Slashdot Log In
German Gov't, Free Software, and Secure E-mail
Posted by
Hemos
on Fri Oct 05, 2001 03:36 PM
from the germans-take-the-lead dept.
from the germans-take-the-lead dept.
friday2k writes "There is a nice Article on Newsforge describing how the German Government moves ahead on looking into Free Software solutions for government agencies. And you need a standard, secure, email client for this." Basically, they are funding some good secure e-mail - but making sure that it works with stuff like Kmail.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
German Gov't, Free Software, and Secure E-mail
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 232 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Who woudl've thunk it.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who woudl've thunk it.. (Score:5, Interesting)
All the more reason for Germany to be interested in encryption. The U.S. might be shoving the genie back in the bottle for normal citizens, but you can bet that the government itself will continue to use encryption.
Likewise the Germans know that they can't run their government without encryption, but they realize that they can't expect the U.S. based software industry to supply it, and they can't really trust the U.S. based software industry not to create backdoors in the software they do supply. So the Germans are doing the only sane thing. They are writing their own crypto programs.
This is why the U.S. will fail to crack down on encryption. The genie is loose, and there are too many people that want it to stay loose.
Quickie pointy outtie (Score:3, Informative)
Project Ägypten will focus on making Open Source email programs KMail and mutt compatible with Sphinx
They're modifying KMail and mutt to work with Sphinx, not the other way around (as the post implies).
Cool idea, but what implications? (Score:3, Insightful)
They will order code they can understand and code they can master, and will want multiple accesses to encryption (such as back-doors) that truly render it useless in an intelligence capacity.
Give the government strong crypto controled by a single trusted admin. Distributing information and accesses simply opens the door to moles. The US government has seen several, such as Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames.
If an agent is communicating with a handler far away via encrypted email, not even the handler's supervisors should be able to override the encryption. Especially them.
saving their taxpayers $$$ (Score:5, Insightful)
The article starts out saying that Congress wants to outlaw Open source via the SSSCA [newsforge.com].
Perhaps congress should visit our German buddies and see how a switch to OSS can benefit the American public. A little bit of seeing what's happening abroad could go a long way.
Free = Free? (Score:1)
??
-Berj
Well it's about time... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would advocate that governments only use open source projects...
the fact that the DoJ was supposedly at war with M$, while at the same time handing over some of M$'s largest contracts seems insane...
I would almost call it a chuch/state issue...
Alas... (Score:1)
Nice, but... (Score:2)
So what is this 'Sphinx' email? Is it some propietary software or what??
The article seems to raise more questions that answers.
Will this going to help anyone that doesn't use Sphinx?
Re:Nice, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Dear list,
we are happy to announce that the German
"Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik"
(Federal Agency for IT Security, BSI)
contracted us (Intevation, Klarälvdalens Datakonsult and g10 Code)
to make sure that Free Software for their email security
standard Sphinx will be created.
Sphinx basically consists of S/MIME, a PKIX compatible X.509
profile, together with certificate revocation lists (CRLs)
based on LDAP. The code developed will be modular
allowing inclusion in several MUAs released under the GNU GPL.
Part of the contract with the BSI is the inclusion in mutt
and KMail.
The initial project pages can be reached from the URL below.
We wanted to get the good news out to you as fast as possible.
Expect more information to get released on the website or on the
corresponding mailing lists.
We plan to do the development in an open manner suitable
for Free Software projects. We want to handle the project in a
way that it will leverage and add to the work of other developers
and ask for your collaboration. The BSI pays us to ensure that their
specs are followed precisely and the result passes strict tests.
This is the first time the BSI contracts for Free Software development
and the experiences they make will be important.
We will demonstrate the power of commercial Free Software.
www.gnupg.org/aegypten
So, basically they are adding ldap support (w00t!), S/Mime, X.509, and CRL support to Kmail and mutt, using the GPL and working together with the main developers to make sure it gets included. Very cool, if I do say so myself.
(and yes, I know there is already s/mime support for mutt, but iirc it is via a patch. dunno about ldap/x.509/crl, I use kmail
Hope that clears some questions up.
German Linux (Score:1)
This should get good results (Score:4, Interesting)
One thing I've heard repeatedly from various places is that there's no set of free software applications that meet the above requirements, pretty much forcing people to use windows. Once an entire agency is using free software, the government is going to have to pay for some company to create exactly what it is that they need for the desktop, and since it's open source, it'll be available to everyone. So there'll be a standard install of a standard, easy to use desktop and it'll come with all the applications a person needs to be an engineer, statistition, executive, or even just a secretary.
I see this as possibly the only way free software will get a good business desktop in the near future, and I can't wait for it to happen.
Mr. Spey
Cover your butt. Bernard is watching.
SMTP Spec and My thoughts on open source software (Score:2)
I might be kind of shallow, but I think if you don't release your code, you are afraid of people looking at your poorly programmed code. If the "you" in the above sentence relates to a company, the company is essentially saying that your company is embarrased of the programmers.
I'm sure I'll have a change of heart once I enter the industry.
A mail program isn't the most complicated thing to program, I'm writing something in vis. basic right now (I know, I know - It's called schoolwork and I might as well challenge myself) The program is going to be um.. very highly customizable.
Anyways, these rfc's were really useful.
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc0821.txt SMTP Spec
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2046.txt (w/Mime)
On a side note (and kind of in jest), what the hell is with europeans and super long agency names?
Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (damn!)
what's wrong with?? (Score:1)
both are web accessible and secure as long as you talk to others that are also on the same system. hushmail uses a java applet and depending on which version you are using the blowfish algorithm or a PGP spin-off. off the top of my head, I don't recall what ziplip uses.
there are
S/MIME for mutt (Score:2)
This project is great, since it hopes to create a universal module that can be plugged in easily to any MUA.
But for those of you who happen to run mutt, you don't have to wait for S/MIME support -- see this site [myip.org] for details. It's not universal or modular, but it exists now and it works.
If you're looking for an alternative to Kmail... (Score:5, Informative)
I believe it when I see it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Living in this country that "supports open source" I am rather sceptically about the whole issue.
The German parliament was also "looking into alternatives for Windows especially Linux", they said. And a few weeks later it was announced that they had made a new deal with Microsoft who gave them some better conditions than originally offered. Linux was no longer an option after that. What do we learn from that: Linux makes a good argument when you want a good deal from Microsoft.
twm
Plans also in Finland (Score:5, Informative)
It's a fair fight, got a problem with that? (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the tactics of the black hats seems to be to dig around for information from places, and perhaps in ways, which might not be quite so easy for them to get access to, when the white hats learn to use encryption as well as "they" do.
For example, consider mining an airline booking site to see which flights have special prices. This type of information retrieval might become better protected, because such information could lead to speculation about the human-density on the flight.
Consider also, that Europe, as Us, is devastated by every new MS worm that comes around. But if they'd only use SSL server encryption more widely, they'd be unbothered by such simple virusen. Managers will buy more servers, because SSL takes more horsies, (as every other form of encryption), users will share information in a more sensible way, the economy will rebound, etc., etc.. :)
I contend that the most interesting authorities built out of X.509, in any case objCA, sslCA, and objsign (from openssl [openssl.org] docs and Netscape [netscape.com] definitions), should continue to be widely encouraged. emailCA, perhaps is for the more mature organization, but an organizations email can sometimes be the biggest "hole" of all. It should be closed-up, in any good business activity, anywhere, eventually.
The point is, everyones already got this stuff. The playing field is even, and we have to fight dishonesty with the same tools as are being used to hide it.
Not to worry unless someone tells you to put your certificate on your head or your hand (right). Right?
SuSE? (Score:1)
Kind of makes me doubt the validity of it. As another poster mentioned, perhaps the German government is just trying to get a better deal from MS...
Mutt already has that (Score:3, Informative)
Good news from Europe. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've often thought the only way for open source to succeed is for "other-than-USA" countries to embrace it...the USA just has too many influence peddlers and special interests involved in government to make the proper decisions...not to mention a population of dullards who know little of law and less of history. Harsh, but I beleive it true.
It's really looking like it will be the forward-thinking countries outside the USA who are going to turn the tide against "zero choice" monopoly software.
Even though I might have to watch, rather than participate, I'd really enjoy seeing Germany (and hopefully others!) give Bill Gates and his illegal corporation a "boot to the head".
I hope the Germans decide to do this...it's very impressive to see people standing up and demanding freedom, liberty, and choice from their government.
OSS (Score:1, Informative)
Germany: highest amount of Linux users per capita (Score:2, Interesting)
A good Joke about that is "gang und gäbe" with IT professionals: "If we (the germans) wanna take a wordwide lead in IT, we shouldn't try do so by focusing on the lousiest propritary american OS we can lay hands on."
Quite my position
OSS is cool, '133+, democratic and modern, and the density of tech savy people, due to the high education level (compred to USA) reaches critical mass well enough. Which means politians don't wanna out themselves as 'not tech savy' by not joining in the "oss is the future" policy.
I wouldn't be suprised if Europe realy takes the lead in IT tech by doing a solid amount of OSS lobbying.
BTW: IMHO, succes of Linux in Germany is also widely based on the famos SuSE Distro [slashdot.org].
That is if... (Score:1)
By the way: Anybody see a conspiracy theory in this? Sphinx... pyramids... Novus Ordro Seclorum, powered by Open Source technology.... and we all know that the Germans are always the bad guys, I mean why else would James Bond always fight big, bad, bald, bold Germans?
Re:In a few years (Score:1)
Re:Serious Trouble (Score:1)
Re:chills... (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:Serious Trouble (Score:1)