3 ms·

I wish they disclosed a country of origin for each organisation participating in the project. I had to click through a lot to find out some of them are based in

I wish they disclosed a country of origin for each organisation participating in the project. I had to click through a lot to find out some of them are based in countries with appalling human rights track record. Now I am thinking whether the agenda to bring open computing is genuine or is it a front to make dictatorships independent from western technology?

dijit 6y ago
> Now I am thinking whether the agenda to bring open computing is genuine or is it a front to make dictatorships independent from western technology? I mean, technological independence from the US should be a desire of every country that _isn't_ the US, as the US gives no rights to foreign nationals or their data, has a history of backdooring products and is suspected of making some of the most sophisticated malware the world has ever known.
- varispeed 6y ago
  Well, in its history IBM was aiding the Nazis with concentration camp infrastructure - making the whole bureaucracy much easier. I'd rather have technology restricted for certain countries at risk so anything like this won't happen in the future.
  - dijit 6y ago
    You've positioned it now so that anything I say will sound sympathetic to Nazis. But what if the USA was WW2 Germany, and they had dominion over your entire technological infrastructure. I'm not necessarily saying that's the case, but I'm not so quick to throw in pure unadulterated trust to any foreign country, and ultimately, USA could decide the rest of us are bad for nearly any reason, just look at how much pressure the US exerts on Sweden, which is hardly known for human rights abuses.
    - varispeed 6y ago
      I am sorry, I didn't want it to sound like that. I just wanted to express my distrust for IBM as they have not exactly addressed their past and such initiative is potentially sinister. I understand that the US has its fair share of atrocities, however for me they are the "lesser evil" if that makes sense.
  - selfhoster11 6y ago
    How is comment not whataboutism?
dsr_ 6y ago
Why not both? If you have reason to believe that some state-equivalent espionage group implants malware in machines headed in your direction, it is to your advantage to defend against that. It seems to be the case that human-rights advocates as well as dictatorships have been such targets.
- varispeed 6y ago
  It's not so much about spying on western infrastructure, but about using such technology for genocide, racial profiling (for example restricting certain ethnic groups movements) and the whole police state infrastructure to keep population "under control".
  - toast0 6y ago
    How does an open standard remote management card enable genocide or whatever? Non-open standard management chips are cheap and off the shelf and work ok; or you know, just have a tech in the datacenter with a kvm cart; it's not as nice, but not really a big deal. I also don't see a huge difference in genoicde capability between 2010 servers and 2020 servers, but 2010 servers are eWaste. Restricting genocidal organizations to ten year old technology would raise their power bills, but not diminish genocidal capabilities; and restricting much more would require immense effort on a global scale. (And, of course, you would need to get near-global consensus about the country, which is quite difficult)
Nomentatus 6y ago
I do get why you were downvoted; because it's easy for readers to assume that open source logically HAS to mean open to every dictator, too. But it doesn't. You're right about that. We could have "friendly nation" or "no pirate nation" open source licenses that do not give North Korea, Iran, Russia, etc massive free software gifts to help them oppress their citizenry. Logically, there didn't have to be a North Korean Linux (which there is.) Such licenses wouldn't extend any rights to citizens of rogue countries, or to non-citizens while in such countries, nor entities (including companies) with control or ownership ties to rogue countries, or, say, countries which jail or execute LGBTQ. (At the very least, we don't have to extend a license without payment and contracts.) There are risks to friendly-nation or no-rogue-nation licenses, granted; but there are nasty consequences to handing more and sharper knives every year to rogue countries, too. Whether one likes it or not, an executive order from Biden could perhaps make that happen tomorrow.
- dralley 6y ago
  Seems rather pointless since it would be totally unenforcable. As if North Korea, the #1 producer of counterfeit US currency worldwide, is going to respect IP rights. Likewise with Russia and China. The same logic applies to the US too, by the way. I don't think the NSA thought too hard about e.g. whether backdooring Cisco routers was in violation of any IP laws - I doubt they'd care much about the contents of LICENSE.txt. Complete exercise in futility.
  - Nomentatus 6y ago
    Much more enforceable than you'd think, since trade treaties don't allow countries to widely violate licenses. Not to mention that products can't be shipped from rogue countries to the rest of the world with such software, say an embedded OS. What doesn't have a chip in it, now?
    - realityking 6y ago
      How many treaties like this is North Korea a signatory of? And if they are a member of any, how much do they care about breaching them considering they‘re already under comprehensive sanctions?

dijit 6y ago

> Now I am thinking whether the agenda to bring open computing is genuine or is it a front to make dictatorships independent from western technology? I mean, technological independence from the US should be a desire of every country that _isn't_ the US, as the US gives no rights to foreign nationals or their data, has a history of backdooring products and is suspected of making some of the most sophisticated malware the world has ever known.

varispeed 6y ago
Well, in its history IBM was aiding the Nazis with concentration camp infrastructure - making the whole bureaucracy much easier. I'd rather have technology restricted for certain countries at risk so anything like this won't happen in the future.
- dijit 6y ago
  You've positioned it now so that anything I say will sound sympathetic to Nazis. But what if the USA was WW2 Germany, and they had dominion over your entire technological infrastructure. I'm not necessarily saying that's the case, but I'm not so quick to throw in pure unadulterated trust to any foreign country, and ultimately, USA could decide the rest of us are bad for nearly any reason, just look at how much pressure the US exerts on Sweden, which is hardly known for human rights abuses.
  - varispeed 6y ago
    I am sorry, I didn't want it to sound like that. I just wanted to express my distrust for IBM as they have not exactly addressed their past and such initiative is potentially sinister. I understand that the US has its fair share of atrocities, however for me they are the "lesser evil" if that makes sense.
- selfhoster11 6y ago
  How is comment not whataboutism?

dsr_ 6y ago

Why not both? If you have reason to believe that some state-equivalent espionage group implants malware in machines headed in your direction, it is to your advantage to defend against that. It seems to be the case that human-rights advocates as well as dictatorships have been such targets.

varispeed 6y ago
It's not so much about spying on western infrastructure, but about using such technology for genocide, racial profiling (for example restricting certain ethnic groups movements) and the whole police state infrastructure to keep population "under control".
- toast0 6y ago
  How does an open standard remote management card enable genocide or whatever? Non-open standard management chips are cheap and off the shelf and work ok; or you know, just have a tech in the datacenter with a kvm cart; it's not as nice, but not really a big deal. I also don't see a huge difference in genoicde capability between 2010 servers and 2020 servers, but 2010 servers are eWaste. Restricting genocidal organizations to ten year old technology would raise their power bills, but not diminish genocidal capabilities; and restricting much more would require immense effort on a global scale. (And, of course, you would need to get near-global consensus about the country, which is quite difficult)

Nomentatus 6y ago

I do get why you were downvoted; because it's easy for readers to assume that open source logically HAS to mean open to every dictator, too. But it doesn't. You're right about that. We could have "friendly nation" or "no pirate nation" open source licenses that do not give North Korea, Iran, Russia, etc massive free software gifts to help them oppress their citizenry. Logically, there didn't have to be a North Korean Linux (which there is.) Such licenses wouldn't extend any rights to citizens of rogue countries, or to non-citizens while in such countries, nor entities (including companies) with control or ownership ties to rogue countries, or, say, countries which jail or execute LGBTQ. (At the very least, we don't have to extend a license without payment and contracts.) There are risks to friendly-nation or no-rogue-nation licenses, granted; but there are nasty consequences to handing more and sharper knives every year to rogue countries, too. Whether one likes it or not, an executive order from Biden could perhaps make that happen tomorrow.

dralley 6y ago
Seems rather pointless since it would be totally unenforcable. As if North Korea, the #1 producer of counterfeit US currency worldwide, is going to respect IP rights. Likewise with Russia and China. The same logic applies to the US too, by the way. I don't think the NSA thought too hard about e.g. whether backdooring Cisco routers was in violation of any IP laws - I doubt they'd care much about the contents of LICENSE.txt. Complete exercise in futility.
- Nomentatus 6y ago
  Much more enforceable than you'd think, since trade treaties don't allow countries to widely violate licenses. Not to mention that products can't be shipped from rogue countries to the rest of the world with such software, say an embedded OS. What doesn't have a chip in it, now?
  - realityking 6y ago
    How many treaties like this is North Korea a signatory of? And if they are a member of any, how much do they care about breaching them considering they‘re already under comprehensive sanctions?