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[News] Free Software As a Natural Choice to Every Country But the US

  • Subject: [News] Free Software As a Natural Choice to Every Country But the US
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 05:02:36 +0000
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Organization: Freelance
  • User-agent: KNode/0.10.4
Open Source for Sovereignty

,----[ Quote ]
| Using Free software from open source communities makes perfect sense for 
| governments, and not just for the obvious reasons of up-front savings on 
| license fees. As I heard said on behalf of the Brazilian government, open 
| source is a matter of sovereignty. When a government decides to use closed 
| software, they are guaranteeing that they will be sending money out of the 
| local economy. The degree of expatriation depends on the actual system 
| they've chosen. In the worst case, all the money goes to the US, all the 
| resulting assets belong to someone else and all the ongoing service and 
| support costs pay for the development of skills abroad.        
| 
| By contrast, using Free software has no licensing costs. Any extra 
| programming results in an asset shared by an open source community. All  
| service and support can be handled locally, growing the skill-base and 
| economy. What could be a smarter way for a government to obtain the essential 
| infrastructure it needs and develop the local economy at the same time?   
`----

http://blogs.sun.com/webmink/entry/keeping_it_local

It's not just a question of economics but security as well (examples below).


Recent:

Teacher accused of piracy fights Microsoft with open source

,----[ Quote ]
| Now, Reuters is reporting that the teacher has launched a campaign that 
| labels big software companies a threat to national security, and he's now 
| been pushed to back open-source solutions instead. Ponosov gave the following 
| little speech at a news conference:   
| 
| "Our dependence on Western proprietary software is a risk for us. We are, in 
| effect, losing the independence of this country. To quote (Tsar) Alexander 
| III, Russia has only two allies, its army and its navy. What would you buy 
| for your child if you want them to grow up to be bright—a pretty toy car or a 
| construction set? A pretty car that you cannot take apart is like proprietary 
| software. The construction set is open-source software. I have not been using 
| Microsoft software on my computer at home for more than a year."      
`----

http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2008/02/20/teacher-accused-of-piracy-fights-microsoft-with-open-source


Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review

,----[ Quote ]
| According to the online paper, the project to construct a regional data 
| centre with the capacity of about 10,000 servers by Microsoft in the Irkutsk 
| Region was among the issues discussed. On November 28, Viktor Alksnis sent 
| the deputy’s inquiry to Nikolai Patrushev, Director of FSB. In the given 
| inquiry he said that establishing a data centre provides Microsoft with the  
| access ‘to various information including public authorities and government’, 
| which ‘might seriously threaten the security of Russia’ and ‘which is 
| especially dangerous in connection with the undocumented possibilities in the 
| Microsoft software’. The unauthorized updating of Windows XP and Vista in 
| August 2007 and other cases CNews wrote about in October and November 2007 
| were provided as examples illustrating the latter statement.         
`----

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=1483


Related:

Vista a 'threat' to the national security of India

,----[ Quote ]
| As Mr Bombay Watcher says on his blog, Microsoft has a cosy partnership
| with the CIA, so perhaps the world should take care and caution when it
| comes time to upgrade. We're pretty certain Windows 3.1 would be a safe
| bet. He seems particularly worried about the national security of India,
| as it does, of course, have some conflicting interests with the US
| of A.
`----

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34979


Russian expert: Terrorists may try cyberattacks

,----[ Quote ]
| A Russian computer security expert predicts that terrorists could
| seek to target the country's critical infrastructure through
| electronic warfare, a strategy that could raise the stakes in
| how Russia handles computer crime.
`----

http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=2104593093&rid=-50


Homeland Security not ready for Cyber Storm

,----[ Quote ]
| In June, the Business Roundtable issued a report saying that "the
| United States is not sufficiently prepared for a major attack, software
| incident or natural disaster that would lead to disruption of large parts
| of the Internet" and that coordinating a response to such an attack
| or disaster should be turned over to the Department of Homeland
| Security.
`----

http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2006/09/18/homeland-security-not-ready-for-cyber-storm/
http://tinyurl.com/lwp8y


Homeland Security sees cyberthreats on the rise

,----[ Quote ]
| To test the nation's response to a cyberattack, the Department
| of Homeland Security plans to hold another major exercise,
| called Cyberstorm II, in March 2008, Garcia said. A first
| such exercise happened early last year.
`----

http://news.com.com/2100-7355_3-6157809.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news
http://tinyurl.com/2dpbmv


Is the US at risk from cyberwarfare?

,----[ Quote ]
| The United States faces many of the same dangers as Estonia. And with public 
| utilities such as hydro-electric plants and nuclear power plants moving away 
| from proprietary (and more secure) systems toward open-standards-based 
| systems that use common Internet protocols such as TCP/IP to connect to one 
| another, the list of potential targets is increasing.    
`----

http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20070920/tc_infoworld/91961


Secret services to fend off targeted trojan attacks

,----[ Quote ]
| Professional spies in the service of the state are often behind these 
| targeted attacks. In the last year, Chinese secret services in particular 
| have repeatedly been accused of carrying out especially tenacious trojan 
| attacks. Computers in the German Chancellor's office have reportedly even 
| been infected. Estonia has also accused the Russian government of having 
| waged cyberwar on its critical network infrastructure.     
`----

http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/101475/from/rss09


Germany, UK also investigating government PC espionage by China

,----[ Quote ]
| In recent weeks, the Chinese have been accused not only of hacking the 
| Pentagon, but also several German ministries and key sites in the UK, as 
| well. In doing research for an upcoming story on the Pentagon attacks, I 
| stumbled upon recent reports in Germany of surprisingly similar activity.   
`----

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070909-germany-uk-also-investigating-government-pc-espionage-by-china.html


Estonia suspects Kremlin in Web attacks

,----[ Quote ]
| He said more than 1 million computers worldwide have been used in
| recent weeks to attack Estonian government and business Web sites
| since a dispute arose with Moscow over Estonia's moving of a
| Soviet-era war memorial from downtown Tallinn.
`----

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/internet/05/17/estonia.cyber.attacks.ap/index.html?eref=rss_tech

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