From: Adam Flinton 

Mike '/m' wrote:
> http://64.90.164.50/article.php3?sid=20030422123107
>
>
> ===
> It seems that as more pressure is applied to the story, more facts are
> coming out about the whole DARPA cancellation of funding. Theo just posted
> a message which contains a quote from a DARPA spokesperson on the subject
> which states that the U.S. government is concerned that Open Source enables
> terrorist nation-states. ...
> ===
>
>
> A most interesting development.  I guess this means that
> security-challenged Microsoft software does not enable terrorist states?
> Or maybe there really *are* NSA keys in Microsoft security software, and
> that is why the US government is not concerned about the encryption
> capabilities contained in Microsoft software.
>
> In any case, this is frightening at best...

I'm not surprized & in fact I was surprized when people like the NSA
did choose to help in an open way. It's not so much the terrorist with the
laptop with a pgp'ed filesystem as the other "not necessarily
friendly" non terrorist states who're adopting OSS (IMHO) e.g. India,
China, Russia etc.

You have got to see this applied to white box PC making where all the parts
can be sourced from outside of the US. i.e. if a major order for IBM or Sun
kt comes in from the Chinese spy people or minstry of the interior then a
few seemingly redundant bits of electronics could be conceivably added by
those (US) hardware manufacturers as part of their "export gudleines
compliance". However if that same ministry decides to base itself on
stuff build in China or some non US Far Eastern country then what export
guidelines etc.

The US is engaged in spying on all it's "strategic comptetitors"
(& possibly almost everyone) as it is in the US gov'es interest (&
thus a US National Interest) to always have the max info possible at any
given time. A move to secure OSS systems running on hardware which is
commoditized & is built all over the world is a threat to that
"information dominance" which possibly decades of investment has
bought.


However methinks the horse has long bolted & it may be the case that
with help from the other interested parties (e.g. the Russian FSB, German
intel/gov, French DSGE, Chinese & Indian security etc.etc.) that the
OSS systems may end up being the most secure choice even for the NSA/State
Dept/CIA/Cough cough the US Agriculture ministry cough cough.. et al.



Adam

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-4