One for the geeks here: Los Angeles LUG pres resigns over military Linux

Los Angeles LUG pres resigns over military Linux use

OK it's a few days old, but I don't know if anybody had seen these interesting points.

<snip>
Clay Claiborne, founder and president of Linux Users Los Angeles (LULA), says he has resigned his position because of his opposition to the war in Iraq and the U.S. Armed Forces' use of Linux.

In an email to the group's membership yesterday, Claiborne wrote:

...

I once had high hopes for Linux. I felt sure it could make a real contribution to the success of humanity, now more and more I have my doubts. I have a real and growing fear that if the Mr. Smith's of Linux have their way, in the future they will look back and say: "Wasn't it nice that so many smart people worked to hard for free to forge their own chains."
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<snip>
NewsForge: NSA, which is part of the Department of Defense, has released SELinux. What if that starts getting used by pacifist groups? Or anti-dictatorship rebels? Wouldn't that be a positive effect of the DoD getting involved with Linux?

Claiborne: Very much so. IMHO the best thing the DoD has done in the past few decades has been the GPS satellite system. Everybody won on that one, and it's a great use of our tax dollars. In the first Gulf War, even the Iraqis used American GPS to guide their missiles. Talk about your equal-opportunity technologies.

The Internet is another example of defense dollars spent well.

I like SELinux. We plan to use it in our next release of AshcroftProof Linux. It's nice to see the government making contributions to the open source community as well as protecting our privacy.
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more...
http://technology.newsforge.com/technology/04/04/20/2229245.shtml

And one of their missiles still made it through?

Okay. I can see that. There were probably only a hundred thousand GPS receivers in use in that theatre at any given moment. I suppose one could get overlooked.

But I have always assumed that this IS the major reason we so gleefully give away military technology to our rivals. Which should be easier to counter: a Chinese missile invented by the Chinese from scratch, or a Chinese missile based on a model that we used for decades?

GPS is used for so many things. Everybody in the world who has a cell or satellite phone uses GPS. Just like everybody in the world who has a computer uses the Internet. Which was designed, originally, as a ARPANET project to create a de-centralized network of radar and radio stations in the Arctic as an early warning system during the Cold War. Eisenhower provided funding for the Internet, he was really big on technology.

Anyway, back to GPS... Anyone in the world can go on-line, or to many stores in many countries and buy GPS receivers and use them. Its not a big stretch to imagine GPS being modified by our "enemies" using it with out our knowledge. Its not like the GPS transmission is a 2-way communication -- Its just a tight network of small satellites that "pulse" radio signals back to earth on a public frequency. Anyone who can get/make a receiver can tune in to it and use it.

I don't think GPS was ever intended to be a weapon, if so, why didn't they scramble the signal? We wouldn't have cell phones with out it, that's for sure. GPS is used by just about every scientific expedition on the surface of the planet (except for under the oceans). When people climb K2 today, they have GPS units. When planes fly, they use GPS to know where they are at all times, and report to tracking stations that information.

Why do we give away military technology to our "enemies"? Good question, I'm not sure if I'm the best to answer that, but I'll hazard a guess it has to do with privatizing our military R&D. When you let corporations run R&D (Lockheed-Martin, Boeing) their first priority is to make as much money as possible, then worry about national defense. And since they are already fleecing our government, and they want more money, then they peddle their wares to anyone with a checkbook big enough to buy those wares. Its a sad story really.