The war requires closed source?

From:	 James Crouchet <crouchet@sd.is.irs.gov>
To:	 letters@lwn.net
Subject: The war requires closed source?
Date:	 Tue, 28 May 2002 11:16:46 -0500

Dear LWN,

Reading through this week's front page I was struck by this pair of 
statements:

"The national security of the United States, it would seem, is dependent 
on the continued security-through-obscurity of closed source code.

Of course, there is no way, really, to know if that claim is true or 
not. The code is closed, so we will never know where the problems might 
be until somebody breaks it."

What bothers me is that this accepts Microsoft's Big Lie(tm) to 
concentrate on the small lies. The big lie is that by hiding the source 
code one can hide the workings of a program. The truth is that, at best, 
this approach will deter those of small technical ability or who lack 
determination. For those with more savvy and determination the binaries 
themselves can be analyzed and disassembled. Perhaps even decomplied. 
While it would be daunting to consider such a process for all the code 
in Windows, that is also unnecessary. One need only target the specific 
parts one wishes to break. None of of these are new ideas.

The only effective barrier that closed source builds is legal and foes 
such as crackers, foreign agents and terrorists care nothing about 
whether they might be violating Microsoft's copyright; they have already 
determined to violate much more serious laws.

I urge you to keep Microsoft's claims in perspective and refuse to 
accept their Big Lies(tm)

James Crouchet