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Open Source Enables Terrorist States
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Apr 23, 2003 02:55 AM
from the don-your-surreality-glasses dept.
from the don-your-surreality-glasses dept.
chill writes "Where to begin? OpenBSD Journal has a couple of update articles on the business of DARPA cancelling POSSE and OpenBSD's grant. And here is a message from Theo de Raadt, the OpenBSD big cheese, with a quote from a military spokesman. How does '...due to world events and the evolving threat posed by increasingly capable nation-states...' grab you? Does open source and freely available security support terrorism by its very nature?"
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Empowerment for All (Score:5, Insightful)
Open Source gives everyone an equal stake. Just because the enemy gets the same benefits doesn't mean we should stop. We're already "more powerful" than them - how will this uneven the playing field any more than it already is?
Besides, it's BSD, not GPL, right? (Score:3, Interesting)
So even if you accept the idea that security through obscurity is a necessity for such applications (a very questionable assumption at best) you can go ahead and obscure them. Where's the ache?
Re:Besides, it's BSD, not GPL, right? (Score:5, Informative)
a) GPL lets you hide altered source if you don't give the program to anyone else.
b) I don't think the evil terrorists would care if they weren't allowed
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Re:Empowerment for All (Score:5, Insightful)
Stomping on scientific research, technical innovation and in this case open source, all in the name of fighting terrorism is deeply unhealthy. Well duh, you might say, but my point is it's unhealthy not only for people being stomped on, but those doing the stomping, simply because the competition, whether military, political or economic, will be happily beavering away doing said research, innovating, using said open source, and so on. Why don't those in charge understand that it isn't in _their_ long term interests? I can hazard a guess, but I'd divert the thread. To prevent a couple of spurious objections, I'm not in favour of declassifying the usual military secrets, but I think things are being taken too far at the moment.
Parent
Re:Empowerment for All (Score:4, Funny)
This should suprise no one. Every large organization is like that. Note the following old, well worn fable.
In the beginning was the plan,
and then the specification;
And the plan was without form,
and the specification was void.
And darkness
was on the faces of the implementors thereof;
And they spake unto their leader,
saying:
"It is a crock of shit,
and smells as of a sewer."
And the leader took pity on them,
and spoke to the project leader:
"It is a crock of excrement,
and none may abide the odor thereof."
And the project leader
spake unto his section head, saying:
"It is a container of excrement,
and it is very strong, such that none may abide it."
The section head then hurried to his department manager,
and informed him thus:
"It is a vessel of fertilizer,
and none may abide its strength."
The department manager carried these words
to his general manager,
and spoke unto him
saying:
"It containeth that which aideth the growth of plants,
and it is very strong."
And so it was that the general manager rejoiced
and delivered the good news unto the Vice President.
"It promoteth growth,
and it is very powerful."
The Vice President rushed to the President's side,
and joyously exclaimed:
"This powerful new software product
will promote the growth of the company!"
And the President looked upon the product,
and saw that it was very good.
After the subsequent disaster, the suits protect themselves
by saying "I was misinformed!", and the implementors are
demoted or fired.
It doesn't matter what you're building, whether software, hardware, ariplanes, buildings, or cheezey poof poofing machines.
Parent
Re:Empowerment for All (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, I suspect something similar happened. Theo's quote refers to a "DARPA review"; as I understand DARPA's rules, their grant money must be spent within the US. UPenn were accepting that money within the US, then transferring it to Theo's team in Canada - which looks to me as if it violates DARPA's rules. I suspect someone in DARPA took a look at how their grant money was being spent, and told UPenn "you can't use the money that way, stop it!". The various stages of communication (this quote came via a reporter FFS!) then mangled this into some sort of terrorist theory...
Whatever the reasoning, the US government really isn't supposed to "export" work this way. We've seen enough outcry on Slashdot lately over outsourcing by private companies: if I were a US taxpayer, I'd be glad that at least the government has rules against doing this! Of course, Theo and co could probably have avoided the whole problem by being employed in the US by UPenn...
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Re:Empowerment for All (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Empowerment for All (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Empowerment for All (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes! And we'll replace them with a new language, which we'll call...Newspeak.
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Re:Empowerment for All (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Empowerment for All (Score:5, Insightful)
Increasing the education of the general populous and raising their standard of living will have little effect on stopping terrorism.
Some of the best educated people in the world have been the most terrible. Eugenics does not come from dunderheads. Chemical weapons are not created by morons.
Providing wealth is no panacea, either. John D. Rockefeller was asked once "How much is enough?" Reportedly his response was "Just a little bit more." It is the nature of man to compare himself with others, and sadly comparison is the root of discontentment.
Education and money are not problem solvers on their own.
With respect to your "extremism must be eliminated" type of approach: That view in itself is an extreme view.
The real roots of conflict within mankind are directly related to man's relationship with truth.
Absolute truth does exist, and when man's worldview and life choices contradict that, it leads to conflict within himself and with other people.
Even if a man is in sync with absolute truth in his worldview and life choices, he will be in conflict with those who reject the truth.
Conflict is inevitable in the world. The question is this: "Is your side of the conflict in sync with what is objectively true, or is it merely your opinion that you're fighting for?"
Respectfully,
Anomaly
Parent
Re:Empowerment for All (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes but then shoes also empower terrorists.
Seriously though - what are they saying? That those naughty terrorists dont copy commercial software?
What's more likely - that terrorists are all l33t hax0rs and OSS coders or they emply more easy-to-use platforms like Windows & MacOS?
In that case, shouldn't the case be that easy to use software be blamed for terrorism thus strengthening the argument for a move to *NIX based OS's?
Parent
Re:Empowerment for All (Score:5, Insightful)
Having shoes empowers terrorists.
Not having shoes empowers terrorism.
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PGP (Score:5, Funny)
if we begin to associate... (Score:5, Funny)
i'm sorry, DARPA... that's not the message you want to be putting out!
Re:if we begin to associate... (Score:5, Funny)
Netcraft was wrong!
Parent
I support terrorism... (Score:3, Insightful)
For gods sake... (Score:5, Insightful)
And with Microsoft's latest effort to try to make their OS's as "secure" as possible, shouldn't all these people picking on opensource be targeting Microsoft as well, since they are now SECURE?
All this post-9/11 paranoia is getting really ridiculous, and I can't wait till someone in power finally realizes how stupid we are being.
Re:For gods sake... (Score:5, Insightful)
By nature, terrorists obviously aren't going to obey any laws... much less SOFTWARE LICENSES. This makes Windows a FREE OS.
It's not about use - obviously no one can stop that, it's about them having free information available to them. Source code is handy stuff!
And with Microsoft's latest effort to try to make their OS's as "secure" as possible, shouldn't all these people picking on opensource be targeting Microsoft as well, since they are now SECURE?
You definitely missed the point.
All this post-9/11 paranoia is getting really ridiculous, and I can't wait till someone in power finally realizes how stupid we are being.
I couldn't agree more, except for the fact that in america, the masses are in power. You may disagree, and you would be right - but it's only because they have waived their power. No one votes, no one gives a shit. The few people that are left tend to be weirdos or worse alot of the time.
For example, my high school foods teacher. She wasn't all that great of a teacher, in fact she was pretty dumb. Not a bright lady. Not all that nice either - although not a complete bitch. Well, a couple years later I see that she ran for state representative and won. WTF? Nothing short of amazing.
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Re:For gods sake... (Score:5, Insightful)
The masses are being manipulated by the power. Our beloved U.S. government has been keeping the fear of terr'rism alive in order to manipulate the masses by cowing them into the position of "standing behind the commander in chief".
Days after the end of the Iraq War, the terr'rism alert level was dropped. As if... As if Saddam Hussein had anything to do with Al Quaida, as if the war hadn't sparked more anti-American resentment in the Arab world, resentment that could obviously lead to more terr'rism...
Total, cynical manipulation of the deep fears of the masses. And now other people, ie. advocates of proprietary software, are trying to see for how much they can milk fear of terr'rism for their own interests. Just like the oil companies use the issues to convince us that they need to drill in the Arctic Wilderness. Pretty soon we will hear that imposing mileage restrictions on SUVs would encourage terr'rism.
This is all sickening.
Parent
Re:For gods sake... (Score:3, Insightful)
> ridiculous, and I can't wait till someone in
> power finally realizes how stupid we are being.
I think you're missing the point. The "people in power" know exactly how stupid they are being (or more to the point, how little their justifications have to do with their actions). The whole post-9/11 paranoia thing is just a convenient way for lots of people to do what they want, when they want, and how they want. In this case, it was probably just that
Real target is developed nations (2nd try) (Score:5, Interesting)
Oops hit submit too early. Let's try that again.
Timothy is chipping in with his 2 cents for the Microsoft marketing drive starting tomorrow, Thursday. I really wish there were a way to block both the ads and the shills/astroturfers.
The high level of security potentially available from using OpenBSD has been named as a worry. A number of posts have mentioned the nebulus terrorist threat [wsu.edu] and touched on the effects of lobbying. When you take into account lobbying from software companies, then the other real targets are nation states like Germany.
If Germany goes with Linux, BSD, or one of the other Free or Open Source operating systems, then they remain beholden to neither Microsoft nor the White House.
If, on the other hand, F/OSS is blocked [infoworld.com] then they suffer not only financial punishment for the recent UN Security Council issues but also stay on a short leash:
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Why Bother? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is getting crazy.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This 'Homeland Security' and ferocious anti-terrorism behaviour is getting seriously out of hand.. its an enormous overreaction and its starting to make the USA look very very silly.
I totally appreciate that the threat of terrorism is real, and I believe that we must take measures to protect ourselves.. but offending and mistreating people of other countries & backgrounds is not the way to do it.
Re:This is getting crazy.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Things make much more sense when you realize that their intention is not to ensure security. Their intention is to dominate the world.
Free Software is antithetical to domination, so of course they would reject it.
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Re:This is getting crazy.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, you can't actually blame the american people for GWB, seeing as they didn't actually vote for him.
Still, enough people did vote for him to give the US Supreme Court the opportunity to appoint him. That's depressing enough.
anyway, getting back to the original point:
Open Source may give rogue nations/organisations access to technology they may not otherwise have had.
Conversely, this also gives enforcement authorities a baseline to work from. It's not like they're playing with a blindfold on.
More genrally, I'd like to comment on the tone of some of the posts here and some of the points they raise:
Being British, I have to ask myself why the Arab world hates 'us' (i.e the US and UK) as much as they appear to. Humans are not entirely rational I know, but is it unreasonable to assume that this antipathy is nothing to do with anything we may have done or said.
Steadfastly insisting that the "war" in Iraq was not based on religion and then having GWB use the word "crusade" is either a Freudian slip or boneheadedly stupid. I can't decide which.
This war is only partly about oil. In the longer term, this operation has been all about exercising power,influence and control in the middle East (this may make a middle-east peace plan easier to force through in the longer term). Imposing "democracy" on Iraq may not be a good long term aim, especailly becasue eastern philosphies are not as individualistic as those of the West Ouer notions of democaracy may not be compatible with the indigenous culture. We may see the rise of fundamentalist governments. This may be the will of the people, but could the US stomach this. If not, is it hypocrisy?
As evil as Saddam is, you have to be hard-headed and look at the situation. An Iraq with Saddam in control was a known quantity and the middle east was in some kind of dynamic equlibrium. UN weapons inspectors were finding weapons difficult to locate. This makes it resonable to assuime they would be difficult to deploy also. Saddam is not a madman - he is a pragmatist, which is why he was in control for so long in Iraq. Such a man has a keenly deveoped skill of self-preservation. In order to maintain position, the threat of even possibly possessing weapons is powerful in iteslf, even if no such weapons exist. Cloaking the whole thing in secrecy makes it even harder to tell what's going on.
Certain elements in the US administration have been pushing for action of this type for a long time. September 11 gave those people the excuse to push their agenda (I'm speaking partiucularly here about Cheney and Rumsfeld - who I believe is the major threat to any knid of peace), even when the evidence didn't point to a connection. Look at the knots they tied themselves in trying to connect Saddam and Osama. Unsuccessfully, it turned out. The longer it went on, the more desperate it looked.
In the long term I believe this war has done US interests a great deal of harm. There is now a major barrier between the US and Europe. The UK is trapped right in the middle and however much bridge-builidng goes on I believe a rubicon has been crossed and that this rift may be a partingf of the ways. Europe is now a major power block in its own right - it's only a matter of time before some one says, "Who needs America?". BBritain will then have a tough decision to make, because I don't think it can keep a foot in both camps.
The Arab world is now even more distrustful of the US and its aims. The veiled threats against Syria havbe only helped to make that more obvious.
The only thing this "war" has done is to make the world a more dangerous and paranoid place. The US's influence is indeed imperialism of a sort. The British know all about imperialism and the trouble it can cause you...
Parent
blaming a hammer (Score:5, Insightful)
build a terrorist building
it can build a church
or a hospital too
are we to stop selling hammers
to weed out terrorism?
FreeBSD + Linux = Evil Axis of Open Source? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is comparable to our brand-spanking new Department of Homeland Security calling Wireless Networks a "terrorist technology".
Personally, I'd rather have open source software running on all important computers - that way we can check to make sure that things are done right, rather than have to trust in proprietary source code churned out by the monkeys at MS. I feel more threatened by the unknown than by the free.
I subscribe to a belief expressed best by Benjamin Franklin:
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security".
Put these in the right order (Score:5, Insightful)
Cart
If nation-states are planing terrorist activities, it has already been shown that they do not need free operating systems or software to execute its plans.
A terrorist group will perform it's act regardless of OS.
CJC
So do guns, capitalism, and oil (Score:4, Insightful)
News Flash (Score:5, Insightful)
Too many questions... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you mean to tell me that we can trust closed source companies whose primary motivation is the almighty dollar?
I know that most companies are not *that* evil, but how about the case where a company insider shares *important information* with a terrorist resource? Or the case of a sale of software and a license for "shared source" to a company that could be a front for a terrorist organization?
And will the government be willing to put in the necessary oversight to make sure that these companies don't spill the wrong beans? And, given how politics and lobbying go, can a company influence the government the wrong way (intentionally or unintentionally) to avoid this oversight?
I don't know if open source is inherently supportive of terrorism. I couldn't really tell you. But there are too many questions involved when you argue that closed source should be the only way when it comes to security.
This sounds like another effort to promote "security through obscurity" as the only way to go. I guess they could sue if someone breaks that method of security.
Terrorism? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Terrorism? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you were in Baghdad, do you think you wouldn't be scared?
(shock and awe)
Whereas George Bush says: "Iraqis, we are not out to get you. We want Saddam."
Is George Bush trustworthy?
(shock and awe)
Parent
A possible explanation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except Corporate American citizens. Probably explains why IBM is in the Trustworthy Group and why the Liberty Alliance was formed. Support to Open Source and Free Software is risky business.
Some new words can be added as well:
1. Perceived Terrorism (Competition).
2. Organised potential terrrorism (LUGs)
3. Internet-enabled terrorism (e-mails, downloads)
4. Potential Terrorism (Open Source)
5. Intellectual Terrorism (Reverse Engineering)
The battle is not won till Corporate America isn't Terrified... now, all's clear.
conclusion: for corporate america... (Score:3, Insightful)
...so...painfully...DUMB... (Score:5, Funny)
How about guns? Terrorists use guns...is our military going to stop using guns too?
How about toilet paper? Do any terrorists use toilet paper? If so, will our GIs start receiving the Sears catalog instead?
The logic behind this... (Score:5, Insightful)
When is the Fear going to End (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom enables terrorism (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an uncomfortable truth that complete suppression of terrorism requires complete suppression of freedom. If we want to maintain our freedom, we'll have to combat the fear of terrorism every bit as strongly as we fight terrorism itself. We'll have to risk that our promotion of freedom will at some points allow terrorism to operate. In a word, we need courage. But if we depend entirely upon our government and military to be courageous for us, we're already far along the road to losing our liberty.
Right (Score:5, Insightful)
Self fullfilling prophecies (Score:5, Insightful)
if you want to catch terrorists, there are two ways:
The second method may have one disadvantage: You may find a terrorist where none has been before looking. This is like a self fullfilling prophecy. By declaring people to be terrorists you can make them to be.
Serious: I'm more scared by the changes to the political systems than by the Al-Quaida. The "war on terror" has become a convenient handle (also in europe) to push for changes that have unacceptable before. The result may be the destruction of our ideals (a free society) in the name to defending them.
Yours, Martin
P.S. My definition of terrorist is "someone who is using violence against civilians with the goal to use the resulting scare/horror to force them into an action they wouldn't do by free will". This definition has become very unpopular after WWII because it included too many winners.
History (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing particularly new about this sort of policy. The US has for a long time done its best to suppress certain types of research, keep certain research results secret, and keep certain types of technology out of the hands of hostile powers. All three of these policies have been *very* effective in maintaining the military superiority of the US, and in slowing the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. With respect to all three of these weapon types, and a host of other fields of technology with military applications, other nations are still struggling to replicate research that the US carried out 50 years ago.
So, when people say that "this kind of policy never works", the military guys are going to say "BS, its been working for 50 years." When people say that "it just harms research in the US", the military guys are going to say "well sometimes it is more important to stay ahead of the other guy, than to just get ahead". When people say that "research will just progress faster in other countries" the military guys will just point to 50 years of the US successfully staying ahead of everyone else.
Objecting that such policies are *in general* a bad idea is not going to impress anyone who actually has a clue. At the very least you need to show that there is something special about software technology that will prevent these policies from working. You will have a hard time of course because these policies have already been applied to software for decades.
Now the problem with open source is that there is no way to control it, so there is no way to implement the kind of policy outlined above, except to kill it (or discourage it), and have everyone use closed source, which can be controlled to a significant degree. If you want to persuade the Feds not to do this then you will need to come up with some sort of argument for why open source is worthwhile, even though it can't be controlled. The arguments mentioned above are not going to cut it, so someone had better think of better arguments before the Feds decide to give M$ a free hand in implementing trusted (read controllable) computing.
Then Microsoft must be guilty of GRAND TREASON (Score:5, Interesting)
However, in February, Microsoft signed a pact with Chinese officials [com.com] to reveal the Windows operating system source code. Bill Gates even hinted that China will be privy to all, not just part, of the source code its government wished to inspect.
Given the evidence suppporting [tombom.co.uk] Jim Allchin's testimony, the Microsoft corporation is behaving traitorously, by exposing national security issues to untrusted foreign governments.
Read the statement (Score:5, Insightful)
I wanted to update you on the situation with the Univ of Penn. project. As a result of the DARPA review of the project, and due to world events and the evolving threat posed by increasingly capable nation-states, the Government on April 21 advised the University to suspend work on the "security fest" portion of the project.
Now where does it say in that "open source is bad"? Could it be that the government has decided other threats are more immediate to address with DARPA's limited budget? I mean, we know Theo has never stirred up shit for the fun of it. </SARCASM>
Did anyone actually read Theo's post? (Score:5, Interesting)
While this explanation is somewhat lacking and terse, it does not say "Open Source Enables Terrorist States". I didn't know what the "security fest" portion was, so I did some googling, but didn't find anything obvious. Just the same, there's a very tangible difference between deciding to not fund an open-source-related security-related project and deciding that open source is terrorism. Maybe we could get a little more information before going hog wild with the paranoid fears?
To be sure, it does sound pretty darn paranoid, but I'm dealing with third-party information that seems designed to be inflammatory. And inflame it did.
Also, while I don't believe in security through obscurity as a general principle (which is implied here), there are still a number of people, even some Slashdot readers, who follow the principle in some respects. For example, the large number of people who get upset when some releases an exploit without contacting the vendor first.
I also wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some other reasons why the grant was pulled (or not given?), but again, I'm lacking information.
But, by all means, go crazy with what little information you do have!
Here's some context.. (Score:4, Insightful)
This may or may not have anything to do with it... but Theo apparently has made a bunch of anti-war comments to the media, to the tune that he hoped his grant was taking funding away from the US-led war effort in Iraq. here a link... [tbo.com] and here's another [globeinvestor.com]
Now, I'm not here to say that Theo's not entitled to his opinions; he unquestionably IS entitled to them. I would point out, however, that it's not a good idea to publicly bite the hand that's feeding you. By injecting a political viewpoint into this grant, Theo put the DARPA folks in a quandry, and while it may have had nothing to do with the grant cancellation, it certainly did NOT help matters.
Focus on coding and doing what you love (if it's all about the software). I'm not saying high-profile people can't have opinions... they just need to be careful about where they voice them, and be prepared to deal with the consequences if they use their position to advocate a viewpoint (ask Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins about that). It's not wrong to speak up... you've just got to be ready to deal with the fallout.
Parent
Knowledge and free speech helps terrorism (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know of ANY conflict where terorrist groups have been involved where the terror has stopped or been significantly limited through the first two options. Even in cases where an entire terrorist organization have been obliterated, as long as the underlying issues are still there new people take their places. It may take time, but it's happened over and over again.
Not only in third world countries - Britain tried to crush the IRA for decades. It was first through peaceful negotiation that the IRA got enough pressure from Irish republicans to stop it's violence, leaving only fringe groups with minimal popular support to deal with.
If the US keeps on down it's slippery slope towards totalitarianism, you won't need terrorists to feel unsafe - the government will be more than enough.
Re:free speech (Score:5, Insightful)
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