FCC Rules Open Source Code Is Less Secure 365
An anonymous reader writes "A new federal rule set to take effect Friday could mean that software radios built on 'open-source elements' may have trouble getting to market. Some US regulators have apparently come to the conclusion that, by nature, open source software is less secure than closed source. 'By effectively siding with what is known in cryptography circles as "security through obscurity," the controversial idea that keeping security methods secret makes them more impenetrable, the FCC has drawn an outcry from the software radio set and raised eyebrows among some security experts. "There is no reason why regulators should discourage open-source approaches that may in the end be more secure, cheaper, more interoperable, easier to standardize, and easier to certify," Bernard Eydt, chairman of the security committee for a global industry association called the SDR (software-defined radio) Forum, said in an e-mail interview this week.'"
Ain't the gov't great? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ain't the gov't great? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yup, Money Talks.
Unfortunately, Open Source projects by nature just don't have that kind of legislative money to throw around.
Re:Ain't the gov't great? (Score:5, Insightful)
gov't can be great (Score:4, Interesting)
To the person with only a hammer, everything looks like a nail...
Not all government is bad and wasteful; it can and does out perform the private sector more times than Americans are sold to believe.
This may be hard to grasp, but its partially YOUR fault if you can't manage your government employees. (FYI, one of your management tools was the purpose of the 2nd amendment!)
As Ben Franklin essentially said, any government well administered is good government and all eventually fall (as a result of despotism; society is not a spectator regardless of what they may think.)
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OK, We're supposed to ask the National Guard (our well trained militia, as it were) to arrest various and sundry government employees? Neat idea, I'll just drive down the local Armory and ask them.
It's just another one of the Bush-buddy coat tails (Score:4, Informative)
Kevin J. Martin is the current head of the FCC, appointed by Bush in 2005. Prior to that, he was general council for Bush's first election campaign, then he took over the 'technical transition' when Bush/Chenny were moving into the white house. After they got settled he picked up a nice position as a white house assistant. The guy is nothing more than yet another Neo-con chronie who shows his loyalty to big business and the party line over the interests of the people and gets promoted for it.
On the bright side though, he is at least somewhat qualified for the job. He has a real degree from a real school, he worked at the FCC prior to being appointed to Chairman, and has focused much of his career in the tech/telecomm industries.
-Rick
Favorite Scary Kevin J. Martin Quote (Score:5, Interesting)
Kevin J. Martin
FCC Chairman
Nice edit (Score:4, Informative)
Where's the NTFS writer then? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, to some extent, even Microsoft's non-crypted formats are somewhat secure. No one knows how to produce an authentic Word document to the last detail. I don't see an open source file system driver for Linux that lets you reliably write to NTFS formatted partitions, the SAMBA team has numerous problems trying to read Microsoft file and print sharing stuff. If you view all of these closed source efforts as a way to "encrypt data", in the very least, MS has successfully made a lot of their software tamper resistent by the mere virtue of not publishing the source code.
Re:Where's the NTFS writer then? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Where's the NTFS writer then? (Score:4, Funny)
Suddenly, I'm not so sure I'm gonna be able to get any sleep tonight for some odd reason...
Re:Where's the NTFS writer then? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is mostly correct, but cryptography is NOT security. Security is usually defined in terms of integrity, confidentiality, authentication etc...
Your examples are flawed. Its not because Samba does not work well that hackers wont be able to hack your files away from a password protected share.
MS software is not tamper resistant, you can tamper with it all you want. The purpose of tampering is not to make it work (ones of samba's goal) but to get it to do something that it is not supposed to do. Samba is all about having it work the way its supposed too, tampering is the other way...
Same for NTFS writer. The Linux NFS writer can do a lot of tampering with your NTFS filesystem, including destroying it.
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Compatibility resistant too...
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Here's the thing... you're not talking about security, you're talking about interoperability.
Is your Word document secure because Open Office can't perfectly reproduce it? It NTFS secure because nobody has a perfect driver for it in Linux? Is SMB secure because Samba isn't 100% perfect?
Obviously not. If the idea is to
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It is, in the sense, that, to all of those systems, the MS implementation could theoretically decide that they are a form of an attack. If you look at it from an IP centric way, one could make the argument that using an FOSS version of that data is a sort of a theft in that, MS did all the hard work coming up with a
They're talking about a different "security" (Score:3, Insightful)
And it all depends on what is meant by "security".
The FCC could care less about how hard it is to recover the message or break the box. What they're concerned about is how hard it is to modify the box to operate outside their regulations.
It's a lot easier to modify the function of a peripheral if you have information about it - including commented source for the controlling driver - than if you don't. Don't belie
The NTFS writer is at www.ntfs-3g.org. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have been seeing it [ntfs-3g.org] for quite a while now. NTFS-3G, which works within the FUSE userspace file system framework, has an excellent reputation for reliability.
Re:Where's the NTFS writer then? (Score:5, Funny)
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Sure there is... anyone can look at the source and see back doors, etc. It's more likely that there could be code in a MS project developed by foreigners in Canada http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/05/21342
Amusing (Score:5, Insightful)
MPAA (DeCSS)
Nazis (Enigma)
Xerox (Robin Hood & Friar Tuck)
Microsoft (just about any form of security they've ever had)
and about a billion other examples
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And you really cant compare enigma to current technology.
Re:Amusing (Score:5, Interesting)
Just because one can make a profit off of it doesn't make it any more secure.
I beg to differ - it was:
Cripes, man... if Enigma/Colossus wasn't relevant in concept, then what is!?
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That is also why these guys have all the money in the world to throw at politicians and convince them that their way is better.
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The Allies were only able to figure it out after they got a hold of one of the devices, analyzed it, and then rigged up a whole bunch of primitive Turing machines (Alan Turing was pretty essential to this whole process, by the way). Then, as mentioned above, they brute for
Re:Amusing (Score:4, Informative)
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Google for U-110.
Re:Amusing (Score:5, Informative)
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I agree. I had a chuckle recently when we had a security training course at work, and they went through a lot of explaining of what the rules are for
Re:Amusing (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the advantages to this is that the limited distribution of a given code can (but does not always) limit the number of attacks against it. Whereas a commercial cipher may result in millions or even billions of ciphertexts to analyze, a government cipher may result in only thousands to work with, and it may be more difficult to determine plaintext aspects of a given document for comparative analysis. It's also generally difficult to get the actual cryptographic hardware without paying someone (either from inside or outside) to steal one.
This doesn't work well at all for the kinds of things that the FCC covers, however. I can generate billions of ciphertexts with known plaintexts for some new wireless system, and I can also do analysis against the electronics involved to look for side-channel attacks. Hiding things for commercial items intended for the general public is fairly pointless.
Side note: I'd not heard of the Robin Hood & Friar Tuck trick. That was some very fun reading. Thanks for brightening my morning a bit.
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Simon
Enigma was publicly documented to a degree ... (Score:3, Informative)
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Ripples (Score:2)
Well, they're technically correct, of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm trying to break into some code, and I can read the source code to determine how the author protected it, I'll have an easier job (note: "easier", not "easy") because I can home in on the algorithm the author used. I know whether it's Blowfish, DES, AES, IDEA, or a simple XOR or substitution cipher. I know what pre-encrpytion steps were taken, and what post-encryption algorithms were used.
Let's say that in a moment of insanity, I decided to use a basic XOR encryption routine (create each byte in the encrypted stream by XOR-ing the corresponding source byte with every byte in the password save one, rotating that one as I iterate over the source). This is completely and utterly trivial to crack if you have the source code and *know* the routine I used. It's a repetitive cypher, so it's reasonably obvious unless the password is of significant (a sizeable fraction of the source's length) as well. Note the difference - it's easier with the source code.
Now that's a contrived example - no-one in their right minds would use an XOR cypher, but the same principle applies to harder encryption techniques. If you *know* what system was used to protect the source, you have an advantage over not knowing... Did they gzip the source before encrypting it ? Did they use ZIP, RAR, or 'compress' instead ? Did they XOR to hide the obvious compression header ? Is it inverted (last byte first) or was any other transformation done *before* the encryption stage to try and make it non-obvious that a successful crack had taken place ? These are all "knowns" if you have the source code...
So, yes, it is easier when you have the source code. Security through obscurity is rightly derided, but not because it has no value. It is derided because it leads to the use of insecure encryption methods (small keys, using XOR/whatever instead of proper hard encyption, etc) and the fact that once the obscurity is cleared up, there's no more security. The idea is that if you are sufficiently confident that your encryption is unbreakable, you *can* document how you did it in public. That doesn't mean you *should*.
The point though, and why I disagree with the regulators, is that if you're using hard encryption, it really doesn't matter whether it's *easier*, it's not *easy*. It is in fact still so damn hard, that we're talking "impossible in our lifetime(*)" - the relative comparison makes no sense. It's akin to measuring the height of Mount Everest at 6-month intervals - it's always pretty darn high, though you might find some variance due to snowfall.
So, yes, they're right. But by not considering the (tiny) impact of their conclusion, they have made the wrong ruling.
(*) Modulo the discovery of an easy way to crack the encryption technology, of course.
Simon.
Re:Well, they're technically correct, of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
Another way to look at it (especially in the context of open source radio) is that whoever is implementing the security has finite resources (money, man-hours, whatever) at their disposal. For every hour they spend trying to obfuscate the inner workings, that is one less hour spent validating that it is *truly* secure (in the "cryptographically secure" sense). If you instead leverage open-source, then you have code that has been tested and vetted by experts the world over. Suddenly the hours spent on adding obfuscation would be a waste of resources: the code is already so secure that adding the slight additional security of obscurity is a waste of time.
So, while obscurity does provide some kind of security... it is actually the most resource-wasteful form of security (alot of effort for something that eventually gets cracked), whereas the more efficient security model is to focus on things that are fundamentally secure (in which case you may as well use open-source solutions, since you get to take advantage of work already done, and the marginal loss of obscurity doesn't end up mattering).
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Decryption (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Well, they're technically correct, of course... (Score:5, Funny)
/me shifts uncomfortably
C'mon, it was the early 90s, I was new at this programming thing, and my boss told me to do it...
At least I changed the constant away from 0x7F.
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But, overall, the idea of XORing a random key as long as the source text works. You need a random key and to keep it secret and *never* reuse it. This is important, any reuse and simple known plainte
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The problem is, if you don't have the source, you'll never know that the XOR encryption is in there. So it will never be fixed. Knowing the security level for certain is just as important as the actual security implementation.
The enemy knows the system (Score:3, Informative)
Read the wikipedia article, it is enlightening and very insightful.
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My point was that if I'm using a hard-encryption mechanism, then I can additionally do things that would render a "cracked" result difficult to determine. If you know what you're looking for (ie: the algorithm is
Ceteris paribus (Score:5, Insightful)
True, if you have two equally boneheaded pieces of software, then exploits in a the closed one are harder to divine -- not by much, but harder. On the other hand, if you have a piece of software that has survived years of public scrutiny by experts, that is presumptively harder to exploit than something some random engineer ginned up in secret.
Something cannot be widely reviewed (which is the gold standard in security) and secret at the same time. So generally, I think open source represents the best by far and the worst by a little of security possibilities.
The ultimate problem is that broad statements like X is more secure than Y are meaningless. You have to specify the context and threat you are concerned with. Is an open source interpreter burned into a ROM inside of microwave oven more vulnerable than a proprietary interpreter? Well, against what? Same goes for the software radio thing.
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Source Availability & Security are not Correla (Score:2, Insightful)
OTOH, having source available for competent reviewers does increase the likelihood that your stupidity will get caught before it goes to market or, hopefully, shortly thereafter.
But that's just it: having the source available to competent reviewers. It has NOTHING to do with whether the source is open to everyone or not.
Open source !=
Re:Unless, of course, I'm an evil corporation (Score:5, Insightful)
At the end of the day, the most dangerous thing is an intelligent mind with the goal of doing harm. There is little-to-no way to protect against that, but it's not a politically acceptable truth, so they just make life difficult for everyone and hope for the best [sigh]. The *only* reason for all this is to protect *themselves* from a "you didn't do anything" accusation after the fact.
If people would just accept that life == risk, we'd be a lot better off.
Simon.
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Is it, though? I think there is a kind of 1%/99% rule going on, 1% of the code gets 99% of the eyes, and vice versa, 99% of the code gets 1% of the eyes in the open source community. There are a few really good, quality projects... and then there is a sh*theap of crap.
Wow... Governmental doublespeak (Score:2, Insightful)
Very typical. First, they say that the stuff is not as secure as the "security by obscurity" method, then they go and say the most widely accepted and used method for secure web transactions is evidence th
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Very typical. First, they say that the stuff is not as secure as the "security by obscurity" method, then they go and say the most widely accepted and used method for secure web transactions is evide
Re:Wow... Governmental doublespeak (Score:4, Informative)
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No, I mean shame on everyone for continually letting the media and special interests drive the elections and only selecting from the "ruling class" that has so conveniently been created from the continuous selection of only a Democrat or a Republican and the two parties banding together to secure their positions.
Many years ago (around 10-20), I remember a poll/survey stating that something like 75% of the people of the US blamed C
no reason why? (Score:2)
Never, ever forget that the FCC... (Score:3, Interesting)
SFLC has white paper on the subject (Score:5, Informative)
How can you vet ignorance? (Score:5, Interesting)
How can you prove something is secure if you can't see the source code?
You can't.
The FCC's position is that it is better to hide one's head in the sand and hope the vendor implemented a secure solution than to actually *prove* the solution is secure.
The FCC has always worried that the technology's flexible nature could allow hackers to gain access to inappropriate parts of the spectrum, such as that used for public safety. So the regulators required manufacturers to submit confidential descriptions showing that their products are safe from outside modifications that would run afoul of the government's rules. Cisco's petition asked the regulators to clarify how use of open-source security software, whose code is by definition public, fit into that confidentiality mandate.
The problem is that, as any ham operator knows, access to any part of the spectrum is as simple as building your own homebrew equipment. Hackers, by their very nature, already know how to access the radio spectrum; it is the weak, or non-existent encryption which represents the real threat. Keeping your code closed allows security vulnerabilities to exist for much longer than they would if they could be scrutinized by the public at large.
Furthermore, any software defined radio, open source or not, can be made "open source" by simply replacing the binary in flash. Which means that any software defined radio, open source or not, can be hacked. Which might be a bigger issue worth more discussion.
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Actually, you can verify that a piece of compiled code is secure if the vendor provides type annotations with it in the style of proof-carrying code. This is similar to how the JVM can verify that Java bytecode won't do things it's not supposed to, except now we need a richer specification of what we consider to be secure.
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You're right that it will not be able to functionally replace the existing program, but if your plan is to replace the entire software in a device with your own software that tells it to plaster noise across a police band, for example, there's no longer any need to maintain functional compatibility with the upper levels of software in the device, and the lack of FCC certification for a device containing the open source software isn't of any real consequence.
The FCC's premise is fundamentally flawed. They
Why is the FCC regulating security? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this because they feel that software radios could be hacked to broadcast outside of their certified frequency and power limits? Or because they think they need to protect the public from buying 802.11 routers with crappy WAP implementations?
Re:Why is the FCC regulating security? (Score:5, Informative)
If one guy is in the street protesting it is easy to control and quell. If its 10,000 guys in the street protesting it gets a little harder, if its 10,000,000 guys its basically imposisble.
The same FCC that is promoting BPL (Score:5, Interesting)
Free open source adjective rating service (Score:2)
In my experience these statements are true...
- secure: sometimes; more likely with more popular projects, less likely with smaller projects
- cheaper: sometimes; adding in cost of people to noodle with code or interfaces can raise costs quickly (however cost may be minimal if we're talking about cloning a few thousand embedded cuts, etc.)
- interoperable: definitely, becaus
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not about security (Score:2, Insightful)
This is good news! (Score:2)
LSPP/EAL4 (Score:2)
Wavelength restrictions (Score:5, Informative)
That's why today, most radio-enabled devices, and especially mobile phones, have to pass type conformance to be commercialized in a geographic area. In the current state of things, if the radio software can be changed by the user, the type conformance cannot be awarded. Software radio makes things worse, because it is harder to justify that a component cannot emit at a given frequency, if changing the software in this component would allow switching emission frequencies at will.
Re:Wavelength restrictions (Score:5, Insightful)
If the FCC is that concerned about software radio operating out of spec (which I personally believe isn't really going to be a problem), then it should mandate hardware access controls on all radios.
Ultimately, ANY solution that relies on locking down client devices is doomed to failure. People can, and do, tinker with their own devices.
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Where software comes into play is processing the incoming signal, and generating an outgoing signal. And the software is damn good at that
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Exactly. The headline is misleading... the FCC isn't concerned about crackers being able to take control of other people's machines, they're concerned about normal people being able to fully modify their own equipment.
It's just a single issue with the frequency restrictions. If software could be open-source, and end users were able to configure everything but that one little thing, it wouldn't be as big of a problem. But it's an inherent part of open source that anything can be modified. OSS prevents
FCC overstepping their bounds yet again (Score:5, Insightful)
The FCC commisioners are deluding themselves, again, if they think Congress gave them the power to appoint monopolies.
They have already been slapped down once with regards to the DTV Redistribution Control flag and they're about to be slapped down again.
What's next, washing machines and clock radios?
http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinio
If the Foolish Child Commission can't remember the limits of their power, We the People will be more than happy to remind them, spank them and send them to their 'time-out' corner once again.
MoCSSRH (Score:2, Insightful)
I would like to see a Month of Closed-Source Software Raido Hacks
Then they [FCC] will discover that since the closed source software radios are not examined by independent unbiased debuggers, the possibility of bugs, bad encryption schemes, et al is a very high possibility.
Maybe then the government bureaucrats will see the merits of Open Source.
This isn't about security.. (Score:5, Interesting)
While the rules require these "security" measures to prevent modification to software designed radios, as far as I can tell (based on several 802.11 devices I've messed with) the only actual "security" measures which have been taken have been to not publish the source. There's not really anything preventing modification of the firmware to operate outside the ISM band or at unpermitted power levels. So I'm not sure exactly what measures the FCC is really requiring, other than that manufacturers don't publish their datasheets.
What they are REALLY worried about (Score:5, Insightful)
They can easily bypass any "broadcast flag";
They can remove restrictions on which channels a scanner can scan;
They may be able to transmit on forbidden channels or at
power levels that are above those permitted for a channel.
That is the sort of hacking that frightens the FCC
Andy
Re:What they are REALLY worried about (Score:5, Insightful)
And with their infallible logic they conclude that closed source means you cannot remove restrictions, transmit on forbidden channels/power levels and bypass broadcast flags. Because no closed source program ever has been bypassed, modified or otherwise hacked. Days and even hours after its release.
When will these people learn that the PEOPLE have the power, not the government? We the masses obey ONLY when it suits us. If they have to go to such great lengths to try to limit us, perhaps what they are trying to do is not such a good idea after all? They just don't get it.
Re:What they are REALLY worried about (Score:4, Insightful)
Irrelevant. It only takes ONE. Welcome to the information age.
I say. (Score:2)
Peer review (Score:2)
Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks (Score:3, Funny)
All hail the FCC!
(can I puke now?)
declare?! (Score:2)
"security through obscurity" can be good ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:"security through obscurity" can be good ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Worse, the more obscurity you have, the harder it is to get the good stuff configured properly in the first place. Most security breaches come not from fundamental weaknesses in any of the algorithms, but operator errors and surrounding design flaws (like how you handle your keys). The best crypto sytems are the ones that are as simple to operate as possible, well documented, and provide lots of feedback and debugging information to the operator to make sure they are using it correctly.
Go with the big guns... (Score:5, Informative)
...like Bruce Schneier:
from Crypto-Gram: September 15, 1999 [schneier.com]
But what could we expect from an FCC headed by a lawyer, a businessman, a professional Senate staffer, a DRM-supporter who received coaching from Clear Channel to oppose a satellite radio merger, [wikipedia.org] and a professional telecom corporate lobbyist.
Of course (Score:2)
Incorrect article and summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh...This is So Wrong...So Wrong... (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting that they apparently didn't consult folks at NSA. Their operating hypotheses for any US cryptosystem are:
1. The equipment is known and available for disassembly and testing
2. The algorithm is known or discernable from the equipment and related manuals
3. You have lots of output data from the device (the underlying plain text is properly)
4. You don't have the key...that's what you need
While I will grant that most folks never see any of this (most equipment, algorithm details, and key parts of repair/use manuals are classified), they assume the worst case and still make it secure. In other words, like having open source code and figuring out the key from that and clean output.
While "Security through Restricted Access" is a very good practice, the argument is STUPID at best, and downright biased towards closed, proprietary software vendors. Frankly, these people couldn't encrypt their way out of a wet paper bag with a pen, ruler, and other sharp things like their pointy little heads.
If they think it is "less secure" we can lock them up somewhere with whatever they want to crack an open source cryptosystem used as the jail lock and see how soon they get out. I hope they include a lifetime supply of food, water, toiletries, medicines, etc. I think a simple 1024 bit Elliptical Curve Cryptographic system will keep them safely behind bars for several decades, if not their lives.
Where do they find these bozos to fill these positions? I'd like to know so we can close that source of universal stupidity off and make the world a better place...
I guess these folks will never qualify for one of my D.O. letter...they're either just too stupid or have such low IQs that they need to be institutionalized immediately.
We are talking about REGULATORY security (Score:5, Informative)
The issue is that this ruling benefits Cisco that wants to defeat the likes of Linksys, Netgear and others that are beginning to deliver "decent" solutions with cheap radios and the help of hobbyists leveraging open source software. If you require that some of the SW is closed, you cannot leverage the benefits of the open source module on that bit you have closed. You also have to end up spending more time organizationally to support the effort, because you have to maintain two sets of documents -- one for the closed section, and another for the open section. You have to support binary compatibility, or some mechanism for the open source to integrate with the closed source firmware... it just becomes that much more of a burden for Cisco's competitors to develop and maintain their solutions.
So, please, don't flood the FCC with emails telling them that "Open source /is/ secure" -- from the standpoint of regulation, it's not! Flood them instead with messages that say, "This ruling is entirely prejudicial against many companies leveraging Open Source software for their solutions."
I miss the "old" FCC (Score:4, Interesting)
When the system was overhauled, it was done with the best of intentions. They allowed industry access in ways that they never had before and the FCC had to start to rely on information presented by the very industry that they were intended to police! Today, we could almost describe the industry relationship with the FCC as symbiotic.
The FCC has as it's primary charge the responsibility of making the public airwaves work for the public. They protect these airwaves by allocating frequencies, by approving new uses, and by certifying equipment that may use or interfere with the public airwaves.
With technology changing so fast, and the airwaves being so crowded, and all sorts of new ideas (good and bad), the FCC has lots to do. Congress told them to work faster and be more responsive to industry. Industry does not want OSS, they view it as competition. They would rather develop copyrighted and even patented software to do this stuff so that they can earn a healthy return on investment. The FCC is simply echoing this as they have been instructed by congress to do (they see it as working with industry).
OSS is sort of socialist when you think about it from the closed source standpoint. It is a threat simply because it is free. You would think public airwaves would be a place where free software would be at home -- and it should be but it isn't. Becuase the FCC is no longer really allowed to make the best decisions for the public. They must now answer to the very people they are supposed to police. That is simply wrong; they should answer to the public and the requirements of international treaties.
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I'm sure he appointed people to the FCC who are every bit as competent as:
Brown
Chertoff
Wolfowitz
Rumsfeld
Harriot Myers
Alberto Gonzales
Scotter Libby
...it's a very long list. Should I keep going or did I make my point?
Re:Looks like GPL3 is a no no on SW Radios (Score:4, Insightful)
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1) Closed software can just block out restricted frequencies or power levels. If the software was open and changeable, it would be trivial to get around any software restrictions.
2) If you can adjust the workings in software, then there is a danger of operating in a way that causes harmful interference even when on lawful frequencies and power levels. Closed software doesn't provide the adjustments.
Re:The best kept secrets... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is acknowledged by the entire security industry - the FCC notwithstanding - that obscuring the method by which you secure something is not an effective way to increase the security of that thing. As an example: a well-design ATM system doesn't depend on whether the attacker knows what's on the ATM card, how the reader works, how the system is programmed, or anything else about the mechanisms. It depends entirely on whether the attacker knows the PIN associated with the card.
As another example, the most secure form of encryption possible - by which I mean it is literally impossible to break without the key - is the one-time-pad cipher. The mechanism for that is trivially simple: take the message you want to encrypt, and begin generating random integers from 1 through 26, one integer per character in the message. Then go through the message, adding each number in sequence to each character in sequence (A + 3 = D, X + 3 = A, etc.). The resulting encrypted text is perfectly resistant to decryption without the key.
The fact that I just told you how to generate and use a OTP cipher doesn't change the fact that it's perfectly unbreakable. The security is in the key, not the mechanism.