Open Source And Spying 42
stigmatic writes: "The National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), which provides maps to defense and intelligence agencies, has sponsored the project to see if a Open Source can benefit the world of spying. It sounds like a joke to some that a U.S. intelligence agency may soon rely on free software to turn complicated data from spy satellites into detailed maps. But a collaboration between the government, private industry and academia may lead to just that with OSSIM, or Open Source Software Image Map. Space.com is carrying the full article."
But... if it's open source... (Score:3)
Is OSS appropriate here? (Score:1)
Earlier on Slashdot (Score:3)
I recall that it was posted in the Slashdot article Development of OS Satellite Image Processing/Mapping [slashdot.org] by Hemos on Tuesday May 30, @10:35AM EST
Some things need to be followed up on from time to time, although I am sure that someone is going to complain.
Open Source does not always require redistribution (Score:1)
Open Source Spying Is Nothing New (Score:4)
007 (Score:1)
Interests: Encryption, Real-time data analysis
Name: Bond, James
Re:007 (Score:1)
with a license to bill?
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
What of spaming of wrong info (Score:2)
Re:Open Source does not always require redistribut (Score:1)
Re:Ridiculous! (Score:2)
Re:Ridiculous! - Not so. (Score:1)
Re:hahah! (Score:1)
(Not so) Ridiculous! (Score:2)
However, everyone can have copies of the code. Let's see the 'russian hacker' modify every copy of the source everywhere in the world. Neat trick if you can do it...
As for introducing duff code in the main source tree.. Well, there are thousands of other coders building the tree all the time. As soon as it's introduced, the error is notified, and the amendments rolled back to the previous working source.
Malk
My father used to do R&D at NIMA (Score:3)
coincedence (Score:2)
It's... It's...
some great consequences (Score:2)
www.spaceimaging.com [spaceimaging.com] (the first ones to sell commercial high-res imagery, very cool site with sat photo dowonloads)
A report by the Carnegie Endownment For Internatinal Peace
An abstract is posted online with the full report available for download.on the effects of commercial High-res.
Secrets for Sale [ceip.org]
Forget surveillance, Sat imagery is big business (Score:5)
First of all, what is the easiest way for a country to check its agricultural production? Sat. Imagery. How can I quickly see pollution effects? Again sat. imagery. How can I see the growth of a city, again sat. imagery. We can buy old images comparitively easily now, we can even find them on the web, but they are out of date.
The point is let the boys have their toys, but there are a lot of people who would be quite interested in current slightly lower res. imagery and it would be great if we had some common tools to work with it. Of course there are military uses, but what about everyone else who wants to work with GIS?
No win situation. (Score:4)
If they go with COTS software, they could be held hostage by some monopolistic corporation.
If they go with GPL'ed software, they could be held hostage by some crazed open source terrorist.
If they go with homegrown software, they will be accused of having inferior skills.
The Open Source community should really look at this as affirmation. Believe it or not the intellegence community is full of brilliant people--they just aren't allowed to spout off about it.
An 'Open Source' Movie we'd like to see: (Score:5)
Gatesfinger: Ah, Mister James Bond. I see that you have applied a patch against the CVS tree for our nuclear control system.
Bond: How does the old rote go? "Security through obscurity is no security?"
[Bond types "Make" at the BASH prompt. The legion of goons behind Gatesfinger all raise their automatic weapons, but Gatesfinger raises his hand and pushes his glasses up on his nose. Bond's finger hovers threatingly above the "Enter key]
Bond: Release Dr. Greattits and I *could* just walk away without compiling this binary.
Gatesfinger: You think you have won, Mister Bond? Well, Think again.
[Gatesfinger speaks into his watch]
Gatesfinger: GOATSEX! Attack James Bond
Goatsex: ROAR!
I also noted that... (Score:1)
Linux - the OS of choice for keeping your secrets secret!!
What about NASA, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc (Score:2)
Wouldn't these agencies be giving vital information away if they were to do something like that? Not neccessarily -- I'm sure there are a lot of things that could be open sourced in some generic way, and then adapted within said departments to perform in the way they want them to -- for eg, an alglorithm for detecting man-made objects in satelite imagery would be handy at publicly available resolutions for identifying buildings and so on, but could be used unmodified at military resolution for identifying far more interesting things...
I'm sure the genii at said agencies could come up with multitudes of other ways to give to and receive from the Open Source community, without giving their advantages away, and without violating the GPL.
rr
sample source code (Score:1)
exception handling removed for clarity
*/
Bitmap getImage(double latitude,
double longitude, double resolution, double framesize
) {
ResultSet rs=statement("select * from images " +
where latitude=:latitude and longitude=:longitude");
if (parseAddress(rs.address).equals(specials.MY_ADDR
return getImageByURL("http://goatse.cx/images/goatsexguy
else
return scaleImage(rs.image);
}
--
Re:Is OSS appropriate here? (Score:2)
As for the GPL, that only requires that they release the source code of any executable programs which they release outside their organization. And it only requires that the source code be released to the holder of their executable program. The GPL does not allow restriction of what the recipient does with the source code. So if someone used GPL code only inside an organization they don't have to release the source code to anyone -- but they lose the contributions which others might have made.
whoops (Score:1)
It's... It's...
Re:coincedence (Score:1)
Call me paranoid... (Score:4)
Re:What about NASA, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc (Score:2)
I proposed this at DoT (Score:4)
The system is something that has evolved over the years, and could have benefitted from a clean re-implimentation using modern tools and protocols. The problem was that they would have had to spin off a VERY large project to do so, and failures in the real-time traffic management program had made such programs political footballs.
I proposed a solution: Open Source.
Take all of the code, clean out anything that could a) be used to determine how critical systems (e.g. real-time air traffic control) worked, and there weren't many of them or b) could indicate how the security of the current system functions. Then establish a panel of 2-4 people who act as gatekeepers for the source. They release the source to the world and organize 5-10 projects around replacing the code from the ground up. No one ever took me up on it, but I think it would have resulted in one of the best government systems ever designed. Certainly your average OSS project is much better designed than any government system I've ever seen.
The gatekeepers would be responsible for code reviews on all incoming check-ins, and no one but the gatekeepers would have write-permission to the original source tree (though, you'd probably do something like sourceforge for the external developers to use as a sandbox). It's really no less secure than hiring random contractors to work on the code.
US Gov't already uses free/public information... (Score:3)
Re:Open Source does not always require redistribut (Score:1)
I'm certainly not trying to take anything away from the GPL, and I believe that this is in accord with the spirit of the license. I think the idea is that you don't have to accept the GPL, but you have no rights to distribute GPL'd code otherwise.
Re:Is OSS appropriate here? (Score:2)
Surprised? (Score:1)
not really new for the governemnt (Score:2)
it was available for public download a year or so ago, but i can't find it on their site this moment. here's a white paper: http://www.mitre.org/pubs/edge/june_98/sixth.htm
Re:But... if it's open source... (Score:2)
HELP! (Score:1)
Everything can be better. No one catches all of their mistakes. The more peer review, the better the code.
Re:Ridiculous! (Score:1)
I can see the changelog now...
build 1.0.3
IvanM -- fixed bug that allowed the yellow running-dogs of American capitalism to use their sattelites to see the noble Russian Tanks on their mission to rescue the subjigated masses.
P.S. Even as a joke that sure sounded dated...
Re:I proposed this at DoT (Score:1)
My question on some of these projects is this, "will they ever garner enough interest to make open sourcing worthwile." Let's look at some of the successful and potential projects.
Linux - motivation: understand the OS and fight the evil empire.
Perl - motivation: build a language that makes your work easier.
NSA imaging - motivation: kewl! I'm working on spy stuff.
Air-Traffic Control Software (minus the critical systems) - motivation: ???
I suppose if someone were designing a system that had a similar problem domain (and they were honest enough to make sure their modifications made it back into the OSS pool) it might eventually be a benefit to the DOT.
Re:What of spaming of wrong info (Score:1)
And you don't think that this doesn't happen at the moment?????
I'm not surprised. (Score:1)
With the security requirments and beauracratic hoops you have to jump though, it's probably impossible for them to hire good software people.
By the time manage to find anyone who passes security clearance, is willing to work for government pay, and was willing to wait around for 2 years as they check his background, the project would be over with.
Should be interesting, to say the least.
Later
ErikZ
Open Source Obfuscated Spy Code (Score:1)
Let's say "the bad guys" (TBG) want to get PGP or the GNU one or whatever. They could somehow search and replace certain links that TBG click on with their own ones.
Ugh, so hard to explain. Let's say TGG are monitoring all internet traffic coming out of a country that TBG do their planning in. Let's say TBG download a PGP binary ... well, TGG would have already replaced that binary with a backdoor installed version ... not to the whole world, but just to the country being spied on (and having their traffic monitored) ... hell, they could also replace those MD5 checksum files, too. Let's say that TBG are smart enough to compile their own GPG program from source code so that they could look at the source code for threats and backdoors. Well, TGG could replace the normal source code with a copy that has very obfuscated secret backdoors in it.
Something like that. You figure out who "TBG" and "TGG" are and who's really badder or gooder or what.
-Christian
From someone who uses NIMA products.... (Score:1)
NIMA is one of those top-heavy monolithic organizations where the whole beaurocracy is devoted to only one thing....the continuation of NIMA. Forget putting out a decent product.
Don't Get Too Emotional (Score:2)
1) only the code for processing the images is OS. Not the images - high quality stuff is still expensive or unavailable. The US govt has a policy of selective availability and can black-out their birds in a time of crisis. Software similar to OSSIm is available in other commercial and Free software (like GRASS, the Free GIS package, originally from the US Army Corps of Engineers). Even GIMP can run filters to identify edges or do feature enhancement, and with a ruler and calculator, other geographic functions are possible (but slow and boring).
2) (Re: satellites) The Frenchmen atop the castle said "We already got one - it's very nice!" The Russians, Chinese, Indians, Europeans, Canadians, and Japanese also have sophisticated satellites, and presumably know how to analyze the images.
3) An open-sky policy is good for peace. It is hard to amass troops on your border for a surprise invasion if the world is watching. Being able to analyze surface processes on the Earth is also good for environmentalists (and developers, but they have always had an edge in terms of $$).
4) Much of the commercial GIS/Remote sensing software has been developed in harmony with various militaries around the world. If it's closed source, you can never be certain that it isn't back-doored, booby-trapped, land-mined, orrrrr * * The person responsible for that OS rant has been sacked. The management appologizes, and assures you it won't happen again. * *
So don't panic. OSSIM is a good thing, but the US is not giving up its strategic advantage. A technical software package is liberated and improved via the Cathedral model des..arrggghhh.