Open Source Is Becoming a Military Necessity

In letting just anyone use your code, that has to include the bad guys. They're bound to find a way to compromise it, the thinking goes.

But that's not the way it works in real life. Having every potential victim working on your neighborhood code watch turns out to deliver more security, not less.

Having everyone who might be the victim of an online break-in organized, finding bugs, writing and testing fixes, constantly improving security tools, works.

Don't believe me? Well, maybe you'll believe the National Security Agency or the Department of Homeland Security. The open source process works for them, too.

For a decade, one of the most popular intrusion prevention and detection systems has been Snort, created by Martin Roesch. But the company he built around that software, Sourcefire, only gives away the basic package. If you need extensions, if you want a more complete system, you have to pay. That code is controlled by Sourcefire.

There is nothing unusual in that. Many open-source businesses create free community and paid "enterprise" editions of their software. This is what Red Hat(RHT ) is all about -- you can download Fedora Linux free or buy Red Hat Enterprise Linux. In both cases you get to see the code, but with the paid version you get the support needed to run it professionally.

But this model didn't work with Snort. The Department of Homeland Security, the military, and the NSA could not be "held hostage" to Sourcefire for improvements to the code, or for the specialized suite needed to protect the nation.

So the Department of Homeland Security got together with major contractors and formed their own open source project, the Open Information Security Foundation. OISF has its own intrusion system, called Suricata, whose syntax is based on Snort, so if you are accustomed to one you can use the other.

But Suricata will be a complete system, not just a "sniffer," as intrusion detection products are colloquially known. The whole Suricata suite will be open source. This process is now expanding, as I noted here at TheStreet.com on Monday.

John Weathersby of the OSS-Institute, which is now affiliated with Georgia Tech in Atlanta, told me most of the day was devoted to small "breakout" sessions, where contractors answered hard, detailed questions put to them by key government customers. The affair wasn't just a series of sales pitches, he said. It was the first step in a negotiation.

Among the open source projects the NSA supports is Security Enhanced Linux (SE-Linux), for which it has developed an access control module called Flask, hosted at the University of Utah. Open source and security, in other words, do go together.

Open source can only provide tools. Procedures are also needed to assure that people maintain security. So the Cloud Security Alliance offers an integrated stack of such procedures, called the GRC Stack. GRC stands for Governance, Risk management and Compliance. This is maintained in an open process with the support of both contractors and software vendors.

Point is, open source and security do mix. They mix well. With more businesses moving toward cloud technology, much of it based on open source software, they are going to be doing a lot more mixing.

Thank you very much, Big Giant Head!!

The March for Justice was a truly inspiring event and that was entirely due to the FReepers. Will never forget it for as long as I live. The FReepers who attended and the ones who worked so hard to make it successful are true patriots!!

I’m very sorry if I get emotional. Pent up emotion is what drove me to start FR and also drove me to go to DC. I’d never done anything like that it my entire life. I am not a protester. Totally missed the 60’s as I was off fighting the commies.

I had been posting against Clinton and the dem’s corruption for several years on Prodigy, but was frustrated that there were only a few hundred posting and reading on that private ($$$) forum, so decided to open up the discussion to the entire world on the Internet where anyone with a computer and modem could read our posts for free.

Within a couple years after opening the FR forum I was threatened and sued by the ultra liberal progressive LA Times and Washington Post, but being the stubborn, emotional man that I am, I was bound to continue trying to save my liberty so spat in their face.

Then in the fall of ‘98, some of Clinton’s unionist/communist goons viciously attacked one of our FReepers who was peacefully protesting in the City of Brotherly Love (Brotherly love? Now ain’t that the truth? How far we have fallen). When I saw them attack and draw blood on Don Adams and his sister broadcast on the nightly news I told Sheila, that does it. I’ve got to go to DC. She agreed, so I posted that on FR and the FReepers agreed, and many started making plans that night to join me and the March for Justice was born.

The March for Justice was a beautiful event. Thousands of conservatives and Republicans turning out on a sunny October day, in DC, to openly protest on LIVE TV and call for the impeachment of a corrupt democrat president. Republicans are usually too reserved to get out in the public and protest, but not on this day. And it was broadcast live on C-Span and we began getting emails and new sign-ups from all across the country.

My own nephew saw it on TV and later told me that he was shocked to see me “call out” the president of the United States and challenge him to a fist fight on our stage. I didn’t even realize I had done that until I watched a replay. Sure enough, I got so emotional on that stage that I pointed across the green lawn toward the White House and told Bill Clinton that we had been here on this stage in his back yard for several hours insulting him and his wife on national TV, and if he were any kind of man, he would come over here to defend their honor and he and I would go to town, right here, right now!

Well, we eventually lost, er, settled the million dollar lawsuit with the Washington Post and had to start excerpting, but we didn’t lose the fight with president Clinton. He did get impeached and that’s in the history books, though the wimpy Republican senate led by turncoat Trent Lott let him off the hook. I lost a lot of respect in the Republican party as a conservative force that day and other than a few shining moments with GWB, the Republicans have continued their squishiness trend ever since.

I do get emotional when I see liberty spiraling down the drain. Free Republic is dedicated to securing the Blessings of God’s Liberty to ourselves and our posterity. I’m now nearing the end of my days on earth, so it’s starting to get urgent for me. I regret that I have but one life to give for our children’s liberty. And I hate to see the Republicans piss it away with the very worst liberal progressive candidate ever to run for the presidency as a Republican. That’s just the way I am.

Thank you all very much for putting up with me.

God bless.

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