Open Source a National Security Threat

n3xup writes "Dan O'Dowd, CEO of Green Hills Software, suggests that open source software has the capability of being sabotaged by foreign developers and should not be used for U.S. military or security purposes. He likened Linux with a Trojan Horse- free, but in the end a lot of trouble. O'Dowd thinks that unfriendly countries will attempt to hide intentional bugs that the Open Source community will have no chance of finding."

TCP

[danormsby]

Better replace that open source nasty TCP ASAP then.

Totally! Lets OUTSOURCE instead!

[mekkab]

Yeah, can't trust those commie FOSS developers. Instead, lets invest in "America", lets give money to companies who develop software overseas anyway!*

*We wanted to buy software from only American developers, but we couldn't afford it.

Don't Trust Linus!

[Noksagt]

The U.S. government and military will be brought to their knees by...Finland?!

This reminds me of an old saying

[C_Kode]

This should be from the "If-you-can't-with dazzle-them-brilliance-baffle-them-with-bullshit" department.

O'Dowd thinks that unfriendly countries will attempt to hide intentional bugs that the Open Source community will have no chance of finding.

If the source is open how can there be no chance in finding bugs or whatever else they wish to put in the source?

This is clearly FUD to protect their market from the steam-roller known as FOSS. Security through obscurity is already proven faulty.

Re:Understand the Source Perspective

[drinkypoo]

No, but that's never stopped slashdot before :)

Here's the likely scenario

[nysus]

Just trying to think how a secret bug could be introduced. Maybe it would go down something like this?

Lead Programmer at Major Defense Contractor: Hey, can you install this patch by the that new Pakastani contributor for our missile control module?

New programmer: Yeah, I looked at it. There was some weird code in there that I couldn't quite figure out. There was some one line Perl code with about 10,000 characters. Shouldn't we look at it? What does it do, exactly?

Lead Programmer: Naw. I don't think it really matters. I don't want to look stupid because I sure can't figure Perl out. Let's just go with the release early and often policy. We'll let the users report the bugs back to us.

Re:Understand the Source Perspective

[Oddly_Drac]

"Embedded Operating Systems"

Just a very brief point, but how do you fix embedded system bugs? Am I incorrect in thinking that embedded means that the OS is onchip?

Open is Closed.

[Doc Ruby]

America is locked in a life or death battle of Good vs. Evil. Any openness or flexibility is weakness, which will be immediately exploited by our enemies to destroy our way of life. Open source hippies might be having fun, but they're frittering away our hard-won tech lead. The Internet itself, invented by the Pentagon, has been taken over by pedophiles since Al Gore reinvented it during the fake Bubble. God told President Bush to have Bill Gates take over the Internet, and all software development, to protect us from the hackers, and get rid of spam.

Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
War is Peace.

Wrong Analogy

[Tenebrious1]

He should liken any government using closed source software with the Trojans themselves, who took the *gift* without examining the contents.

If the Trojan Horse were really Open Source, it would have had a list of building materials, instructions on building the horse yourself, the number of greek warriors inside, how the warriors were armed, along with several notes from the Phoenicians commenting on the dangers of the included Greeks...

yeah

[dfiguero]

"will have no chance of finding..."

right! because it's closed source... Only non-american programmers are smart... no one else will be able to decipher Dr. Evil's mini me bug... finally mexicans will be able to get green cards by the millions!

muahahahahahaha muahahahahaha

btw. I'm mexican :P

Obligitory Office Space joke

[smatt-man]

Maybe they would introduce a bug that takes the fractions of a penny that are rounded off when computing interest in banks, deposit it into their own account? Like in Superman!

Re:Oh really

[Bombcar]

How about all those darn "easter eggs" floating around in Windows and Office and other programs?

The idea of an easter egg in missle guidance software is amusing, at least.

"Now see here, Joe, lemme show you a little trick. You fire this here missle directly at the sun and that enables the solitare game!"

Re:Understand the Source Perspective

[rascal1182]

Have you ever submitted code to Linus, Alan, et. al.? They're total code nazis.

Exactly. We don't want any Nazis in charge of our defense systems. That's a security threat.

Re:Confused About The Logic

[Oswald]

What the hell have I missed here?

The article, apparently. This point is covered. Accept his argument or refute it, but don't just re-state the question.

Seen on a T-Shirt

[Stephen Samuel]

"My proprietary program went to the pentagon, and all I got was these silly battle plans:"