Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a plan for transition of power structures and the federal budget to free software. According to the document, the introduction of Linux in government should begin in II quarter 2012.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a plan for transition of power structures and the federal budget to free software. According to the document, the introduction of Linux in government should begin in II quarter 2012.
I see foresee a renaissance of this phrase
http://www.sovietix.org
So a leader (accused of) corruption and nepotism who used to be a spy for the KGB responsible for suppressing “political dissent” (read: free speech) wants his country to use more FOSS.
Not exactly a glowing endorsement.
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/latest_news.php?nid=27209
seems like he’s the one to get anything done over there
Hmm, it appears my comment is somewhat unappreciated
I am in no way offended, but please tell me, oh you who vote me down, where are my factual errors? Or perhaps some sort of counter point, that we may engage in meaningful discussion?
Edited 2010-12-29 07:19 UTC
After what happened to Iran I can hardly blame them. You would even think the US govt would learn (but they don’t of course, even after dead warships, hacking, etc)
The unix paradigm is inherently more secure being built for multi users from its inception, but it is still susceptible due to bugs, back doors, etc.
And the bsd type engineered security woes could be inside linux too for all we know.
I’m sure they won’t be using plain ubuntu or mandriva or whatever. They will use a localized home made distro optimized for russian users and surely the source code will be audited for backdoors to avoid the openBSD fiasco. There have been rumors about this for a long time.
You mean Gregory Perry’s Fiasco.
Is that anything to do with this ? (http://www.osnews.com/story/23800/Microsoft_Provides_Russian_NGOs_w…)
The ice has shifted!
A dictator ordering Linux. Funny.
Because dictators should be using windows?
They should be behind windows. With bars on them.
Someone doesn’t understand Irony.
Well, at least, he was a democratic elected dictator. The Russians love him, mostly.
Wrong. He was not elected but pushed by Eltsin (who called him as his “successor”)
Medvedev (also completely unknown person) was pushed by Putin, who was also called as “successor”.
Actually Medvedev is only a Putin’s placeholder without much power.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v147/dragonsky/Various/medveput_t…
Edited 2010-12-28 15:19 UTC
Putin was democratically elected by the people as president and democratically elected through representation as prime minister.
The fact that he was deemed a ‘successor’ is not relevant. The vice president of the United States is typically deemed the ‘successor’ of the sitting president. That does not make the system non democratic.
Putin and his party have been known to skew elections in their favor through a corrupt political system but Putin is personally so popular with the populace he would get elected without any such maneuvers in a land slide. (He is vastly more popular in Russia than Obama is in the United States).
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I can easily see a logic behind this.
They probably won’t switch to a current distro, but to a custom distro made specifically for Russia use.
Being able control the whole OS stack of the government, and not just the userland… As a dictator, this is priceless.
Being able control the whole OS stack of the government, and not just the userland… As a dictator, this is priceless.
As is mentioned in the news, he wants them to have a repository of their own in addition to a custom distro. As such he/they will have complete control over the software in the repos. And who knows, they might implement their own package-management system with new package formats and not include support for RPM/DEB/etc. just for the sakes of discouraging people from using any other software sources.
That’s a rather baseless guess. Looking at Google Trends results, Russians have good taste for software, ranking among the highest for both Python versus Ruby and Gentoo versus Ubuntu. My guess is that they will just use Gentoo, with a customized live CD and their own layman repository.
A repository run by a dictatorship. Yes, that’s totally okay.
either you wanna be sarcastic… or… (well, i don’t even wanna think about it)
custom distro and single repository is their best bet. how else can you ensure using same software all across? he is moving country organizations to linux not people. and their best bet is simplicity and consistency.
even i have my own single repository for my servers and i also use custom rolled red hat linux boxes. hell, even one organization i support has that. i simply made role based packages imposing dependencies. and whenever i install some new machine i simply install his role rpm and all dependencies with it
It seems to be okay for Iphone/Ipad users.
Looking at Google Trends results, Russians have good taste for software
Russians, perhaps, but we all know government is a completely different thing than the general populace. And we are talking about russian government here. I simply cannot imagine them just using one of the existing distros, they will roll one of their own.
Most likely they will use AltLinux or some derivative of it.
I tend to agree.
But I would also add that Russian Politic can insure no backdoors in the software in a much more straightforward manner than getting binaries.
Not too mention the fact that Russia is thinking about using its own semi conductors for all state functions.
-Hack
I guess it’s no different from the South Korean government performing internet surveillance through using the National Identity Number in every Internet transactions and interactions. Technically the South Korean government can accurately track down every person posting in the vast forums and see what they buy on 11st, Auction, and G-Market (South Korea’s biggest shopping/auctioning sites).
Scary because it’s already “1984” in the heart of Seoul.
Or a real-fleshy-shinny Augustus (like the old Roman days) ordering Linux?
Ave Caesar Vladimirus Putininus Russicus and Linuxicus.
Edited 2010-12-28 13:00 UTC
Why is it funny?
Preference for Linux involves a certain degree of protectionism (in the sense of preferring to not dump money to USA, and fostering local progress instead of letting all the progress happen in the USA).
Making people use something new is also somewhat unpopular among end users – something that becomes a big obstacle in a “democratic” setting where every whiner counts.
Strong leadership is definitely needed to achieve big leaps in free software on the desktop.
Thom was commenting on the irony of a dictator choosing a “free” operating system.
Apparently not many of the commenters on this article understand irony.
Maybe they trust more an “operating system of which you can see its source code, study it, compile it, modify it, distribute it, etc” than… an operating system of a company that “is under control of its government whenever its government wants to” (they obey the orders).
I don’t think US ever planed to cripple the Windows sold to Russia. You can always compare them bit-to-bit with an OEM version to check if you have the right one or not. Beside that’s OpenBSD that seems to have its network stack infiltrated.
Promoting the use of Linux at this level is perhaps just a way to pressure Microsoft to review its licensinf scheme and prices, kinda russian-roulette way
Kochise
Mmmm… if the USA government says Microsoft: “do this and this” they will do it, and the backdoored Windows could be the same in all the world.
Microsoft would have options?: do what their government says or face jail.
Maybe Putin has read those examples:
Your digital camera may embed metadata into photographs with the camera’s serial number or your location. Your printer may be incorporating a secret code on every page it prints which could be used to identify the printer and potentially the person who used it.
This is traitorware: devices that act behind your back to betray your privacy.
Perhaps the most notable example of traitorware was the Sony rootkit. […]
[ There’s more in https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/what-traitorware ]
Maybe Putin has read those examples:
Your digital camera may embed metadata into photographs with the camera’s serial number or your location. Your printer may be incorporating a secret code on every page it prints which could be used to identify the printer and potentially the person who used it.
This is traitorware: devices that act behind your back to betray your privacy.
Or more likely will expose your betrayal of your employer. The counterfeit bills run off his high end color printer.
In most cases your employer doesn’t have a worldwide company, or a global interest in the printer you use. We’re talking about damages to your privacy at global level. Worldwide intrusions in computers of users like the Sony rootkit. Who gets benefited at that global level?
“At a warehouse in New Jersey, 6,000 used copy machines sit ready to be sold. CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports almost every one of them holds a secret.
Nearly every digital copier built since 2002 contains a hard drive – like the one on your personal computer – storing an image of every document copied, scanned, or emailed by the machine.
In the process, it’s turned an office staple into a digital time-bomb packed with highly-personal or sensitive data”.
[ More in http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/19/eveningnews/main6412439.s… ]
Paranoid much? I hate to break the news to ya, but pretty much every government (including Russia) has these things called “routers” that are more than capable of DPI, or deep packet inspection.
Any snatching data in that manner would throw up red flags (pardon the pun) when the OS suddenly started making connections not called for. You might as well change the Windows desktop with a LOLCat going “I Can Haz Data?” for all the sneakiness you could pull there. The NSA wanted in the BSD stack because it was used a lot in embedded at the time, which was a lot harder to catch.
No, we’ve had much better and much harder to detect ways of snatching data from the Russians, and they have used the same on us. Microwave interception, vampire taps on phone trunks, look up “Berlin tunnel phone taps” or “submarine phone taps” for an example from each. A hell of a lot harder to detect, which is why the push for quantum computing which would resist taps.
As for TFA another poster hit the nail on the head. MSFT ticked off Putin by taking one of his favorite excuses for kicking down opposition doors, the “software piracy” raid. Since MSFT gave away free licenses right after Putin pulled the raids I’m sure he saw it as a giant finger from Redmond, and this is him giving the finger back. Having iron handed control of the OS is just a nice bonus, and if that is all he wanted he would have started years ago like China did.
No this is Putin giving the finger to MSFT for not supporting his regime with his “kick down the door of piracy” excuse, and if it is one thing we have learned about dictators is they REALLY don’t like being told no.
Thanks for the huge laugh, made my night!
Routers are not intelligent, how could they know, in _every_ connection, that _everything_ that is transferred is intended?
I see botnets running wild, receiving orders and sending packets. Shouldn’t they be blocked already by routers if the routers were intelligent?
Also, don’t Windows computers in Russia connect to Microsoft pages? And dont’ connect to Microsoft machines to get updates? What data do they send to Microsoft machines to get updated? That would also be an intended connection. What’s inside the closed-source “updates” that Microsoft keeps as a closed-source secret?
Also, the act of leaving a backdoor in Windows would be undetectable by international intelligent routers. A USA government agent could use it inside Russia, for example, to access a Windows computer using its keyboard and no router would notice it. If I were Putin, I would stop that chance.
Edited 2010-12-29 08:36 UTC
Actually I doubt VERY seriously they use MSFT Update, hell even YOU don’t have to use MSFT update if you don’t want to? here is what I use…
http://download.wsusoffline.net/
Which allows anyone to have a WSUS (Windows Software Update Service) Server…in a box. It auto builds CD/DVD images of all the latest updates, and you can even have it add Office and MSE as well.
But most likely like any large corporation they simply use WSUS, which lets them control how, what, when, and where a machine gets updated. They can then use test machines to see how an update affects a production line BEFORE flipping the switch. For a company of any size WSUS makes having control easy.
As for the routers? We aren’t talking those dinky things you would use at home here. On large corporate routers and switches you can get DPI (deep packet inspection) which will do all the thinking FOR you. You can tell EXACTLY what is going over your network, can filter by header, protocol, destination, you name it you can script it with one of those bad boys.
So I doubt someone as powerful as Putin has ANY trouble knowing where the data goes if he wants to know. As I said I doubt seriously it has a thing to do with FOSS, but is instead Putin giving the finger to MSFT for defying him by giving free Windows licenses to the opposition.
They, kind of, dot really need to. Because they have access to the Windows sources.
Mmm… they won’t know if what they see is… the source code of it… until they will be able compile it, modify it, compile it again, test the resulting compiled system, etc
I mean, I can say that I have the secret formula of the coca-cola, and give Putin the recipe. But until they follow the recipe and try the product… they won’t know if the “recipe” was really true or not.
AFAIK Microsoft only opens up ‘parts’ of the Windows source code to other goverments, which is under the ‘shared source’ licence. Does anyone doubt that NSA would give their left nut to have some kind of exploitable vulnerability in windows shipped to Russia? Does anyone think Microsoft would say no to the government in this regard?
While this transition seems to have been in the works for quite some time I’d wager the whole ‘stuxnet’ incident has made it more of a priority.
I doubt that this will have any real benefit for Linux in general though. Still it will be interesting to see what they come up with, Red Usjanka Linux?
Microsoft is already shipping exploitable vulnerabilities in Windows shipped to everywhere, the NSA doesn’t need to ask, they just need to keep finding them before anyone else.
But seriously, yes, they would say no. And they would fight it all the way. For the simple reason that it would be bad business. The BRIC countries are a massive emerging market, why would MS jeopardize that? They are addicted to profit. If push came to shove, it would probably be cheaper to exit the US market than to lose the global market.
Never underestimate the determination of big business to resist or defy the government for anything detrimental to profit.
How would they be jeopardizing anything? If a implemented vulnerability is found it will be described as a bug, along with thousands of others. Given all the shit we’ve seen with the whole Wikileaks debacle I no longer feel paranoid when I assume the worst.
Here.. I’ll help you..
allegation
noun
– an assertion made with little or no proof.
So do is Russia claiming to switch to Linux. have China done it completely on their pretty good Loongson MIPS-based processors ? Nope I guess, so I don’t get it into the “official” fairy tales that Russia will get rid of it’s unprecendent Windows piracy level just by scrubbing all of its government and citizens’ workstations from all Microsoft’s application and put Linux inplace. Silly and stupid assertions as well…
Kochise
No it hasn’t,
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/12/openbsd-code-audit-…
Curious, from the article you linked it said:
“In his assessment of the code review findings, de Raadt describes the CBC IV bug as a “pretty serious accident.” He doesn’t believe that the bugs that have been found so far were introduced intentionally or with the aim of planting a backdoor. He is also skeptical that the well-respected developers responsible for the bugs were participating in an FBI conspiracy, even though both did work for NETSEC at one point. He suspects that NETSEC was involved in developing OpenBSD backdoors, but thinks it is unlikely that the code was ever actually merged into OpenBSD.”
So the devs pointed out in the mail did work for NETSEC, Theo suspects this company was involved in developing OpenBSD backdoors, but think it’s unlikely that the code was merged into OpenBSD. And he believes that the serious bugs found sofar were not introduced intentionally.
Seems to me nothing has been ruled out yet. Not that anything can ever be proven though barring a full confession, since any vulnerability can simply be written off as a bug. Still, I agree with Theo’s assessment, I don’t think that these NETSEC employees planted vulnerabilities in the OPENBSD tree, but the keyword is still think.
This would mean a full time Russian goverment sponsored team working on Linux. I just hope that any improvements would’nt stay inhouse and trickle down to the linux foundation.
Russia now wanting an os under their full control is about for the same reason Russia or the USA would never buy each other fighter planes ect.
It is really suprising Russian is doing this at such a late stage. USA has been doing this for a very long time. In the USA Gov security concerns about critical system vulnerability takes very high priority.
So serious do they consider it that the NSA even has it’s own chip fabrication plant to counter possible hardware exploits.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/10/29/1456242/Hiding-Backdoor…
One could always hope for that, but my guess is that it just will mean lower prices from Microsoft, with continued use of Windows as a result.
http://muycomputer.com/files/264-30321-FOTO/Linux-Rusia.jpg
Hey! Yesterday, I submitted a link to the very same story!
Linked by David Adams on 12/28/10 4:51 UTC, submitted by tupp
As I mentioned, I submitted a link to the very same story. In fact, the only difference between my linked submission and the one posted is that different words are linked.
Come on. Should not the submitters who originally provide links and headlines get “credited” before the OSAlert staff who “links” it?
Edited 2010-12-28 20:21 UTC
Why would anyone care, really?
Indeed.
So, one has to wonder why someone cared enough to set things up so that the situation is opposite of what it should be.
It’s because Thom is an OSAlert dictator who manipulates the OSAlert political environment to his own diabolical ends.
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If the government wants to track your movements, they will, whether it is using proprietary/open-source software, tracking calls made to/from your phone(s), or a tab of your credit card(s) transactions. That does not mean people should not pay attention to the laws that are introduced/passed, but if people spend too much time looking over their shoulder they will miss what is in front of them.
Putin is being smart in having a central repository for their source. Changes can be made in one place and everyone will get the same updates. The Russian government can then build a custom system for creating/updating packages or role-specific distros. Each office/branch/office/department can figure out what software is needed for the employees to do their job and then only install that software.
I do not think the Russian government cares if its citizens use Windows, Mac OS X, Ubuntu/Gentoo/etc., or *BSD. It seems to me, Putin wants to make Russia more self sufficient by eliminating, or at least minimizing, foreign influence.
“Putin is being smart in having a central repository for their source. Changes can be made in one place and everyone will get the same updates. ”
If you think govt has so organized structure of deploying software on their networks your wrong. Its even more chaotic than what companies do on their own networks. They have license for ms products, you could find many boxes with win95 to win7 and linux on their networks. Without any central patching, svn, common programs or anything. Not to mention the amount of warez shit they have on their networks. Govt doesnt different from a .EDU network.
Different branches of the goverment use different oses, programs, databases. I doubt any would be centralized or even organized.
Its like german govt switched to linux, did it really? Guess you will never know. They shouldnt feed microsoft with money anyway but deploy their own linux distros just like chinese did.
I bet half of the russian govt boxes owned by the chinese already.
Want facts on this one ask govt SA-s comment here, i doubt they would cause they are too damb to read good websites like OSAlert
))
They rather read Microsoft books and forums and use tools such as Cisco |SDM to administrate routers and probably still believe firewalls protect them from everything.
if this goes as well as it did in Munich
Status. (Even with artificial problems like software patents, closed formats and monopolies)
http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/dir/limux/english/147197/index.html
NSA = No Such Agency