4 ms·

Open Source Warfare

5 points by nir 17y ago

stcredzero 17y ago
Cute, but without centralized command and control, or at least some sort of efficient communications, there's the potential to heightened vulnerability to deception. What if the successful attack opportunities are actually honeypots set up by the adversary? Without a centralized command and control, there is no one with a global viewpoint to do the fact-checking and correlation that could reveal this. Also, open source development depends on open and efficient communications. The adversaries can download your releases and and browse your code repository. It's an outside legal framework that protects OS from being co-opted by proprietary actors. Also, very often with Open Source, it doesn't matter if the adversary knows everything you do. Their culture and their legacy code base prevent them from exploiting any advantage the information could give them. In the case of terrorism, these are not barriers. While mainstream culture of the enemy might object, the enemy intelligence services will have no compunctions. There is also no "operating system" for intelligence information. Lastly, Divide and Conquer has always been one of the best strategies of the imperialists. Distributed cells come pre-divided! Witness the internecine fighting of the various offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. (Who are the intellectual forebears of Al Quaeda.) The one thing you don't want to do: be the "Big Bad Enemy" that everyone must unite to oppose. At least, don't do it too soon. Wear them down by playing one side against the other and take them down piecemeal, until they realize they must unite to win. (And by then, it's too late and you have them conveniently all in one place. Ref: Julius Caesar in Gaul.)
- nir 17y ago
  >What if the successful attack opportunities are actually honeypots set up by the adversary? How many examples of this have we seen in recent experience? (Post Troy ;)) >Distributed cells come pre-divided! Witness the internecine fighting of the various offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt Good point - but I think we saw that they also have the ability to unite temporarily to fight off a common enemy. I think it's not unlike what we see in software: projects fork, groups have internal conflicts, participants lose interest, but one in a hundred (or thousand) will manage to produce something very effective with little resources. It seems like Pakistan (nukes and all) is in danger of soon becoming a major "success" story for this methodology.

5 points by nir 17y ago

Cute, but without centralized command and control, or at least some sort of efficient communications, there's the potential to heightened vulnerability to deception. What if the successful attack opportunities are actually honeypots set up by the adversary? Without a centralized command and control, there is no one with a global viewpoint to do the fact-checking and correlation that could reveal this. Also, open source development depends on open and efficient communications. The adversaries can download your releases and and browse your code repository. It's an outside legal framework that protects OS from being co-opted by proprietary actors. Also, very often with Open Source, it doesn't matter if the adversary knows everything you do. Their culture and their legacy code base prevent them from exploiting any advantage the information could give them. In the case of terrorism, these are not barriers. While mainstream culture of the enemy might object, the enemy intelligence services will have no compunctions. There is also no "operating system" for intelligence information. Lastly, Divide and Conquer has always been one of the best strategies of the imperialists. Distributed cells come pre-divided! Witness the internecine fighting of the various offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. (Who are the intellectual forebears of Al Quaeda.) The one thing you don't want to do: be the "Big Bad Enemy" that everyone must unite to oppose. At least, don't do it too soon. Wear them down by playing one side against the other and take them down piecemeal, until they realize they must unite to win. (And by then, it's too late and you have them conveniently all in one place. Ref: Julius Caesar in Gaul.)

nir 17y ago
>What if the successful attack opportunities are actually honeypots set up by the adversary? How many examples of this have we seen in recent experience? (Post Troy ;)) >Distributed cells come pre-divided! Witness the internecine fighting of the various offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt Good point - but I think we saw that they also have the ability to unite temporarily to fight off a common enemy. I think it's not unlike what we see in software: projects fork, groups have internal conflicts, participants lose interest, but one in a hundred (or thousand) will manage to produce something very effective with little resources. It seems like Pakistan (nukes and all) is in danger of soon becoming a major "success" story for this methodology.