is to turn off your set and cancel your cable or satellite subscription.
Personally, I'd opt for the UK's TV license fee scheme. A lot of Brits don't like it because it's mandatory and enforced, but the programming is better.
>> "Or even the mental tools to comprehend."
You wouldn't happen to be a Linux user, would you? A number of them believe intellectual prowess is indicated by choice of OS.
The "we got 2 hit singles and 45 minutes of filler" business has been SOP for decades. Often happens in order to quickly capitalize on a new band's initial success. Alas, many follks only have two decent pieces in them. It won't go away as long as the basic format for selling recorded music is something -- album, CD, DVD -- that packages several tracks.
The record industry suckers almost everyone into thinking commercial music is going to change the world. It isn't, but the con sure sells a lot of crap.
HMV is just trying to make some money here. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. They're in business to sell entertainment products; don't ever ever expect them to give it away. Why do you think they call it the entertainment industry and not the entertainment social laboratory?
One reason people might pay HMV a few bucks a month is for access to a wider range of music. The music on the P2P sites reflects the interests of the people who put it there, and they all seem to be 20-year-old college students.
Forgot one:
/ is better than \
Here are some pointers:
1. "No harm, no foul" is not enshrined as a legal precept.
2. There's plenty of data inside and outside the government, on paper or on computers, that it is illegal for you to look at If you get caught looking at it, that's often called espionage. If someone screwed up and made it easy for you to spy, they'll face charges, too.
3. Changing or destroying someone else's data, i.e., property, will set you up for anything from vandalism to sabotage.
4. Guessing a password isn't authorization, any more than guessing a safe combination is. How about calling it attempted breaking and entering?
People seem to think that geeks are diferent and the fact that they know how to play with technology absolves them of responsibiity for their actions. I don't get
People seem to think that clever tech tricks will keep them ahead of politicians they don't like. I don't get it. All it will do is encourage draconian laws, like mandatory digital tags, mandatory hardware controls, and inspection and approval of code and code revisons before use on any network-accessible computer.
No government is ever going to allow something as important and, potentially, threatening, as the Internet to exist in uncontrolled anarchy. Radio and TV techs aren't allowed how to run that industry. Neither will IT techs. Sorry.
Breaking into government property is against the law. Doesn't make any difference if someone is stupidly exposing shares in the open. Just like it doesn't make any difference if you walk in to someone's office and walk out with the contents of their unlocked filing cabinets.
You can't defend it by claiming some higher moral right. Doesn't make any differencee if the data is in a filing cabinet or on a server. You can't justify breaking and entering or illegal hacking just by claiming to be "testing" security.
You don't want it to be illegal? Ok, suppose you're in charge of your company's network security. I successfully break in and steal data. Tell me how you're going to finese that by pointing to the morality of the thieves.
Windows sits on desktops across the government for the same reasons it sits on desktops everywhere. There's no excuse for sloppy security, but the feds cannot offer competitive compensation for IT workers (as well as a lot of other technical occupations). Federal agencies cannot unilaterally decide to fix the problem by increasing compenstation to match the private sector; they're legally bound by gov't-wide guidelines. And, these days, a political effort to raise the pay grade of IT workers across the board will run into the usual firestorm of opposition from the usual suspects.