Developing Open Source Defense Projects

An anonymous reader writes "I'm a developer looking to develop an open source surface-to-air missile guidance system, with the aim of helping developing nations develop low-cost missile defense systems to aid them against attack by the warplanes of invading forces. However, given the very nature of the project, I feel I may be walking into a bit of a minefield regarding the legalities of such a project, since, as I'm sure you can imagine, this project could easily benefit hostile nations was well as relatively peaceful ones! Unfortunately, since Google does not seem to shed much light on the subject, I'd be very interested in hearing Slashdot's views on the matter, especially some advice from those in the know about the legal matters - whether there would be any restrictions (exports, perhaps?) or whether it would be simply plain illegal to develop!"

No, think of the horrible consequences!

[The I Shing]

You can't share the technology with other civilizations!

Imagine what will happen if the Terrans start building Protoss cannons that can strike ground and air targets, or the Zerg start equipping Zerglings with stimpacks! The results would... be...

Wait, was that just a computer game?

My God. Think of the Beta Testers!

[jellomizer]

Well being April 1, I wont take this seriously.

Beta Testing your product will sure be a bitch, and it will be hard to keep good beta testers.

What's wrong with missile command?

[FortKnox]

Missile Command (Atari) works great and is dirt cheap now-a-days.

Another....

[LostCluster]

I'm getting sick of these April Fool's posts... We all already know that Open Source Defense Projects is an oxymoron, you know source has to be closed to be truely secure.

Can we have a real story now?

A solution

[Em Emalb]

The Open Source Hammer in the Sky protocol suite is what you are looking for. I use the OSHITS protocol to defend my small volcanic (it's not active, thankfully) island.
Oh, I also need to mention that OSHITS is GPL-compliant, so feel free to modify it in any way you'd like. It can be found at OSHITS.com [blowshitup.com]*

The OSHITS protocol suite has also been through the legal ringer, in both the EU and the US.

In fact, the Supreme Court and the UN Tribunal Council both agreed, OSHITS is legal and quite good for use. Thanks and have a great day.

*web address doesn't render properly on IE. User must use an old version of Netscape.

I love teh april fools!

[Akira1]

perhaps you should write your controlling app using .NET technology?

Go AROUND the law

[darth_MALL]

You think Estes just build model rockets? Call their customer service line and ask for a guy named Jimmy 'The Switch'. He'll sort you out.

Crash course

[Phekko]

I may not be the first and/or only one to think of this, but this seems to be a proven formula:

1. Post article on Slashdot on April 1st
2. ???
3. Profit!

bats

[chimpo13]

You just need to stand at the border with large baseball or cricket bats. Planes hate bats, and bats are sympathetic to American causes. Evil nations would use pointed sticks. So if you develop a system that can tell the difference between pointed sticks (evil) and baseball bats (good), no problem. I'm sure any ol' RFID would be useful in a good American or British bat.

Re:Remember the golden rule...

[RLiegh]

I thought the golden rule was WWJS.

What's really wrong is...

[LostCluster]

Michael isn't intentionally picking April Fools stories. He's actually following his normal selection patern, it's just today that we're willing to consider them jokes....

Re:DARPA

[baudilus]

Don't let them. They'll put in a backdoor that redirects any missle lauched to the Middle East.

Or North Korea.

Or Canada.

Re:uhm..

[Flashbck]

I know this might sound silly, but here's a really simple answer for you:

LOOK AT THE DATE YOU BUMBLING FOOL

Naw.. it's not a problem

[Sheepdot]

Dun't worry yurself 'bout the legaltys. 'Ell, I owns one a dem dere new-clear weapons and no one's dun gone'n fussed ta me about it. Course, I ain't told no one 'bout it either. B'Sides, it's my second amender-ment right!

What's it gonna be called?

[spamnix]

... KICBM?
or GMissile?

Beta testers are sure gonna be a hard thing to find when bugs crop up.

Re:DARPA

[nycsubway]

Will your guidance system have an Arab language version? There are many people who I know of who can translate.

Top 10 Open Source Defense Projects

[AtariAmarok]

10. Nuclear landmines kept warm by being packed with live penguins
9. The Gentoo Torpedo
8. *BSD WMD (this one is buried deep so you can't find it)
7. SDI SDK
6. The *real* Mozilla: a 600' tall flame-breathing Japanese monster.
5. Neutron GAIM
4. The BeoWulfowitz Cluster
3. Sun OpenWarfare project
2. The Doomsday Linux
1. Cmdr Taco

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like this one hits a little too close to home for the slashbots.

open source ideology being mocked ... confusion ... pain ... must jerk knee violently

Re:What's it gonna be called?

[emtboy9]

No NO NO! Everyone knows its GNU/MissileDefense, not MissileDefense!

Outsource it to India.

[Doches]

It's a no-brainer.

Re:Not a bad thought

[zerochance]

Fool, haven't you ever listened to George Carlin? It's not about oil. It's about brown people. We just love blowing up brown people. Their having oil is just a bonus.

I work for the NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

What is your IP?

Re:DARPA

[DR SoB]

The Canadian government will pay you for those missiles, just as long as you don't actually create them. We like to refer to it as our "Save Canada" program. We pretend to buy the little paper Canadian flags (we pay for them, we just don't pick them up), and we've decieded we could use your missiles as well. Please note we pay in cash only (Canadian loonies ONLY!)

Re:No, think of the horrible consequences!

[Adriax]

There's no way in hell I'm letting a Protoss medic give ME a spongebath... *shudder*

Re:Amendment II

[FortKnox]

Oh! THATS what the second amendment means!

This whole time I thought it meant you can wear short sleeves or tank tops...

Re:Excellent Question

[pegr]

No, this is just the answer to that guy in New Zealand with the DIY cruise missle! [interestingprojects.com] Hey, you wouldn't be that guys neighbor, would you? I'm beginning to understand now...

All I know is that if I were a kid in his neighborhood, I wouldn't be walking on his grass...

Re:My God. Think of the Beta Testers!

[Anonymous Coward]

FIRST REPLY!

The blood of the innocent shall flow freely from the steps of the new-found corporate justice.

PROPS TO ALL THE DEAD HOMIZE!

Just the opposite

[A nonymous Coward]

It will be easy to keep good beta testers, they are the ones who survive because they are so good at dodging. The trick is recruiting new beta testers, and keeping them around long enough to become good beta testers.

As your code improves, it will increasingly weed out the beta testers who are not quite good enough. The really good beta testers will improve as your code improves, and will take your improvments as just the motivation they need to keep on improving.

Your product will be ready for release when you run out of beta testers.

Re:Amendment II

[plugger]

Tank tops? No civilised country would mandate the wearing of tank tops.

Commoditize Terrorist's Tools

[keester]

I like this idea because, as it stands, the price for this type of software is artificially inflated.

Right now, terrorists' funding is being stretched quite thin because of increased costs for heroin production in Afghanistan. So, anywhere that they can cut costs, they want to. Buying guided missiles from former Soviet block nations can be quite costly, and a more cost effective solution involves cutting out the middle man and building them "in-cave."

I'm not sure about legal issues, but perhaps Syria or Lebanon or other countries would be interested in supporting you. Just watch out for those pesky CIA dudes that are trying to kill your ass.

Re:Another....

[Anonymous Coward]

We all already know that Open Source Defense Projects is an oxymoron, you know source has to be closed to be truely secure.

Not so fast buddy. He was asking for Open Source to be USED for making such a system. Unless he's DISTRIBUTING such system, GPL does not force him/her to open source resulting system, so source could very well remain closed; only army using the system having access to source code.

I guess one could argue that firing a missile that contains Open Source code would constitute distribution, though... so maybe one would have to include cdrom of source code in missile to play it safe? And same would apply to torpedoes, and "smart"(ass) bombs as well.

Just because you don't see utility of Open Source components in building doomsday device doesn't mean no one does!

I'm wondering what the code does...

[Scorchio]

...when the missile's about to strike :

while (1)
{
dist = GetDistToTarget();

if (dist > 1.0)
{
CheckTrajectoryAndMakeChanges();
}
else
{ // Too late for any more course changes
printf("And now, the end is near;\n");
printf("And so I face the final curtain.\n");
printf("My friend, I'll say it clear,\n");
printf("I'll state my case, of which I'm certain.\n");

printf("I've lived a life that's full.\n");
printf("I've traveled each and ev'ry highway;\n");
printf("And more, much more than this,\n");
printf("I did it my way");

while (1) { printf("y"); }
}
}

Re:Amendment II

[kalidasa]

No, that's the right to BEAR arms. Furry bear arms with four-inch claws. The Founders thought of everything: even transgenics!

Re:Remember the golden rule...

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Who Wants Jack Daniels? Always a decent proposition..

Code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I just checked CPAN, and it looks like there is already a Perl module that does it. Oh well. Maybe think of soemthing else to work on?

Re:No, think of the horrible consequences!

[_Sprocket_]

Wait, was that just a computer game?

Shut up and pay attention to what's happening on the screen, Ender.

Ultimate source vs. packages challenge!

[gregwbrooks]

So, which do you trust more?

• A missle-defense RPM ("Watch out for that crucial nuke-couterstrike dependency -- the install hoses without it!"); or
• Compiling from source ("Careful with the flags when you run make... Running -WITH_WMD in a non-WMD environment could cause a kernel panic...")

Re:A solution

[Rakshasa Taisab]

If you got it from VillainSupply.com [villainsupply.com] then i suggest you get a refund. Their obvious and accessible self-destruct mechanism has been known to initiate by itself.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU KNOW YER A REDNECK WHEN .... You think "My Way" is a Willie Nelson reference

Re:Excellent Question

[pegr]

cruise missle? amateur!
the internet is knee deep in instructions on how to build and h-bomb.

Dude, I'm not touching that link through ten anonymous proxy servers...

Re:No, think of the horrible consequences!

[tanguyr]

Clippy: "It looks like you're losing a battle!!!"

Re:In The Name Of All That Is Holy

[Lumpy]

that is easy... simply add a entry into your hosts file that points slashdot.org to the IP address of CNN.com

I personally wish that we were allowed to beat sensless anyone who is grumpy today and has no sense of humor... Lik the IT manager in the other 1/2 of the building that deals with that department only.. he didnt like the completely smashed laptop on his desk with a note stating... "it just stopped working, I dont know what happened... can you fix it?" (amazing what a semi truck over a laptop can do :-)

the jerk came over to our devision started screaming about destruction of company property until the regional VP asked him if we have EVER had toshiba laptops in the building.... he shut up walking off mumbling that it was not funny.

so I suggest that you avoid slashdot until April 5th.

we could call it april fools pummling day!

Unethical use of open source

[Simonetta]

Notwithstanding the possiblility that this entire post is an elaborate hoax in keeping with the USA April First tradition, I must say that helping anyone develop a surface-to-air missile is an unethical use of open source method.
There are far too many people running around who would use the technology to shoot down commercial airliners during their critical take-off and landing approaches. Knowingly allowing a technical contribution from oneself to be used for mass murder is unethical. I am not a lawyer, but I would believe that it is traditionally illegal under the 'accessory to murder' classification and most certainly under the vague new anti-terrorism laws being enacted in the OCED countries.
Of course, this only applies to individuals. If you are part of military defense contractor corporation, you will be getting large sums of money to develop the same technology and distribute it to 'friendly' countries. Representives from these countries will then distribute this technology to their various relatives in various terrorist organizations.
These groups will undoubtably commit acts of mass murder which will lead to the call for more funds spent developing new mass-murder technology (excuse me, defense technology) R&D contracts. The new technology will be distributed to 'friendly' governments who will distibute it to their relatives in terrorist groups... And the circle begins anew.
Terrorism will stop when all the young men who are willing to commit mass-murder for a cause have been identified and killed, AND, when the giant western military contractors stop making huge amounts of money developing mass-murder technology (like surface-to-air missles) that make the whole cycle possible.

Thank you,
Simonetta

Obvious answer

[xmedar]

Stick with chemical and biological weapons, and be a part of the growing Open Sores Community...