Is The US Gov't Worried That Open Source Software May Fall Into The Wrong Hands?
from the whatever-will-we-do dept
Lee Courtney writes "Was reading about the U.S. Government nixing Checkpoint's acquisition of Sourcefire. Apparently the FBI and DoD are worried that Sourcefire's Snort technology could fall into the wrong hands: 'The objections by the FBI and Pentagon were partly over specialized intrusion detection software known as "Snort," which guards some classified U.S. military and intelligence computers.' However, Snort is open source -- anybody can access the technology. Hard to believe they did not know that. Is there something else going on here or are the guys vetting this deal a little slow?" Most likely there's something more going on here -- or they're worried about other, closed source, offerings that the company may develop in the future.
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Don't Underestimate the Power of Stupidity
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Open Source Software belongs to HUMANITY, not portions of it.
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Sourcefire
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You're all wrong
In this case, it isn't possible due to the extensive modifications to snort by the US gov't, modifications they are unlikely to give back to Checkpoint (an Israeli company) for incorportation into their products.
Chris.
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