Can Open Source Give Comfort To the Enemy? 532
zlite writes "We make open source Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones), mostly for geomapping and other amateur uses. One of our problems is that most people think of UAVs as Scary Things, and despite our efforts to prove otherwise there's always the risk of regulatory crackdowns. We have amateur UAV participants from around the world, but now they've been joined by an Iranian in Tehran, who has made a UAV in the colors of the Iranian flag. My instinct is that we should welcome everyone, everywhere, but I'm sure some in Washington worry that this looks like helping an 'Axis of Evil' country make advanced weapons. They could shut us down with the stroke of a pen. My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?"
Tradecraft? (Score:5, Interesting)
One would think someone infiltrating a group to aid a hostile government would be able to cover their tracks a little better. Maybe use a cutout in Germany, South America or Canada. It would be pretty foolish for the Iranian Air Force to use an IP that traces back to Tehran. Just because they talk with an accent doesn't mean they think with one.
Besides, if the Iranians want advanced UAV's, the Russians will sell them whatever is in their inventory. The Chinese, who probably make a lot of the circuit boards and sub systems for our military, would happily sell them their 100% original design...that just happens to look amazingly like ours. Heeeey.
If they struck out there then they're down to the French, Taiwanese, North Koreans and a half-dozen other countries happy to sell them weapons systems under the table.
Of course, this is the Bush administration we're talking about here. Logic and common sense hold no sway in American government and people get appointed to high office because they're skilled fund raisers. So, yeah, I could see them shaking down you guys just because it makes them feel like they're doing something and they can understand you when you talk...if you limit yourself to simple words. Plus you're convenient driving distance from their offices.
Does it really matter? (Score:2, Interesting)
Is it that simple? (Score:3, Interesting)
In other words: believe it or not, there are somethings that are more important than "freedom"...as far as SOFTWARE goes. =P
Yes (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine if someone decided to design an open source cruise missile.
The U.S.A. already leaned on the New Zealand gov't to shut down a guy making a (non-open source) DIY cruise missile just to prove that he could do it. The NZ version of the IRS hound him into bankruptcy.
Not to mention that his gov't even said it'd be perfectly fine if he sold the technology to Iran. BTW - He didn't.
A revamped V1 as the AK-47 of aerial warfare (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine if someone decided to design an open source cruise missile. ... DIY cruise missile
That guy was developing something that some strategic intel people have been expecting for years [darpa.mil] - a simple V1-like UAV, but with modern guidance.
The V1 of WWII was a very simple device, built cheaply out of sheet metal with a crude engine. Range of several hundred miles. Moderately reliable airframe. But the guidance systems of that era had trouble finding London, and hitting a specific military target was hopeless. The same airframe with modern guidance could hit specific buildings. It could become the Third World's answer to US bombing strikes - the AK-47 of air warfare. So far, no one has bothered.
An UAV (Score:3, Interesting)
A smarter device isn't that hard to create today - a GPS, gyro and a small one-chip computer will make things easy. Failure rate may be higher than for the military spec UAV:s but what's missing in precision can be made up by larger numbers.
So all R/C equipment around may also be a security risk.
I'm sure that this is causing dandruff for some security people. Just accept that the worms are out of the can.
And anyway - there are better ways to streak terror in people than with UAV:s. - They are too visible, rather slow and can be spotted before they are about to cause any big trouble.
"Give the" a break... (Score:3, Interesting)
They really thought that "security through obscurity" was a viable option.
What a crock.
Eventually they were FORCED to see the light... but the problem is, everybody else saw the light right away... not after many years of argument and litigation.
Rather than getting rid of UAVs, we should lobby to get rid of ITAR. Just about everybody would be happier as a result.
Re:Give the (Score:3, Interesting)
Their Marx worship was just as much a religion as christianity, islam, mormonism, hinduism, etc. are. If it quacks like a duck and all that. Of course their propaganda denied that, but that was just their way of saying that there is only One True religion.
Your argument does nothing to disprove the original premise.
Re:A revamped V1 as the AK-47 of aerial warfare (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Give the (Score:3, Interesting)
Big brutish football players, and freakish tall basketball players would deserve our sympathy if there wasn't an entertainment industry eager to draw our attention to them (and to the advertising played in parallel with their performances)
There. The nerd interpretation of sports.
Re:Give the (Score:3, Interesting)
Also some were just terrified of what the Israeli military might do and fled. However, when it looked safe to go back to their homes, they discovered that they were not allowed to return. Israel has always had a problem which is that it wants to be both a Jewish state, but also a democracy. The only way you can really do that is by ensuring that the majority of people in that state are Jewish. This is why the Palestinians were not allowed to return. It also explains why so many of the Holocaust Jews ended up in Israel. Many of them didn't want to go an live in some Middle Eastern desert. They were Europeans and would much have preferred to go to the US, Canada or perhaps some other European country. They were being deliberately channelled into Palestine to build up the numbers.
Re:Iran UAV today IRAN terror weapon tomorrow afte (Score:3, Interesting)
Technology isn't going to change the problem, culture is. If through international projects/interaction/communication we can take the edge off a culture with some dangerous imbalances then we are helping to solve the problem.
Re:Give the (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:firearms (Score:3, Interesting)
Fine. Just don't go pulling out your gun first if someone tries to rob your house. If you threaten their life, surely they can be justified in protecting themselves and killing you with their own firearm. They should still be charged with robbery, but not murder since, like everyone else, they were just carrying a gun for self-protection and not planning to even threaten you with it.
Breaking in, a robber has already declared they are a danger. "Oh wait please Mr robber while I call the police." Gang you're dead. Growing up my best friend's dad had a sign in the front window beside the door with a smoking gun, the caption read "Anyone found here at night will be found here in the morning." And he meant it. Like my dad he served in the US Air Force, though he was discharged when he suffered an injury causing a disability whereas my father retired from the Air Force. He was an expert shot too, he'd take the two of us out in the middle of nowhere for target practice, and he'd have one of us toss something small up then he'd shoot it drawing from the hip. Before I was a teenager my dad gave me a .22 long rifle and I'd use it for practice myself. I believe it's important for a person to grow up being able to handle firearms and being taught to respect them.
I believe that's a root problem with firearms in the US today, too many people are afraid of firearms so when they have children they don't teacher them to respect firearms. Then like when a young adult reaches legal age to drink they go off on a drinking bing. They never learned to respect alcohol, or firearms. It used to be that parents in the US were able to give their teens a drink and not get in trouble, my parents did as well as most other parents I knew growing up. They just made sure the child only had a little bit to drink and not a lot. A sip or two to start with, then a little more. By the tyme I was 18 I'd open a longneck bottle of beer and nurse it throughout the evening. When I was stationed in Germany, I enlisted in the US Army, I saw how casually German parents would order a glass of wine for their child to drink while eating out. Try that now in the US and that parent will have their child taken away, have a good chance of being criminally prosecuted, and be labeled a child abuser.
Falcon