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."
irrational fear? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:irrational fear? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, Snort could always pull a nessus [slashdot.org] and close the source...
More than just source code... (Score:5, Interesting)
After all, VRT-certified rules require a subscription and how many places have the expertiese and time to validate them?
I figure someone at the Pentagon asked the simple question "Hey, do we use Snort?" and got the answer "Yeah, it is everywhere. Why?" and just about had heart failure.
-Charles
Isolationist in force not in trade (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason I am frustrated is not just because the Feds attempt to use security as a reason for trade barriers, but because it also seems to leave me with the opinion that such coercion could have underlying cronyist reasons. I don't like giving powers and rights up to the Feds when I don't know who is truly profiting from these actions. There are a lot of global motivators hidden in the closet, and we don't have an open book to the finances of those in power.
I don't trust anyone with securing the borders anymore, not when they do it with trade barriers rather than a real defense of our land and only our land. I prefer isolationism of government -- keeping our government only in our sight, away from prying and entangling and financing others. I prefer open trade -- no tariffs, no embargoes, no taxes, no favoritism, no protectionism and no limits to what people can sell and buy.
Re:but the fed wants to give physical ports to UAE (Score:4, Interesting)
Same thing at airports. Hangers or terminals maybe built and paid for by corporations or individuals, but at the end of the lease, the airport authority (usually state but could be county or city) has ownership of those structures.
Dammy
Re:but the fed wants to give physical ports to UAE (Score:2, Interesting)
But when the UAE, a nation with strong direct terrorist ties, is interested in aquiring 6 major US sea ports, the fed tries to give it to them with no oversight and sneak it under our noses in violation of federal law.
Are you on the same planet we are? I'd have to say no, considering the UAE is one of the friendliest nations. Considering the US Navy stops there on average 400 times per year for shore leave, they can't be all bad. And that's a fact. Get rid of your stereotyping, and you may learn something.
Re:Isolationist in force not in trade (Score:3, Interesting)
The purpose of the Commerce Clause was simply to help ensure a uniform code of trade between the States and between the United States and foreign entities. It was designed to avoid trade wars between, say, New Jersey and New York and to prevent foreign states from exploiting such inconsistancies between states for their own advantage over us. So even under the most limited view of the Commerce Clause I can find, it ought to allow Congress to regulate international business.
However, I do not think that the original intent was to allow the regulation of marijuana grown for personal medical use where neither commerce nor interstate concerns are at issue (the Supreme Court disagrees as to the current intention though, see Raisch v. Gonzales) as this seems to be unreasonably far removed from the intent of the clause.
But IANAL.
Re:Not about the technology per se (Score:3, Interesting)
Not the software companies contracted by the military and DoD. All defence contracts stick to American companies and all work stays in America. Notice how Lockheed Martin and Raytheon don't have any international competition (in the defence department, Lockheed has international competition on its non-defence products). I am willing to bet all open source the government uses has been modified, with many modifications not made public (note the GPL requires you to provide source only to those you provide the binary to. If you don't provide the binary to anyone you don't have to provide the source to anyone, or if the gov has someone else do the work they don't have to provide the source to anyone but the gov).
Some things to consider... (Score:2, Interesting)
As far as all the "US gov't doesn't use Check Point" consider this: one of Check Point's largest customers is the U.S. Army. So we can pretty much put that to rest.
Let's put another one to rest: this whole "Check Point sucks because its all closed source and they make money" is tiring. While yes Check Point's security applications are closed source, the development platform for all the apps is Linux. Check Point's own hardened Linux version SecurePlatform [checkpoint.com] is available at no extra cost, is supported without extra cost and is the preferred platform. Download a version and see for yourself http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/ [vmware.com]. You'll see that Check Point makes extensive use of OSS, and even contributes back to the community from what I hear.
Check Point is a strong advocate for Open Source where it makes sense, and I don't think they need to apologize for being profitable when US based companies like Cisco and Microsoft make billions off the crap they have slopped together.
This whole Israeli "back door" thing is ridiculous, and stings of anti-semetic conspiracy. Israel has consistently been the US's most staunch ally (when allowed). What possible benefit would Israel or Check Point gain by allowing a backdoor to be widely distributed throughout the world? Think about it, Check Point has been in business for 13+ years, and has hundreds of thousands of Internet perimeter firewalls out there in operation. Don't you think that if there was a deliberate back door that it would have been found by now. Yeah those crazy Jews are out for world domination again. Ridiculous.
It is no secret that Check Point is run by mad scientists who make great product, but don't have a clue when it comes to running a business (well maybe just the bribing part). Could it be that Check Point maybe didn't grease Washington the way it should have? Could it be that Sam Nunn [wikipedia.org] being on the board of directors for direct competitor [iss.net] of Sourcefire and Check Point's might have had something to do with this? Could it be that market powerhouses like Cisco who spend more money on marketing the mythical "self-defending network" than actually fixing their sh!t helped put a stop to this?
Follow the money. It was big businees and big Bush that killed this deal. And yes Check Point is a $Billion+ company so I'm sure they will survive (sniff sniff), but how does this play into the mythical "global free market" we keep hearng about? Is protecting stagnant companies like ISS and Cisco what is really best for the security market and the rest of us?