Feds Kill Check Point's Sourcefire Bid 181
Caffeinated Geek writes to tell us The Register is reporting that Check Point Software has removed their bid to buyout rival software company Sourcefire following objections from the FBI and the Pentagon to the Treasury's Committee on Foreign Investments. From the article: "Federal agency objections to the security software tie-up center on the implementation of Sourcefire's anti-intrusion software 'Snort' by the Bureau and Department of Defense, AP reports. In private meetings between the panel and Check Point, FBI and Pentagon officials took exception to letting foreigners acquire the sensitive technology."
But it is freely available to anybody (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.snort.org/ [snort.org]
Not about the technology per se (Score:5, Informative)
The issue is that the DoD is very serious about controlling the amount of access foreigners have to their infrastructure and information on that infrastructure. I have it on very good authority that some DoD divisions are moving away (at a cautious rate) from Microsoft technologies precisely due to their difficulty in avoiding having their tech support calls routed outside the US. However, this is probably all I can say on this board.
closed source (Score:3, Informative)
Re:But it is freely available to anybody (Score:2, Informative)
Open source!= public. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:But it is freely available to anybody (Score:2, Informative)
Re:closed source (Score:5, Informative)
Re:irrational fear? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:irrational fear? (Score:2, Informative)
Snort is open-source.... SourceFire makes money off the other things they've created to work with/around Snort...
Quoted from here [isp-planet.com]
"Roesch sees Snort and Sourcefire as two different solutions aimed at distinctive markets. "The idea of Snort was to give people the best free, open source intrusion detection system we could, and we were pretty successful at that," he said. "The idea of Sourcefire is to say, 'Okay, we've got good intrusion detection technology: let's add everything else people need to use these systems effectively in large organizations.'"
And that's not to say that large organizations can't use Snort without the backing of Sourcefire. Roesch says some of the biggest companies in the world use Snort. Sourcefire just adds the manageability along with ease of use and deployment that many enterprise customers are looking for in an intrusion detection system.
Sourcefire's OpenSnort Sensors cost $9,995 each, and the OpenSnort Management Console costs $19,995. Various service contracts are available, ranging from a platinum level with around-the-clock support to a standard contract with per-incident support and e-mail discussion list access. Training on Sourcefire's products is also available. Training on IDS and forensic analysis in general is planned for the near future"
Also, the Federal Information Security Management Act [sourcefire.com] might have a lot to do with this decision as well:
"The Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), Title III of the E-Government Act of 2002, outlines requirements to secure Federal information. Each Federal Agency, including contractors or other organizations who work with the agency, must develop, document, and implement an agency-wide information security program. Detailed guidance and recommendations are provided by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) encompassing all aspects of information security."
A different view on things (Score:5, Informative)
So, I'll in you on the truth.
Foreign nations are actively seeking to get their hands into US classified govt sites, to get the underlying information which they want DESPERATELY. Israel, France, China, Russia - they are the most aggressive.
A few years back I was working for DOD. Someone was trying to make a sales pitch for equipment they wanted to sell us, for use in classified environments. They claimed to be a US company.
My boss asked me to look into the company and get back to him. It took a few hours, but I found exactly what I think he already suspected.
The company was a US company in name only. The entire company was infested at the upper levels by former intelligence personnel from one of the above countries already mentioned. Most of their company also, was in this foreign country too. Only a small amount of sales ppl actually were in the US for the company.
They made a huge amount of factual misrepresentations, trying to trick us.
When the US govt says no, there is normally a reason behind it, or active intelligence efforts supporting their rationale. Don't believe some moronic reporter with shit for brains that is labelling something as "protectionism".
This will contribute to inflation of the USD (Score:4, Informative)
So essentially foreigners are stuck with 'funny money' which they cannot use as true currency. Sooner or later they will wake up, sell dollars en masse and opt for another currency after they realize they have been had. They've been giving us commodities and services while we give them monopoly money.
Re:A different view on things (Score:5, Informative)
And just to rehash history... it's not like Israel has EVER tried to spy [cnn.com] on the US [msn.com] before or anything.
When the government does business with a US company, it's a heck of a lot easier for the administration to send someone over to said company threatening, "Hey, we don't like what you're doing! Keep it up and we'll happily send your entire company on a quail hunting trip with Dick Cheney!" It just doesn't have the same affect on a foreign owned company, unfortunatly.
Re:This will contribute to inflation of the USD (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
There are a lot of US dollars on the sidelines waiting to invest in the U.S. Although these deals, amounting to billions, seem insignificant, you should account for all the others looking at what is happening, looking at their billions in reserves and scratching their heads wondering what to do with all this monopoly money. If they attempt to use USD in a meaningful way, investing in America vs buying things, they would raise the eye of the US Government hence they just sit on their reserves and sooner or later they'll get wise to the charade, the only question is when will this happen.
You guys dont get it (Score:1, Informative)
Look at AMDOCs and Comverse Infosystems.
While snort is open source, Sourcefire retains EDITORIAL control over what goes into the source tree and complete control over the closed source sections of code in their appliances.
This is not about technology but about what potentially could be backdoor'd - just like how the israelis got busted wiretapping the wiretap equipment supplied by Comverse.