Discussion on:

FOSS is the end of the world as we know it

As the creator, maintainer, and only contributor to my Open-Source texture website FOSS Media I have definite experience with the FOSS movement and I obviously support it.

HOWEVER, I am of the strong belief that FOSS has its place and its time and that it is NOT, nor will it EVER BE, designed for anything and everything. FOSS is an outstanding concept and has produced thousands of fantastic software programs and other marketable productions. But, you are correct in that its inherent security is flawed by design.

It is most certainly NOT designed for a situation such as this one that represents a real and immediate threat on a global scale. Preparation for a significant disaster, such as this kind of outbreak, can be handled in small groups of "need to know" personnel only - it has no need to involve the greater public, the vast majority of which wouldn't even know, or probably care, what this formula is when looking at it on their monitor/TV. It should certainly not be provided to "anyone & everyone", thereby effectively giving it away to radical groups that would most certainly make full use of it in ways we probably could not imagine during a bad trip on acid.

I support the FOSS movement in many ways and I appreciate the reason that FOSS is out there within the realm of what it is capable of handling. Global, even national, security is NOT one of those areas where FOSS has proven capability. I dislike your reference to "FOSS Sucks," and I ask that you reconsider your stance in the light of FOSS's usefulness and productivity in certain areas, especially software.

The vast majority who wouldn't even know, or probably care what the code that underlies their software - allegedly benefit from the concept of Free and Open Source Software, right? I mean, for 99% of end-users the whole GNU License is more of a conceptual freedom - as they'll never review, modify or enhance the source of the applications they run. They'll run Linux and GIMP and Open Office and never bother to even open the source in an editor. Chad Perrin and other FOSS advocates would argue that they still benefit from a community of developers who CAN and DO open that source code, peer reviewing it.

I mean, I appreciate your response. I'm not tongue in cheek about this, and I think many of those responding as if I were know that. There is a parallel here - and the issue itself has raised alarms not just in the military and intelligence communities, but among the scientific community as well - because an aerosolized H5N1 isn't some fantastic, exaggerated doomsday scenario, and we know that there are nations, groups and people out there that would love to let something like that loose on the world. I think it is actually relatively immature to treat it dismissively as some sort of conspiracy theory. But then again, that kind of response may just be another form of "sticking your head in the sand", altogether.

I think the easy response is that having the code for your text editor or web server freely and openly available is one thing altogether - having the code for your reactor control mechanisms or your stealth drones open-sourced is something entirely different. I'm surprised that no one other than you has pointed that argument out yet.

Ultimately, I think it illustrates that FOSS is at *best*, not an absolute - and that has been an argument I've pondered considerably since Apotheon proposed it in one of our previous debates. Despite a certain lack of social grace that is typical of people of his nature - I can't argue that he isn't an intelligent guy.

It has been interesting so far to watch the responses roll in - and I think predictably the more religiously extreme the belief in FOSS principles, the more dismissive the responses I am going to see here in this forum.

Fortunately, I have a certain amount of faith myself that the majority of the world is more cautious than the religious extremes of any sect, including the initiates of the Temple of the Penguin.

I see you never bothered to think about a single thing that others have said in response to earlier "articles" of yours that make such attacks on the whole concept of open source software. Once again, you make ridiculously short-sighted assertions about things like the primary benefits of open source software development and (by contrast) those of closed source software development.

I'm not sure what you claim I proposed, here. I'd appreciate a clarification. At the moment, it looks a bit like you're putting words in my mouth again, though.

. . . and, once again, I sure hope you aren't referring to me as an "initiate of the Temple of the Penguin" -- considering how many times I (and others who have read anything I've written about Linux-based systems in the last few years) have corrected that wildly inaccurate assumption of yours.

Are an initiate at an altogether different temple, entirely - but I've been warned in the past about being that frank with you - so we'll just skip that and continue to play as nice as is possible when dealing with you.

I've already played the Strawman card and the Ad Hominem cards in response to your attacks elsewhere in this thread first, BTW. Until you address those, your claim I am Straw-manning you here will have to wait.

Well, now you're just using insinuation to try to paint me with a fairly negative reputation. Keep up the bad work.

I did address your straw-men and fallacies of false fallacies elsewhere, but you seem to like to ignore those.

edit: Anyone who stumbles across this and thinks "Oh, damn, those two are at it again . . ." please read the following two comments ( dcolbert's reply to this and my response to that reply). There was a misunderstanding, (largely) my fault, and the following two comments clear it up.

I was warned at one point that we were not playing well together and that I needed to check myself. How does that insinuate anything negative against you? You've got a reasonably stellar reputation around this place as far as I can tell - it is only in your dealings with me that things ever get a little less than professional - whereas I'm prone to inciting this kind of behavior from readers other than you. I think the conclusions there are easy to draw and wouldn't deny those obvious implications anyhow. But believe me - I try to keep it light and relatively positive and tongue in cheek with you because otherwise, neither one of us seems to know when to stop. I bring out the worst in you. When it blows up past a certain point, I genuinely and generally regret it. I think it damages our reputation the both of us. Most of the posts where we've gone at it in a particular viscous fashion, they're not my highest read posts according to the score-cards, and when they show up linked outside of TR, it is never at sites with very positive opinions or outlooks.

Hm. I think I was warned, too. I seem to have let that slip my mind since CBSi disallowed me from contributing to TR because I would not share other clients' invoices with them.

The way you referred to the warning in such a cryptic manner in the previous comment came off as some kind of statement that someone told you about my real motivations (whatever those might be) and that challenging me on them directly might be A Bad Idea somehow. I apologize for mistaking what you said about being warned. That was my bad (he said, with the power of hindsight).

Quote:

"I think the easy response is that having the code for your text editor or web server freely and openly available is one thing altogether - having the code for your reactor control mechanisms or your stealth drones open-sourced is something entirely different. I'm surprised that no one other than you has pointed that argument out yet. "

I thought that was so obvious I decided to wait for the holiday spirits to wear off and see how you were when you were thinking clearer.

On your broader subject about keeping secrets though....take a look at what Chip said about people keeping secrets.

But you know, I'm a God fearing, gun-owning, conservative from the South. That said, to acknowledge the potential for bias in any quasi-philisophical debate...I do believe it's at the heart of the American mentality to distrust people who would keep information from us as much as it is to distrust people who would take away our ability to defend ourselves (Second Amendment).

What I DON'T like about the FOSS community?

Attitude of communal entitlement. Silliness. Religiousity about TOOL.

What I DO like about the FOSS ideal (note I didn't say community)?

Transparency.

I don't honestly believe secret recipes can really work in 2012 and beyond. The world is too small....too many interests...including unprincipled ones....conspire to obtain these secrets.

Would I want to see some new WMD plan posted on the Internet for all the enemies of the USA....inside and out.....to get their hands on. NO!!!

But I would also know, if I were the one who happened to discover how it works, that I wasn't the only one smart enough to discover it. And the other guy might not like us as much as I do.

It's going to get out....the question is, "Can the remedy be achieved before it does?"

"But you know, I'm a God fearing, gun-owning, conservative from the South."

I'd consider a bet that a lot of your brethren down South consider you to lean a little Libertarian? I mean - you're not SOUNDING exactly like the typical gun-owning southern-conservative here, agreed?

I think you've summarized the argument here, though - and for academic purposes, I did want to take a position, a strong one, and stand behind it and see where the conversation would lead - because you've distilled it down to the basic elements - can "secret recipes survive" in 2012 or are they bound to be reverse engineered - and is releasing them due to "inevitable discovery" the right thing to do, or the wrong thing? These aren't trivial questions, they're weighty. This case has a particular gravity about it. The way you frame it though, it applies to KFC and Coca-Cola too. If I'm KFC or Coca-Cola, I'm keeping my recipe secret - and even if the real one leaks out, I'm never going to confirm it - I'm going to deny it, because the SECRET is part of what makes *my* recipe in MY label taste better. Right? So for purely commercial reasons - full disclosure is not always the best option, and frequently is the WORST. FOSS is *not* an absolute. Security through obscurity DOES have a place in certain situations - especially those where psychology comes into play. When you KNOW the magic trick, it isn't magic anymore - when you find out (****spoiler alert***) Santa isn't real - you've crossed a threshold of childhood you can never return to.

From the most trivial example here, to the most potentially globally impacting - ALL of these examples are related in some manner.

The weird thing is that I'm approaching this thought process from the perspective of an OPEN dialog. But the response I'm getting from many members of the FOSS community is that the ideas I'm proposing are

IRRESPONSIBLE

UNSPEAKABLE

UNMENTIONABLE

When I bring up these topics, I consistently get met by the Three Monkeys of FOSS. We See No Evil, Speak No Evil and Hear No Evil of FOSS. Those that do should be insulted and dismissed and belittled and discredited without consideration.

Sounds pretty philosophically CLOSED to me.

Heh... that was good. I like that. If I was double-jointed, I'd pat myself on the back for this response.

Southerners are just as prone to participate in "herd mentality" as people elsewhere in the country...for that matter...the world.

I don't let my brethren down here tell me what to think any more than I do anybody else.

Gotcha on the strong position.

"When I bring up these topics," you said, "I consistently get met by the Three Monkeys of FOSS. We See No Evil, Speak No Evil and Hear No Evil of FOSS."

There are some people like that, and I dislike them as much as I dislike you in such debates. The fact that you dismiss every single positive argument advanced about open source software as falling into that category of denial, regardless of the content of the argument, suggests that your characterization of open source software development advocates is pretty heavily biased, though. You see, speak, and hear no good of it. The best you can do is to briefly comment that you're skeptical of both sides of the argument, before you catch your breath and launch into another one-sided tirade about the evils of open source software.

Wow. Sorry I said a word, actually. The responses here are about as scathing and nasty and offensive as most that I've seen on political forums when a left-wing Democrat posts in a right-wing Republican forum. Jesus.

I'll go ahead and respond to you since I already started this little thread, but this will definitely be the LAST TIME I post on TechRepublic and I certainly WON'T be recommending the site to anyone anymore. I'm sick and tired of the personal attacks and ludicrous self-righteousness of anyone who doesn't agree with the Original Poster. You dislike FOSS, it's evident, but that's also your opinion and, at least for now, that opinion is covered by the Freedom of Speech in this country. I'd be a bit more careful about trashing the US Government since the NDAA was signed, but other than that, you still have the freedom to hold whatever opinion you like.

Everything has its time and place. FOSS is no different and never has been. It is completely ludicrous for anyone to believe that everything in the world should - or even could - be operated under the FOSS principles. It is also fairly evident that those who are "religiously fanatical" about FOSS are going to be dismissive about any attempt to undermine its usability or applicability to a certain project. Just do keep in mind that there are those of us who ride the middle ground - who believe that FOSS has its place, but is NOT the all-serving solution that fanatics want it to be. Unfortunately, those same fanatics drive away many people who would be incredibly useful contributors to FOSS projects just because of their extremist devotion.

You are correct in that this particular situation should NOT be treated with a dismissive attitude. It is a serious threat to our security nationally as well as worldwide. However, there are many that subscribe to the theory of "If I pretend it isn't a problem it won't be" which is quite similar to your "sticking their head in the sand" theory. Unfortunately, nothing improves when people react like that.

Sorry if this post kind of rambles a bit. I've had a really bad day over on Care2 with some really nasty people and then coming here and reading the same type of thing has me questioning what the point of trying and participating is. I just don't have the will to push through the personal attacks like I used to, so I left Care2 and I'll be leaving TechRepublic now, too. The hatred and nastiness is depressing.

In my personal opinion, it would be Tech Republic's loss if you were to decide to leave here and not come back, and I'd urge you to reconsider.

This post is to a certain degree, a troll-ish post designed to bring out the worst in a predictable group of Linux and FOSS advocates who consistently react this way. They're willing to engage in the worst sort of Internet behavior any time they feel the remotest amount of challenge to the beloved principles of their software philosophy - and I can guarantee you, *all* of the usual suspects have shown up already - and not one of them has reacted in any way less than I would have predicted. They illustrate, time and time again, every claim of mine about what is wrong with the FOSS/*nix COMMUNITY (and notice that I said COMMUNITY and not IDEAL). It isn't that they're not intelligent people, either - but I think you're onto something where you compare it to partisan politics and political forums. In fact, I think that the FOSS/Closed-Source divide is the closest thing you'll find to a partisan, political, ideological issue in technology. This kind of passion blinds people. In turn, I must admit, when I get dealt a little nasty I tend to kick it back *after* I turn it up a level. That usually causes these *particular* threads to turn into a cess-pool of hostility and logical fallacies.

But your voice *is* reasonable - and listen, the *nix and FOSS community *does* need more of that. I'm biased against FOSS, there is no doubt about it - but it doesn't serve the FOSS community and ideals well for it to be my sole voice versus the extreme voices you'll see responding here against me.

And most threads are not like this at all. This is a hot-button topic among a bunch of guys who don't seem to have a lot of ability to self-censor before they hit "Submit Reply". For my part, I love it... if I can deal with these a**-hats on a consistent basis and still show my face, I can deal with almost any troll the Internet might throw at me. My online hide is pretty thick-skinned.

I'm really enjoying the perspective you're bringing, and I'd encourage you to stick around. This post, these responses, this group of individuals, they're atypical of Tech Republic. Don't let this introduction turn you off to the great things this site has to offer.

You're either a malicious troll or a thoroughly unreasonable anti-openness partisan. Either way, you do nothing but stir up trouble.

Yes, you touched on some subjects that deserve careful consideration. No, the way you brought them up was not in any way designed to bring about such consideration.

What is your freaking problem?! It is fanatical extremists like you that cause the issues with threads like this one and those I dealt with on Care2. Obviously, you have attempted to communicate with him before and it has failed. Why do you feel that it's your right to continue to run around and use offensive, extreme names like "malicious troll" and degrade the entire conversation? Quite frankly, the real troll here is very quickly becoming you.

He has self-admitted that he is against the FOSS concept, but he has been thoroughly reasonable in his discussion with me regarding the need for FOSS is certain circumstances and the need for balanced voices within the FOSS community. The only unreasonable one here is you, who believes that just because you're a FOSS fanatic, everyone should see things your way and that Mr. Colbert isn't entitled to his own opinions because they don't match yours.

You want to stir up trouble and cause problems, that is your choice and I hope that TechRepublic sees it as their choice to remove you and your malicious postings. But don't do it on my thread in my conversation because I have no interest in reading your fanatical FOSS drivel over and over again.

It's his right to hold his own opinion. It's his right to bring that opinion up however he wants as long as he is not personally attacking anyone (which his original post did NOT do). While I don't agree with him that "FOSS Sucks," I will defend his right to say so. Your approach at an immediate personal attack is insulting to everyone else, falsely representative of the FOSS Community and Ideals, and incredibly offensive.

Go away. It's people like you that make reasonable, respectful people like me leave sites like TechRepublic and I'm sick and tired of it.

Start with the title of his "article". Actually, stop with that, too -- then tell me it's my fault again.

He has been reasonable with you because you kinda-sorta agree with him, and don't point out his malicious behavior.

If you haven't been around, Chad and Donovan just don't get along. Most of us just ignore their potshots. I've probably at some point or another tried to get them to chill out. It's wasted energy though.

I like them both. It's just one of those things. But hey, it is the Internet. You don't need to leave the building because 2 guys can't get along. Heck, most of us would have to leave our families if we did that.

APOTHEON: Actually, the title of his article doesn't necessarily have to be taken at face value. It could have been designed to be an intelligent play on words based on the concept of FOSS and the possibility of the "end of the world" from this mutated Avian Bird Flu Virus. Not everything is as it seems, although I understand that some of you who stare at a computer screen and do nothing else for days could get confused about that. Personally, I attempt to find the hidden meaning behind the words rather than concentrating on the rhetoric used to convey said meaning.

Not everything malicious needs to be pointed out and "corrected." Sometimes, it is better to take the high road and simply retort without malice to get your point across. Venom is not necessarily always anti-venom as well. Understand?

TBMAY: I kind of got that hint reading through some of the incredibly offensive, dare I call it this?, repertoire between them. I take issue with it being done in public and I take serious issue with it being ignored by TechRepublic as a whole and allowed to continue. Ignoring a problem does not make it go away and it certainly doesn't make it any more comfortable for others, like me, who come into it not knowing what is going on and expect better out of a supposedly professional site like TechRepublic. I, myself, have written an article for TechRepublic some time ago. Had anyone personally attacked me like what happened here, I would have gone to upper management and, if still ignored and allowed to continue, demanded my article's retraction and posted a rather poor review of TechRepublic on every social media site I partake in. Now, I am not saying that Apotheon is entirely to blame, because he isn't. Mr. Colbert shouldn't participate in the degradation of this discussion thread, either, and I do tend to question his professionalism by his participation (especially since it is evidently ongoing). But, TechRepublic is SUPPOSED to be a PROFESSIONAL website directed at a PROFESSIONAL userbase. To have a "war" such as this one ongoing and unchecked is atrocious policy by management. THAT is why I stated this will be the last article on TechRepublic that I will comment on and why I intend to request that the article I wrote be deleted from the database along with my membership if upper management refuses to stop this problem in its tracks. Hopefully, that makes my position and reasoning a bit more clear.

(This is a reply to my own post as, for some reason, there is a layer limit on these discussions and it wouldn't allow me to respond to Apotheon or Tbmay directly).

tbmay :

Thanks for the kind words about me, personally. I like what I've seen of you, too.

A couple of people have suggested to me that dcolbert wrote this article in part to draw my attention, because if the two of us got into another knock-down drag-out fight in the forum it might stir up activity and draw readers. I'm not inclined to think I crossed his mind when he wrote it, unless it was incidentally, but the idea of stirring up controversy in general surely factored into his thinking.

SkyWlf77 :

The title does not inform my impression of dcolbert 's writing alone. The rest of the "article" supports the impression of the title quite strongly and thoroughly, and the majority of his comments in discussion only compound the problem. Past experience with dcolbert also reinforces the notion that his specific intent was to offend people and stir up trouble -- and he as much as said that was his intent in one or two comments here, for that matter. The words (directly quoted from him) "This post is to a certain degree, a troll-ish post designed to bring out the worst" pretty well sum up the problem; he intentionally offends people to stir up trouble, with malice aforethought. He then has the gall to accuse the people he riles up of "the worst sort of Internet behavior" when, pretty much by definition, trolling specifically to elicit strong reactions from others is "the worst sort of Internet behavior", at least in the context of merely misbehaving in a discussion forum.

Your comment, "Not everything malicious needs to be pointed out and 'corrected.' Sometimes, it is better to take the high road and simply retort without malice to get your point across," mystifies me. It's correct, of course, but in combination with your other statements to me it makes no consistent sense. You are essentially saying, by claiming that I am the problem here and dcolbert is just a nice guy, followed by this statement, that his malice is totally excusable and consistent with good behavior, but mine is not. Is it because you feel the need to defend your tacit, partial agreement with him? Is it because he wrote an article for TechRepublic (I have written hundreds of articles published by TR, by the way)? What is the reasoning that results in him getting a free pass and all the blame landing on me? Do you regard answering in kind worse than firing the first salvo, for some reason? I really would like to know how you arrived at your conclusions, because they make little sense to me with my current paucity of information about your reasoning.

Yes, there's a 7-level limit on how deeply posts can be nested. You've already found the standard work-around: repeatedly replying to the sixth-level post, and including the name of who you're responding to in the Subject.

These two are old sparring partners. As tbmay says, most of us just ignore them, scrolling down until we reach the next branch. Peacemaking is futile; they'll never work and play well together.

You've pointed out what I alluded to elsewhere.

I've been accused of setting out this kind of post as "flame bait" to attract this kind of ongoing dialog - but I've noted elsewhere, the fact is that the metrics (which have only recently become available to me) indicate that this kind of dialog decreases actual hits on the story in question - I get the SAME group of people posting huge volumes of the same back and forth... it is a very vibrant and active forum DIALOG - but it is among a very small subset of our total readers.

So it ISN'T a smart strategy at all - if a writer is interested in getting the maximum hits on his stories. Counter-intuitively - these hot discussion threads actually seem to KILL new unique hits from readers.

Some of my most popular stories have less than 10 responses in the forum section, total - and those stories result in more readers following me on Twitter and Goolge+.

So, just for the record - I'm not really that interested in the heated, angry back-and-forth debates. The problem with flinging poo around is that inevitably, it gets on you, too. As you point out - "we just ignore them and hope that something useful comes out in some other branch of the thread". I *know* this is taking place. I like a good head-butt - but at some point - it becomes a car-wreck. People are just driving by to stare at the carnage. That isn't my end-goal.

Somewhere else in the thread, I was PARTIALLY quoted as saying, "This post is to a certain degree, a troll-ish post designed to bring out the worst"

But the rest of the quote was this:

"...in a predictable group of Linux and FOSS advocates who consistently react this way."

Context is important, in this case. I expected a certain segment of the Tech Republic readers to respond with passion and emotion to this post - and there is nothing wrong with that (with them responding with passion and emotion). I write posts with the hope of engaging Neon Samurai, Vulpine, yourself, and a handful of other common, prolific posters. Vulpine sometimes pushes reasonable limits, and AnsuGisalas even more frequently. A lot of that can depend on who ELSE is involved in the conversation. But it is more frequently GOOD to have their presence in a forum than to not have their presence.

Several people who original responded were mocking, condescending, and dismissive of this post - but in a way tempered with humor and general good will. None of those posts devolved into name-calling, mud-slinging train-wrecks. My fault, my blame, lies in giving back what I got where that general good humor wasn't the case in the insults being thrown out. Once I realized that, I took a day off from this post. Hopefully we can pick up again without the real low bitter meanness, because I still think there are interesting topics to discuss, here.

dcolbert: I left out the rest of the quote because I figured the fact you were being insulting and trying to antagonize specific people, generalizing about them as a class, and generally reinforcing your position as someone who likes to offend users and developers of open source software, was already pretty obvious and would only distract from my point.

You say you don't like flame wars. If that's really the case, you should stop posting "troll-ish" flame bait. Yes, when you do that, people will probably call you out on it. No, you can't just assume that everyone will mock you with humor of which you approve. Learn from your mistakes -- or don't. If you don't, though, you shouldn't then go on to blame your failures on others.

tbmay and I in particular are having some thoroughly interesting and civil conversations brought up by this post, and I'm absolutely enjoying his feedback and viewpoint. I've also appreciated SkyWlf77s contributions. You, I have to separate your valuable insights from the venom and personal attacks and discuss in the 3rd person - which is too bad.

That's because we're still having the same conversation we had last time you launched a vitriolic screed against the entirety of the open source community, and I refuse to pretend that never happened, that you're reformed and misunderstood. I point out that you're doing exactly the same things you did last time we went around the ring, and somehow that makes me a bad guy . . . ?

Yeah, suck it. That's your biases talking.

I'll take you at your word. I shouldn't have phrased it as "Troll-ish" behavior. What I meant was that I feel that I generally have a good rapport with a number of users I do not see eye-to-eye on and I think they understand that I like to push their buttons - but again, in a good-natured way. You're painting me as a true forum troll who simply seeks to start flame-wars for no reason other than to watch the world burn. I'm pretty sure most readers understand that this is not what I am about. Regardless of if your incomplete quote was unintentional or intentional - I gave you the opening to spring-board off of it, so - my bad. I'll certainly be more cautious about using the term "troll" so flippantly in the future.

If you truly do not intend to troll for flames, you are woefully lacking in people skills. I have a very difficult time figuring out how anyone would write what you did in an article at TR and not expect reasonable people to see it as real trolling for flames.

Show me an individual in this industry that doesn't have some challenges with people skills - in fact, the more successful, the more likely those challenges are. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg. I'm also pretty charismatic sometimes. Oddly enough, I imagine this shoe probably fits you pretty well, too.

I've wrote dozens of posts, maybe more, since our last online conflict, many of them about fairly controversial subjects - I've had several heated conversations - some of which got pretty hot. Not one of them previous to our last conversation (which also spun hopelessly out of control) has gotten this far off the rails. I'm not saying that this is because of YOU... I'm saying what I've always said, this is because of US. We fail to understand each other, we fail to communicate, we challenge and escalate and neither of us is willing to back down and it turns into a mess every time.

But it is probably in our best interest for both of us to learn how to diffuse the other - because it hurts both of our reputations when we do this.

Honestly, I'm not sure how you made the leap from what I said above to taking it as a full-fledged attack directly on FOSS. I think SkyWlf77 got the "Foss is the end of the world" thing - but he didn't have previous negative engagements with me clouding his vision. I'm not saying Linux is going to bring about the end of the world - I was suggesting that the peer-review process which is fundamentally the Many Eyes model may cause a super bug to be released on the world... it was kind of hyperbole, but I thought it was fairly transparent. I was making the case for a casual link and asking in the body, "where do we draw the lines"... Chip is responding below in the way I *wanted* this conversation to go... he has his position, I don't AGREE with it fully, but he isn't launching right into calling me a trolling, hateful, lying so-and-so. That was the reaction I expected. I did not expect as much anger and passion as you came out of your corner with. The bell rang and you ran out and punched me right in the nose. My article, "2012: The year that mobile tech stood still" has... and I'm not kidding, 20 times as many hits yesterday as this post did, and it is an older article that should be winding down. Angry forums kill read-through. This *isn't* what I was looking for.

rather than "hunger/gatherers"?
It's also a bit difficult to stretch FOSS to include communicable disease.
There's more "closed-source" work done in biologicals than "open-source",
and that's probably a good thing. Guess the eggnog gave you something
to think about, so it's OK to ramble...I do it quite often!

Although "hunger/gathers" might be a more apt discussion of most tribal hunting societies unless they happened to live in very abundant ecosystems.

I thought "hunger/gatherer" was the one smart thing you said, as a wry twist meant to point out the irrationality of populist agrarian reformers.

That is probably good enough for me...

Wait... deja vu, dude...

Nope, I usually just luck into most of the smartest things I say or do - which must make my successes all that much more irritating to guys like you who really work HARD at it. Goes to show what an irrational world it is. Maybe that is why you're such an ORDER kind of guy, and I'm more on the side of chaos.

I needed cheering up, that was hilarious.

None the less that was great I haven't laughed so much in ages and I really needed it.

OH and BTW did you read that the supposedly destroyed Pump was all fiction? After all the Owners of it may have been wrong so you should stick with the original Scare Listing that it was Crackers who broke it.

Col

But it didn't come through right and I haven't had time to get the link to the editor, yet. It was all I could do this weekend to check in to give Chad his scathing rebuttal.

You're just not feeling the Scath yet, coz it cauterized your nerve endings

. . . because it's a wonderful compliment, and I'd be honored to accept it with all appropriate humility.

(edit: in -> with == better)

... but if it isn't for AnsuGisalas, it is for me. Excellent imagery, Ansu -- unfortunately, I think those nerves were already dead for Donovan.

AnsuGisalas confirmed it. Thanks for your own vote of confidence.

Calling 'em as I see 'em

Dell forums won't let me log in.

I think that's the most on-topic thing I've ever encountered in one of your comments, BALTHOR.

I think you hit the spirits a bit too much over the holidays.

It was funny though.

How do the dastardly FOSS-people put unpatched software in the water pump monitoring facility? Is it some kind of perverse SQL-injection? Or do they use those evil Pringles Tube antennae?

And how does the FOSS community enable bad guys to exploit these holes? Are foreign powers just script-kiddies? With no research capability of their own?

You also had an interesting passage: Foucher has developed the bug, and then you said; the only reason the pandemic hasn't struck is that the bug is hard to contract : am I to understand that Foucher has tried to spread it around? Otherwise, how is it inevitable?
Unless it's as easy for other to (have) discover(ed already)?
In the latter case, it would seem that Foucher is right to want an open discussion.

BTW: I think the US military wants it kept a secret because they originally helped Israel develop the method... and that would be embarrassing... or perhaps they're hoping to keep the secret useful, by denying the world the means to prepare?

Those who want to keep secrets rarely do so for our benefit.

I'm the one being accused of "ludicrous conspiracy theories" by those who would suggest that "Israel and the U.S. want to keep this secret because they're the ones who engineered an aerosol communicable avian flu"?!?

So let me just be clear, Ansu - you are suggesting, straight-faced - that this is all probably somehow a "Zionist conspiracy in collaboration with the imperialistic American lapdogs that the Zionists control"?

*smirk* Oh PLEASE say that is EXACTLY what you mean.

Do you guys even !@#*in' HEAR yourselves?!? It is amazing that the irony is so consistently lost on you guys. And MY nerves are cauterized? My hat is off to you few who I can so consistently rely on to respond as you have here.

The great puzzle is that you're all intelligent guys - no doubt far more educated and with better reasoning skills than I in a great many topics. Yet you've all got a persistent blind spot in your field of vision right... about... here. This very topic, you all become myopic in a singular way.

Let me address your points, Ansu - as they relate to FOSS...

I linked originally in the post to a link that elaborated that the water pump was NOT related to code. Unfortunately that link didn't work, and it being New Years, I was busy and haven't had a chance yet to provide a corrected link to my editor. So - I attempted, in good faith, to illustrate that my example used in the post was most likely *already* discredited. As far as I'm concerned in response to your questions above - I'm not concerned with if plausible attacks against our infrastructure IS are against software systems designed on open-source *or* closed source code. I actually don't have a horse in that race. My opinion is that it is a 6 of one/half a dozen of the other argument. Information systems are inherently vulnerable to malicious exploits and I think there are compelling arguments that either Open or Closed can be as weak or as strongly secured as the people managing those systems.

You - and a select group of vocal, passionate, and vocal FOSS advocates here disagree - and believe that the FOSS model is inherently *superior* to closed source, and will accept nothing less than complete submission to that point of view. It makes for a consistently entertaining and amusing course of academic debate here - one that illustrates some of my *other* strongly held opinions about (some members of) the FOSS community.

Therefore I don't think it is necessary that I address your questions point by point - as they're not issues I ever actually suggested were (or, conversely are NOT) the case. I know you WANT to take the conversation in that direction - because it is a direction you feel very comfortable in your ability to defend your perspective. But that wasn't ever really my point.

My point then, stated clearly, is that building your infrastructure on information systems that are open source or closed source doesn't actually matter. That your dedication to security and best practices is what counts - and that even with a FOSS based system constantly evaluated by the "many eyes" security model - that - to borrow a phrase - "nature will find a way".

For example, I'm guessing that the infected systems in Iran's reactor system (bringing this back around to your US/Israel conspiracy theory) probably aren't running on platforms built on Microsoft or Apple technology. But I bet that whatever they ARE running on, it isn't one we're going to see the FOSS/*nix community claiming as an example of how the most robust, mission critical systems in the world are built on FOSS/*nix platforms - regardless of how likely it is that this is case.

But if people don't want to be "subjects of the crown" they'll keep a healthy dose of skepticism about just about everything.

The same skepticism that says that "the powers-that-be" are developing secret biochemical doomsday weapons and they don't want those recipes available to enemy states, says -

"The powers-that-be" may have information about the global population or other carrying thresh-holds of our natural ecosystem that may require a massive culling of the herd - one that would naturally not include those who are deemed critical.

It is ALL ludicrous conspiracy theory then, isn't it?

What I dislike is the human ability to say, "be reasonable, think critically, explore possibilities" that turns around in the same breath and claims, "that is ridiculous, that isn't even worth contemplating, to even explore such a thought deserves contempt".

We see this kind of duality most frequently among the most intelligent of our society. Mainstream science and other highly intellectual academic pursuits are where we begin to shut down to anything seen as fringe or outside of accepted norms of understanding. I've used this example countless times here, because it fits - but:

"Dinosaurs cannot be intelligent, feathered, pack-hunting, warm-blooded animals . They're slow, plodding lizard like creatures, and we should mock and belittle any member of the scientific community that suggests otherwise".

You're proposing we distrust the government, but trust scientists who get most of their funding from the government and worse (corporations).

I'm suggesting that we don't trust EITHER of them.

Chad's original response directly made an appeal to authority (although as usual, he mixed in an ad hominem attack against me for good measure, too). "The Dr. is to be more trusted than that idiot Dcolbert when it comes to the topic of releasing the recipe for a wildly communicable and fatal genetically engineered disease to the public."

I am skeptical of the government, I am *also* skeptical of the scientific community. Do you suggest we should trust either with blind faith on an issue such as this?

(And... I'm skeptical about Closed-Source *and* Open-Sourced development, as well. From the perspective of an "everyman", either way, I'm trusting SOMEBODY to play by the rules - just like most of the REST of the world. The only people in either case who are telling me that THEIR was is the best, are the ones with a vested interest in having things done THEIR way.)

...and no I'm not suggesting you trust the Dr. either. Your points about the scientific community and it's funding are dead on.

You are absolutely correct in that absolute unquestioning devotion to anything another human says or does could be disasterous. The other guy doesn't even have to be a bad guy. He just has to be human.

So, unless your name is Jesus Christ, you won't get that from me. I don't care who you are, what your title is, and what position you hold.

Doesn't mean I don't like you though. It just means I'll think for myself.

in this forum. It speaks to that point that instead Balthor's little quip is.

The points you pulled out are, indeed, excellent points. Too bad it's all mixed up in misinformation and unsubtly subtle (it makes sense if you don't think about it) attempts at character assassination.

Nobody said that about any reasonable arguments, as far as I've seen. I pointed out that neither you nor I are likely to know enough about the technical circumstances of avian flu virus weaponization to be able to arrive at any kind of well-informed judgment about the wisdom of Dr. Fouchier's proposed approach, for instance. The problem here is not that people are unwilling to consider potential flaws in an "open source" development model, or that people are unwilling to consider the potential dangers of spreading knowledge far and wide. The problem is that you use utterly ludicrous variations on such questions to try to paint the world according to your basest biases. Making a comparison between H5N1 aerosol contagion vectors and the inner workings of OpenBSD Packet Filter to suggest that sharing information about the workings of such things will destroy the world is not just disingenuous, but downright irresponsible -- and it looks malicious, given the way you present it, not just once, but consistently.

I don't really know why I'm trying to explain this stuff to you as if you don't already understand it. I'm pretty sure, after all these years, that you are perfectly cognizant of what you're doing.

Notes:

It was not an appeal to authority, and I've already explained that, but you don't care; you like using big words to make baseless accusations, and explaining where they're baseless is not going to change that.

You use the term "ad hominem attack" as if you're claiming I engaged an argumentum ad hominem fallacy, which I did not. An argumentum ad hominem fallacy requires using a personal attack as the premise or a necessary condition of one's argument, which I did not do. If you are aware of this, and intentionally said "ad hominem attack" knowing that it literally translates as an "attack against the person" without any reference to logical fallacy, you probably know enough about how argumentation works and how people respond to the things you say to know that you are making statements that might well mislead readers into believing I said something fallacious just because I respond negatively to your trolling, in which case you are intentionally avoiding anything like a reasoned, productive discussion, in favor of demagoguery and rabble-rousing deception.

You claim to be equally skeptical of open source and closed source development preferences, but you only say negative things about open source software development -- and they're not just negative things: they're horribly inflated, deceptive, misleading, FUD-filled, hateful, insulting things. Even in your statement about presumably equal skepticism toward both open- and closed-source software development benefits, you misrepresent open source development by characterizing it as requiring a trust that some person is "playing by the rules". The trust in open source software development is not properly placed in any person's willingness to be a nice guy. It's trust in things like self-interest, fear of discovery, and statistical outcomes of completely open peer review that one might usefully apply to an open source software development model. The thoughtful open source advocate's recognition of open source software development benefits is based on the fact that it offers social mechanisms that place pressure on those whose individual motivations one might otherwise not trust.

Once again, though, I expect you to ignore such arguments, or forget all about them by the time you feel like you need a boost in readership at TR again.

Although I suspect all of us have suffered a lull in traffic in recent months for reasons I wouldn't claim to understand. But again, that is a pretty low road to take in making implications on motivations - and if that doesn't count as ad hominem attack (by literal translation) - I'm not sure what does. You're careful in your personal attacks to try and frame them in such a way that you can claim they're not really relevant to the discussion at hand - but you're constantly playing lo-ball, Chad. It is your least becoming feature. As I've pointed out in the past, when I take the occasional low swipe at you (which I do) - I usually temper mine with some humor and an attempt to disengage from active malice aimed toward you. I know your position on that - it doesn't matter... the low blow is the low blow - you feel my humor cloaks actual malicious intent. It doesn't - but if you feel that way. So be it. Again, I think it should be transparent to others that at least THESE parts of our exchanges consist largely of pots calling their kettles black - in both directions.

"H5N1 aerosol contagion vectors and the inner workings of OpenBSD Packet Filter to suggest that sharing information about the workings of such things will destroy the world is not just disingenuous, but downright irresponsible"

I disagree. It seems like a plausible potential outcome of applying what amounts to FOSS principles to a matter that many would claim should be a top-secret matter of global security and stability. You did not initially dismiss these as "completely unrelated". You attempted to defend without committing directly to Dr. Fouchier's desired course of direction. At least, that was my read. You constantly claim that I misread you. Either I really am as big of an idiot as you claim, or you're miserable at effectively communicating. But I think we've had THAT discussion before, too.

All these years? You make it sound as if we've been going around like this at our local by the fire for decades. This sums up my 2nd year of writing for Tech Republic as a content contributor - and our biggest blowout so far happened at the end of 2010, a little over a year ago. So... "All these year". Fixed that for you. But thanks for thinking of me as "your old nemesis".

I frequently wish we were in a formal academic debate - so we could leave it up to a judge to withhold or dismiss my claims that you've made personal attacks against me as part of your argument. I am *confident* that in any parliamentary debate the way you lash out PERSONALLY at me would get you dinged for an ad hominem attack. As it is, I get to make the claim, and you get to tell me I'm an idiot who doesn't understand, or who willfully misunderstands, that when you call me a moron it isn't a personal attack, it is merely a statement of fact - that when you claim that the Doctor is more credible than you or I, it isn't an appeal to authority fallacy, it is just me being an idiot once again. You're not just "responding negatively to my trolling" - you're defending your position by trying to discredit me by employing direct attacks against my character. Time and time again. Parliamentary Debate: Chad's Rules - is like playing Space-Chess with a Wookie.

Most of our responses get into a back and forth he-said/he said of personal attack and defense with little actual content regarding the actually discussion. You frequently claim that is me - but it seems like in this case you, to are as guilty as I am of leading the conversation in that direction. If anything, it speaks of our huge egos that we both think readers are remotely interested in seeing you and I go back and forth over who is smarter, better spoken, more reasonable, rational and honest. Actually... to be fair, I *don't* think our readers are interested. I see it as one of my biggest character flaws that I have trouble disengaging in these sessions with you.

Are you sure it isn't just that you only ever read my articles that are negative against Open Source - that you do not read my posts that are either negative against Closed Source *or* positive about Open Source? Again, here *you* willfully ignore or accidently distort MY point. I claimed that the AVERAGE user MUST trust that the developer is playing by the rules - Open Source *or* closed source. I don't know what kind of world you live in, but this is a TRUTH in the world the rest of us live in. Most users are trusting their open-source and closed source code on FAITH - because regardless of if the code is available or not - they have no real ability to check the source-code themselves. The trust in a peer reviewed open-community that would expose them is a TRUST too. A faith. The same arguments apply to the reasons close source wouldn't want rogue code to exist (except for, as we've discussed, the closed-source organizations have billions in dollars of profits on the line over such an exposition - which, we KNOW the counter-argument from you on this one Chad, but repeat it if you must). It comes down to TRUST and faith in either closed source or open source for the vast majority of end users - and you know what... both approaches actually have pretty good records of upholding the public trust, and both have some high profile examples of letting the public trust down. Which means, in my mind... your absolutes are not as absolute as you like to paint them. That isn't rabid anti-FOSS propaganda and "fud"... it is a pretty middle-of-the-road assessment that unfortunately disagrees with your extreme position to one side of the debate.

This whole line, "and they're not just negative things: they're horribly inflated, deceptive, misleading, FUD-filled, hateful, insulting things" once again implies a certain ego-centric read of my whole article. Who was I being hateful and insulting to? You directly? Do you think I wrote this article with you *specifically* in mind?!? Did you think I eagerly expected you to show up in this thread? You do... you did... didn't you?!? Wow. And that sets the tone for your initial post - which WAS hateful, insulting and condescending and *specifically* targeted *directly* at me. You see your initial response in this thread not as an unprovoked attack on me, but a DEFENSE mounted against an attack implicitly directed at you by a mastermind Troll who will lie in wait for months plotting how to bait you...

Man... In that light:

Either I'm a victim of a paranoid schizophrenic (and I should be nicer and more understanding of you)...

Or I really AM a genius at the art of the Internet troll. I *wish* it were the latter - because I should be recorded in the annals of Epic Internet Flame History if I were actually actively that good at what you are suggesting I am doing.

Really though, I just posted a random, one-off post, some general thoughts, you showed up, you weren't very nice, and so I swung back at you. Really... that is all... I swear...

Quote: I disagree. It seems like a plausible potential outcome of applying what amounts to FOSS principles to a matter that many would claim should be a top-secret matter of global security and stability.

You just ignored half the equation. When you equate two things, it runs both ways. Of course, the thing that's irresponsible about the one you did not ignore is perhaps arguable, given the level of knowledge of pathology amongst the IT professionals in this discussion -- but the irresponsibility of equating open source software development per se with an act of criminal stupidity that could destroy the world is blatantly obvious to anyone willing to look at it.

You're aware of the commutative property of equality -- right? Right?

No . . . ?

Quote: You attempted to defend without committing directly to Dr. Fouchier's desired course of direction. At least, that was my read.

Learn to read, then.

Quote: You constantly claim that I misread you. Either I really am as big of an idiot as you claim, or you're miserable at effectively communicating.

. . . or you do it deliberately. A bunch of other people understand me perfectly, though. Try asking Sterling what I just said next time you're tempted to attribute something completely asinine and bizarre to me based on a misreading of what I said, if you really need the help that badly.

Quote: All these years? You make it sound as if we've been going around like this at our local by the fire for decades.

Funny -- I don't recall using the word "decade" there.

Quote: This sums up my 2nd year of writing for Tech Republic as a content contributor - and our biggest blowout so far happened at the end of 2010, a little over a year ago. So... "All these year". Fixed that for you. But thanks for thinking of me as "your old nemesis".

Even if those two events were the only times you said something stupid about open source software (and they weren't), you seem unaware it's now 2012. How odd.

Quote: As it is, I get to make the claim, and you get to tell me I'm an idiot who doesn't understand, or who willfully misunderstands, that when you call me a moron it isn't a personal attack, it is merely a statement of fact

Nah. It's a personal attack. I make no bones about that. It's just not (part of) a fallacious argument.

Quote: that when you claim that the Doctor is more credible than you or I, it isn't an appeal to authority fallacy, it is just me being an idiot once again.

Nope. I didn't claim he was "more credible" than you or me in the general sense in which you presented it. I pointed out that, unless you can refer to the sorts of things that make up a useful risk calculation with regard to issues of bio-warfare, all you're doing is displaying your ignorance -- not making an argument that actually has any meat to it.

Quote: Most of our responses get into a back and forth he-said/he said of personal attack and defense with little actual content regarding the actually discussion. You frequently claim that is me

Well . . . it did start with you writing a piece for TechRepublic by semi-directly impugning either the character or rationality of open source software developers and users everywhere, and implying they're all working toward the destruction of the world whether they mean to or not. Where did you think discussion would go, following that?

Quote: I see it as one of my biggest character flaws that I have trouble disengaging in these sessions with you.

I disagree. I think your character flaws related to actually creating the bait for such discussions are much bigger. The trouble disengaging is probably the biggest character flaw I have that might be visible in such a discussion, though.

Quote: Are you sure it isn't just that you only ever read my articles that are negative against Open Source - that you do not read my posts that are either negative against Closed Source *or* positive about Open Source?

I've read some that did not negatively characterize open source software. What I have not read is anything that talks positively about open source at all and does not, at best, use that nominally positive characterization of open source software to actually imply something bad about it. Even when you try to say something neutral or (heaven forfend) positive about open source software, you end up saying negative things about it -- but when you set out to say something negative, my Geiger counter needle pegs at the hot end of the scale until it breacks, and it's back to the shop to get it fixed again.

Quote: Again, here *you* willfully ignore or accidently distort MY point. I claimed that the AVERAGE user MUST trust that the developer is playing by the rules - Open Source *or* closed source.

That doesn't make any sense. How does that in any way dispute what I said you claimed? It's the same damned thing. The only difference is that I went on to point out that a thoughtful open source advocate knows better.

Quote: Most users are trusting their open-source and closed source code on FAITH - because regardless of if the code is available or not - they have no real ability to check the source-code themselves.

1. Yes, they do that, but no, they don't have to.

2. You just ignored all the social effects of open source software development that I pointed out to reiterate your own narrow, unthoughtful view of how people "MUST" behave.

Quote: The trust in a peer reviewed open-community that would expose them is a TRUST too. A faith.

1. You're either misusing the word "faith" or ignoring the meat of my argument.

2. This is not the same thing as claiming people "MUST" trust the developer.

3. Certain types of trust, based on rational consideration of salient facts, are entirely reasonable and not at all dependent on faith. They are, rather, a risk calculation. These are the forms of trust to which I referred (without using the term "trust"), and have zero to do with trusting the developer per se.

You'd understand all that if your confirmation bias were not blinding you to what I actually said, though.

Quote: The same arguments apply to the reasons close source wouldn't want rogue code to exist (except for, as we've discussed, the closed-source organizations have billions in dollars of profits on the line over such an exposition - which, we KNOW the counter-argument from you on this one Chad, but repeat it if you must).

I'm not sure what you think I'd repeat. Maybe you've heard before that corporations are involved in open source software, too, and the same pressures apply there as in closed source software development for these corporations -- but those pressures are compounded by the openness of the code and the social effects I already mentioned. Of course, corporations' decision-makers seem to have an almost universal blind faith in the power of secrecy, which does occasionally bite them on the fourth point of contact, so I don't think the profit motive is enough to keep public corporations in line. It takes privately held businesses to really face that music at all, in cases where discovery does not seem inevitable.

Quote: both approaches actually have pretty good records of upholding the public trust

That's . . . absurd. Reputations, maybe; records, no. Major closed source software vendors have strong records of screwing people at every turn, but the general public has a very short memory.

Quote: Which means, in my mind... your absolutes are not as absolute as you like to paint them.

Those are your absolutes. Every time I tell you I'm not making the absolutist statements you attribute to me, you immediately claim I'm making such absolutist statements again. Is it any wonder I think you're malevolent and/or stupid, when it takes you no more than a few minutes to go from reading my non-absolutist view of something to claiming it's all about the absolutes?

Quote: That isn't rabid anti-FOSS propaganda and "fud"... it is a pretty middle-of-the-road assessment that unfortunately disagrees with your extreme position to one side of the debate.

No . . . it's a joke.

Quote: This whole line, "and they're not just negative things: they're horribly inflated, deceptive, misleading, FUD-filled, hateful, insulting things" once again implies a certain ego-centric read of my whole article. Who was I being hateful and insulting to? You directly?

I've already stated, several times, that you are being hateful and insulting to open source software users and developers. In fact, a text search for "open source software users and developers" in this discussion will probably turn up at least two or three uses of that exact phrasing as part of stating exactly that fact. Warning: I have not tested this. Maybe I phrased it slightly differently, but I think there are cases where I phrased it exactly that way.

Quote: Do you think I wrote this article with you *specifically* in mind?!?

Are you done with the straw men? Of course I don't, you effing idiot.

That, or just admit that you really are a malevolent jackass who enjoys character assassination, lying, and long walks on the beach, looking for a single white female he can murder in his basement (or something to that effect).

I would expect any scientist to act the same regardless of who pays their wages. Honesty and openness are fundamental to the doing of science. If you aren't following these principals, I'd say, you're not really doing science.

I'm not one, but I do have many friends who are physicists, mathematicians, and chemists, and they all agree that this is fundamental, and they would, and in at one case have, walk away from the job rather than suppress information that is in the public interest. For them, honesty and integrity come before having a job.

Same as any professional, highest level of responsibility is to the society, not to self, and not to boss. You may disagree, but this is how I determine if someone is a professional. If they meet the requirements, they are one, if they don't, they are no

It seems your scientist friends are of the highest integrity. There are those working as professional scientists who are not so honest and principled, however, and it is up to us to decide who to trust in that regard.

Caveat emptor: let the buyer beware.

The preparedness which defeats one bug also defeats another.
Our means for controlling outbreaks are few, and they're not very effective, but building up a stringent use of them will work on any outbreak.

So, no. I don't think *this* bug is a US/zionist creation.
I also don't think there is a US/zionist plan to release a similar bug worldwide.

But I do think they have these programs. And I also think they'd prefer it if their enemies stay unaware of how to deal with this stuff.

In the end, though - think about it: 5 mutations.
How long do you think it will take for it to undergo 5 mutations under natural conditions? How many mutations do you think it undergoes, in nature, every year? It's our luck that it hasn't hit a winning combination yet.

We need to prepare. We do not need some "need-to-know basis" BS to get in the way of preparing.

It's pretty clear that the engineers in charge of Iran's nuclear program had extremely sloppy security skills. Does that sound like they're FOSS-heads? Or does it sound like they're more likely to be Windozers?

"Hey you, there! Stop responding to my accusations. It makes it so much harder when you defend yourself - especially when you do it well". - Ansu

"The preparedness which defeats one bug also defeats another.
Our means for controlling outbreaks are few, and they're not very effective, but building up a stringent use of them will work on any outbreak."

Really? Are you certain about that? Seems like a bold and contradictory claim. Especially this "building up a stringent use of them will work on *any* outbreak," one. The emphasis is mine.

As for the next part - then why did you suggest a US/Zionist cabal at all in the first place? I'd like to just purge this line from the thread - it is so incendiary and volatile. How about we use something less likely to heat up strong partisan political biases and substitute Swedish and Norwegian for the nations you picked? Seriously. Don't we already have enough hot potatoes up in the air already with this topic? I'll give you a free pass on this one.

"But I do think they have these programs. And I also think they'd prefer it if their enemies stay unaware of how to deal with this stuff."

I agree... The Swedes and Norwegians likely DO have programs to develop these kind of things, and I think you're right, they would rather have their enemies stay in the dark.

So then, are you suggesting that massive proliferation is the best policy to ensure world peace? That the more nuclear states we have, the less likely we are to have a nuclear conflict? I mean - that *is* one school of thought. I think it was Ronald Reagan's administration that actually popularized a term to describe it - Mutually Assured Destruction. Mad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction

"Let out your super-flu," the Swedes challenged the Norwegians.

"For we have a super-flu of our own".

And therefore, no one did?

I think the sloppy security skills were more important in the Iranian breach than the platform. But nice one, none-the-less.

Now you're attributing things you said to AnsuGisalas so you can attack them. Great!

He did not suggest a US/Zionist "cabal". You did. What he did do, though, was point out the very simple conclusion that two governments that interact with each other and have tightly connected financial and military ties might be involved in some sharing of bio-warfare research data as well as nuclear weapon and electronic warfare data. The fact one of them happened to be the US and the other Israel does not make him a racist conspiracy theorist. In fact, his original proposal took the form of suggesting the US might put pressure on Israeli researchers -- not that there was any conspiracy, or that some of the people involved were necessarily Zionist Jews, or any of a dozen other necessary conditions for your misleading characterization of what he said via use of terms that have come to be regarded as offensive.

By the way, there's no "cure" for a nuclear explosion, so your analogy of sharing bio-warfare data with other researchers who may wish to combat the threat to nuclear weapon proliferation is completely beyond reasonability. I'm sure you're aware of that, though, and don't care. That doesn't even take into account the fact that one person releasing it in a secretive environment is a "mutually assured destruction" scenario, because unlike a nuclear weapon you can quite easily kill yourself on the other side of the world with a sufficiently virulent biological agent, while a nuclear weapon hitting a city on the other side of the world mostly just affects the other guys (so far) -- which even further undermines your half-assed "argument".

Nope. It's about the least effective you can think of.
But if you have a sand-bag preparedness, capable of deploying thousands and thousands of sand-bags, in a well-ordered manner... it starts doing wonders.

The quarantine of a carrier isn't exactly the same; it's pretty effective at keeping that carrier from spreading the disease; but it's kinda hard to deploy, you know? On the large scale it's not very effective, and certainly not efficient. So you have to do it right.
In a nutshell: it is not effective nor efficient in it self, so you have to *use* it all the more effectively and efficiently. The onus is on the ones applying it.

I can accept your Norwegian/Swedish bowdlerization effort. We all knew the Swedish Chef is hiding dark secrets under his bumbling facade

I am not suggesting mass proliferation.
You are suggesting that the knowledge of the general methods equals mass proliferation. Developing biological weapons is simple on paper, but difficult in reality. Saddam thought he'd put a lot of money into that stuff, but how much did he actually have?

Creating a strain that will kill off everybody in the terrorist cell is dead easy... creating a strain that could, but won't - well, that's real hard all of a sudden.

But knowing what goes into it will help authorities (most of which are NOT in the need-to-know loop) and citizens detect attempts to create a weaponization capacity, and pre-emptively control the flow of certain crucial ingredients. Like with the powdered soup during the anthrax scare.

1. There's no need for a conspiracy for people who would like to maintain useful stocks of biological weapons to want to keep those considered "enemies" from having information that could allow them to protect themselves against those biological weapons. It likewise requires no conspiracy theory to realize that simple fact. Your accusations of conspiracy theories are misaimed, at least in this instance.

2. Even if AnsuGisalas was advancing a conspiracy theory (which I don't think is the case, based on my reading of what he said), he certainly didn't make borderline racist comments in the process. The fact someone happens to be a Jew or an Israeli does not mean that speculating on the person's motivations are directly related to Jewish ancestry or Israeli nationality. In fact, if anything, it looked like the commentary was about the general untrustworthiness of governments, and not about ethnic conspiracies.

3. I think you missed the point of the cauterization metaphor.

4. Protest all you like, but your entire "article" here reads like an anti-open-source rant by someone with a big chip on his shoulder and complete willingness to throw out honest reasoning and discussion in service of propping up a bias. The ranting vacillates wildly between offensive and merely passive-aggressive. You claim here, suddenly, that you think the openness of source code is irrelevant, but it's in the midst of a bunch of wild-ass claims about how open source software might destroy the world. You may need to just excuse my tendency to disbelieve the plastic olive branch you pretend to extend. I'll be checking it for hidden electrodes. I do not trust your reasoning, your motives, or your words. I figured I'd just get that right out in the open. Like Microsoft's largely empty marketing slogans about security in recent years, it's going to take more than occasional comments contradicted by continuing behavior to convince me your history of anti-open-source advocacy has become irrelevant or obsolete.

5. I, for one, do not believe that any given piece of open source software is necessarily superior to a closed source alternative just by virtue of its openness. I have said so many times before, including to you. AnsuGisalas has not, to my knowledge, said anything that confirms him as believing that any given piece of open source software is necessarily superior, either -- and I think I know Sterling well enough to know that he would not make such a claim. There is a difference between recognizing engineering benefits of a given development model and having greater trust in what is subject to in-depth peer review than what is kept secretive so that we cannot as easily determine exactly what it does, on on hand, and just flatly stating that one thing is superior to another by virtue of a single factor among many on the other. You seem to find it convenient to pretend there is no difference between these two things when trying to convince the world that all open source software users and developers are bad people, though.

6. Your point might possibly not have been to assail open source software. I think it was (see my above commentary, re: the way your words are almost universally offensive to anyone or anything related to open source software, et cetera, and how I don't trust your words when you make contrary claims), but even if it was not there's the small problem that you use an assumption of such points to attack something else. It's absurd, to say the least, for you to pretend you never said anything bad about open source software.

7. In most cases, a dedication to "security and best practices" should induce one to seek peer review and public participation in development, because of the engineering benefits of these factors. Someone else who is a better developer of secure software might conceivably do a better job than the open source developer, even if the other person's project is strictly closed source, but the key difference is that properly leveraging the benefits of open source development can make the resultant software better than the same person would have done without making use of those benefits. I write better code when I share it, and get feedback, and make use of the benefits of open source software. I may not write better code than someone else who does the same stuff in a closed-source context if that person is just a better developer than me, but I'd bet real money I get closer than I would have otherwise. Trying to twist that into some kind of asinine straw man so you can attack me for stupidities I never uttered -- and doing the same to other people like AnsuGisalas and sterlingcamden -- does not just fail to make a meaningful point; it demonstrates your dishonest, offensive, willfully ignorant biases. It might just be dismissed as a mistake, if it stopped happening once people pointed out your error, but this is something that has been pointed out to you several times, and it does not seem to make a dent in your willingness to misrepresent others' arguments.

Regarding Iran, I seem to recall reading that the infection got in by way of MS Windows workstations. Someone correct me if I misremember.

Iran & Windows workstations - the back end system was not Windows based. If I recall. Someone correct ME if *I* remember wrong. But I'm fairly certain that is what I read. Came in on Windows systems, sneakernet to non-Windows systems.

The implication of a US/Israel connection to suppress information on biological weapons they may already be developing was simply a poor choice when the idea that I'm throwing around "conspiracy theories" has been put on the table. We didn't get as far as racism. Those are hot-buttons in a case like this - and the same point could have easily been made without invoking Israel and the Untied States and their military and intelligence communities. That seems simple enough to see.

As for the rest...

Basically:

Your claims about peer review do not by any virtue disqualify closed-source projects from employing the very same methods. Most of the world-class organizations I've worked for require a NDA prior to employment, but employ rigorous internal peer review on all projects. Closed source does not preclude the possibility of having MANY eyes on a project - although it does arguably help keep your *competitor's* eyes from perusing your proprietary intellectual property.

Here is the thing - as I've said elsewhere in this thread, you can tolerate NO criticism of anything FOSS. It is like using the Lord's name in vain in your pious grandmother's house. To voice any negative opinion is to "wield a massively anti-FOSS agenda". I think most of my readers know by now that isn't the case. I have a tiny, FOSS-critical agenda that mostly is directed at self-important members of the FOSS community. FOSS itself, has served me quite well, and I use platforms based on FOSS technology more frequently on a PERSONAL basis now than closed-source technologies. Professionally, FOSS based tech has made smaller inroads into my world - but it is there too, none-the-less. If my bias was as broad and unreasonable as you claim, why would I allow FOSS based technologies into my professional environment, when I could easily block them? I'm solution oriented, not CAUSE and philosophy driven. I've said THIS a number of times, that is the main difference between you and I. You've got a cause you believe in, that you are invested in. I'm simply interested in the most efficient way to get things done - and I think efficiency covers a bunch of give and take, trade-offs, compromise and flexibility. I don't EVER get that from you in our discussions, it is a consistent theme in my discussions *everywhere*.

Finally:

Lord knows we're both abrasive and annoying and probe to be overbearing blowhards. It is to the point where you insults to this end don't affect me because it must be clear to ANYONE else who reads both of us that this is the case. I figure they can see the smoke and mirrors on either one of us trying to paint the other one in negative terms. Not that I don't enjoy taking the occasional jab at you anyhow - but that is mostly for my enjoyment, not any attempt to win the minds of our readers.

You are correct about the back end. That was not my point when I mentioned it. The back end, as I recall, was a commercial SCADA system, but the infection got in via MS Windows workstations. I'm just going by memory, of course; I wasn't even trying to make a point when I brought that up.

When you start characterizing people's statements as referring to Zionist conspiracies, you are using trigger words that imply racism, so yeah -- you did get as far as racism. Your implication that one can never mention Israel as an example of a nation with close ties to the US military industrial complex, by the way, just to avoid getting accused of racist conspiracy theorizing, is kind of . . . BS.

You have, indeed, said elsewhere in this thread that I can tolerate "NO criticism of anything FOSS." You have said a lot of untrue things. So what?

According to your characterization of my attitudes toward open source software, I should accuse myself of having "a massively anti-FOSS agenda" (and who are you quoting when you say that, anyway?). I have written articles for TechRepublic detailing the technical failures of the GNU Project, the ideological lunacy of the FSF, the project guidance stupidities of the recent flagship Linux distribution, the hypocrisy of attempts to license against specific technologies that have become all the rage in some open source circles, and so on. Except for the fact that all these articles of mine draw on rational arguments and relevant real-world evidence, which makes them quite distinct from your screeds, the litany of my crimes against open source softare advocacy in the estimation of the attitude you attribute to me should make me a far worse offender than you. The truth, though, is that it is not references to flaws in open source software that annoys me; it's logically invalid, emotionally charged, maliciously targeted, offensively presented, rationally void FUD peddled by people like you that gets my dander up.

Your consistent experience of discussions with me and "everywhere" has one thing in common: you. If you keep getting the same negative responses to your trolling, flame-drawing rants against the moral rectitude of open source software, you might want to try a different tactic. I doubt it, though. I think you like drawing flames, in part because it confirms your biases. When you go trolling for flames, you get them, and acting as though you are surprised is ridiculous.

If you really, truly like open source software, and know something meaningful about it, there are a few problems that come to light:

1. By your behavior here on TechRepublic, you contradict the rare statements to the effect that you haven't any systematic bias against open source software, and even those statements are usually paired with some kind of offensive dig at open source software and the people who use and develop it as though you simply cannot resist being a gigantic jackass about it even while trying to pretend otherwise. It should be no surprise that people don't believe you when you occasionally say something that, at first glance, might look superficially reasonable.

2. You write lies for TechRepublic, representing yourself as what you are not, and that behavior here in adopting the mantle of the complete opposite of your familiarity with -- and positive regard for -- open source software should shame you.

The way you behave, coupled with the way you describe your motivations, makes me think you are a sociopath or a pathological liar, but for some reason I keep trying to reach you anyway. I guess that makes me stupid.

"When you start characterizing people's statements as referring to Zionist conspiracies, you are using trigger words that imply racism, so yeah -- you did get as far as racism. Your implication that one can never mention Israel as an example of a nation with close ties to the US military industrial complex, by the way, just to avoid getting accused of racist conspiracy theorizing, is kind of . . . BS."

My read of Ansu's original post was that he was implying that the US and Israel acting together would want to prevent this kind of information from being made public because they would likely have this kind of recipe in their personal arsenals and want it kept proprietary and private.

If that doesn't start wandering into the kind of rhetoric you see on websites that talk about Zionist conspiracies and the US as a lapdog (and infect your Windows machine with a drive-by trojan in the bargain) - I'm not sure what does.

If it hadn't been put on the table, we wouldn't have gotten here. There were lots of other choices that could have been made that wouldn't have brought this train of thought to mind. Stop trying to shift this to me. As I said, it was a poor choice, and I'd like to see it retired now... I'd like to have seen it never brought up in the context that Ansu brought it up. Furthermore - if you hadn't accused me of throwing about "ridiculous conspiracy theories" in your INITIAL response to the original post - this wouldn't have been so bad. You're the one who brought accusations of fringe conspiracy theory to the table, Ansu followed it up with a suggestion that it was most likely that Israel and the US would be involved in the suppression of this kind of information... Who is taking this in what direction? Certainly not me.

I had to do something to avoid breaking my cover.
M... my employers were most adamant.

"2. You write lies for TechRepublic, representing yourself as what you are not, and that behavior here in adopting the mantle of the complete opposite of your familiarity with -- and positive regard for -- open source software should shame you."

This charge, this claim you make - is so serious and unprofessional - it *defines* you as a person, Chad. You've given me the final piece of the puzzle about you - and in fact, I don't think I was far off the mark. There is something fundamentally flawed about you - something *wrong*. You've dropped my jaw to the floor this evening, though. Not in my wildest imagination would I have thought... - but we're done now, Chad. Dealing with you is bad mojo. I can't keep you from posting - but I can chose to never address you directly again.

What AnsuGisalas actually said was "I think the US military wants it kept a secret because they originally helped Israel develop the method" -- which says nothing at all about whether Israel is involved in any efforts to suppress information, or whether anyone involved is a "Zionist conspirator", or any of the other offensive crap you attributed to AnsuGisalas. What you claim was his original reading bears almost no resemblance to what he actually said. Its only points of similarity are the mention of the US and Israel, and the fact that someone wants to keep something secret -- and even if your reading was accurate, that still doesn't translate to a US/Zionist Cabal of Evil Jewish Overlords Controlling the Media and Banks, or whatever cockamamie nonsense you more specifically implied.

The fact that Zionist conspiracy theorists happen to mention Israel, the US, and secrets in the same sentence a lot does not mean that everyone who mentions such things is a Zionist conspiracy theorist, any more than the fact you mention Linux, Windows, and security in the same sentence means you're Richard Stallman, after all.

By the way, I didn't say you had a fringe conspiracy theory, either. I said that your craziness had reached the proportions of lunatic conspiracy theories. A comparison of extent or significance is not the same as a statement of equality. Saying something smells as sweet as a rose is not the same as saying it has red petals and thorns and feeds on fecal matter.

I'm curious how you could possibly justify saying you actually like Linux while writing "articles" like the disaster area that started all this (called "FOSS is the end of the world as we know it" in case you forgot) while still pretending that the notion you are misrepresenting yourself in a shameful manner is unreasonable.

edit: By the way . . . it's odd that as you back off a little bit from some of your more extreme statements, and we end up having slightly more calm exchanges, you decide to sabotage it by pretending you have no idea how you must look to others when you say things like "FOSS is the end of the world as we know it" and blame me for your own flamethrower's malfunction.

"You also had an interesting passage: Foucher has developed the bug, and then you said; the only reason the pandemic hasn't struck is that the bug is hard to contract : am I to understand that Foucher has tried to spread it around? Otherwise, how is it inevitable?
Unless it's as easy for other to (have) discover(ed already)?
In the latter case, it would seem that Foucher is right to want an open discussion."

The unmodified bug requires physical contact.

Dr. Fouchier genetically modified the original bug (code) to allow it airborne communicability.

There are THREE assumptions here:

That eventually, naturally - the unmodified bug may develop the ability to be communicated via air.

That eventually those rogue regimes, groups or individuals who exist would develop the same methods that Dr. Fouchier has developed - his work being proof-of-concept that it is possible - thus - inevitable.

Three - (and to be clear... this is my presumption): That if Dr. Fouchier releases his method to the world scientific community - it *will* become accessible to those same rogue parties mentioned above, and with the information he provides, they *will* engineer their own version explicitly for release into the wild, which they *will* then do. In the meantime in this scenario, Dr. Fouchier and like-minded members of the world scientific community will race to develop effective responses to that "inevitability" - hopefully achieving *their* goal before those with more nefarious end-games arrive at theirs.

That last one should be obvious. It is the claim of all FOSS advocates when they support full disclosure of existing code vulnerabilities. The idea is that they illustrate the exploit, publish it, and then everyone gets together to patch the vulnerability as quickly as possible. That is the BASIC idea of the many-eyes model and immediate disclosure - isn't it?

So, are you really missing that point here, or just being disingenuous?

...it's apples to oranges. Just like wearing a helmet when you ride a motorcycle is a super good idea, but not so necessary when you drive a car. You've already made the argument yourself. Web servers are one thing, attack drones are something else.

On matters of immediate, life-threatening danger, there is an obligation to manage the leak. The leak is going to happen, but you need to give yourself as much of an advantage as you can in terms of time to remedy.

I mean, you can Google around and learn how to make some pretty devastating stuff. I suppose it would have been better if that weren't the case, but it is.

In terms of software security, honestly, there's a great deal of parity across the board with all the platforms now regarding security. Security is the job of all parties involved...including the user. But the open source model provided enough competition for Microsoft to clean their act up...somewhat, and as such, even as a dedicated Windows guy, you've benefited indirectly.

The "many eyes" model obviously makes more sense over the long haul. Secrets can be kept over the short-term. It really takes an extremist to think publishing the plans for an easy to build WMD on the web for open discussion is a good idea.

A death rate is just a measure of lethality.
A contagiousness rate, a measure of virulence.
For this to be an uncontrollable pandemic, there would have to be also a long incubation time.
After all; people will try to control this.
If people start showing symptoms quickly, then the outbreak is easy to locate before it has time to spread very far. A three day incubation time makes it easy to control.

If on the other hand people would show no symptoms for three to four weeks all the while being contagious; that's a showstopper.

Remember that the seasonal flu could be controlled if it was worthwhile doing it. As it is we are not overly concerned about something which will be a minor productivity hit and kill some few people who are already weakened - after all, controlling the spread would require effort that would be a major productivity hit, halting many businesses for a few weeks.

If on the other hand the survival of the great majority of the population is at stake, sending everybody home for a few weeks is no biggie.


And finally, don't be too stressed out: even if it all goes down as bad as can be (and no, a 50% death rate doesn't turn into a 75% death rate - I assume the general response to a pandemic is to set the nuclear power plants to controlled shutdown - not to timed meltdown), it is NOT the end of the world as we know it. The human species is fully capable of repopulating the world, especially with the suddenly abundant resources available to the survivors.
All great plagues are followed by "golden ages", far from the desolation Mr. King dreamed up for dramatic purposes.

Unless you also think the bird flu makes zombies out of its victims...?

I'd take the example of nuclear weapons.
All the information you need for developing basic nuclear weapons is available to a dedicated researcher.

When is the bomb going off?

is "what are the signs that someone is trying to weaponize this?".

Back in the anthrax scare days they didn't mind telling everyone : Be careful about exporting powdered bouillon concentrate, it can be used as a substrate for weaponizing anthrax.

And of course, back then it was a US military researcher behind it, so secrecy wouldn't have helped either

Fission weapons are far too easy to build. They may not always work, depending on the precision of construction, but in principle they're incredibly easy to build. You just need the materials -- and, frankly, I have my doubts about the security of government stockpiles of weapons-grade fissionable materials.

Even if your homemade fission weapon fails to go critical, you still get a so-called "dirty bomb", spreading radioactive materials over a wide area and, depending on weather patterns and location, possibly causing a really significant, widespread disaster.

As AnsuGisalas mentioned elsewhere, a key piece of information we need if we want to protect ourselves from such things is a set of key signs that someone is working on and/or planning to offensively deploy such a device. Of course, the more people floating ideas about how to detect such things we have, and the more information those people have, the more likely we are to come up with good candidate signs of such activity -- and once someone knows even the most basic facts about fission weapons, the principle of their design is pretty straightforward, and a bit of experimentation follows to provide useful data that can be used to build such weapons.

. . . to say nothing of the fact that there have been mass-market publications that describe many of the elements of fission weapon design going back at least as far as the fifties and sixties. I am, in fact, about two thirds of the way through a Rapoport book from about 1971 that details great scads of data gathered about the US military nuclear weapon program.

That one was left in there on purpose. The original Gizmodo article linked makes this erroneous assumption, I noted it when I was writing my response, and decided to leave it in there just for the sake of seeing if anyone else would reason that much out. So I agree with you - read the original article and you'll see they're claiming a 50% kill rate and *assuming* a 100% infection rate.

"Ten generations later, his efforts had created an airborne strain with the power could kill half the human population." - from the original article.

This is wrong, or at least, a fairly gross over-simplification. We don't know a lot of questions - here is an example scenario you missed:

The contact spread version of the H5N1 virus has been 50% fatal - but that is no guarantee that the virus would be that fatal if it were affecting a much larger sample of the population - as it would be doing if it were spread by air. We might see the fatality rate fall off significantly once it were easily spread to 10 times (or more) victims.

as for your assumptions and suggestions above - I don't know that I agree. We've tried to contain quickly manifesting contagions above and I think we've discovered that generally speaking - reactive methods are not the most desirable. Once the genie is out, regardless of manifestation period - it is hard to stop a bug from globe-trotting. In fact, the H5N1 virus is a great example. Despite starting in Asia, and being difficult to transfer - it still managed to travel the globe in a very short period of time. The only reason it wasn't worse was because it *wasn't* airborne. So, incubation time does MATTER - but there are a lot of other factors, and the method of communication is chief among those. People slip through quarantines on purpose and by accident. Your response is that it is "no biggie" to "send people home" globally for a period of time to allow something like this to blow over. REALLY? A coordinated global quarantine requiring the entire population to sit it out in doors with their sick and dying relatives? My ludicrous conspiracy theory of an idea is already looking a lot like the set of "28 Days Later" in your scenario, with armed men in green hazmat suits and armored vehicles standing guard in the streets of row-houses with spray painted doors marking the infected.

And - but a 50% death rate isn't a trivial thinning of the herd. It is a major, rapid decrease in the global population. The black plague killed between 30%-60% of the world population over a distributed period of time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death) and it did not lead to a golden age - it *lengthened* one of the darkest periods in mankind's history. This was at a time when travel was slow and the entire world was a non-mechanized, agrarian society that was not reliant on machines, technology and information. The disruption to have something like this happen today over a period of a few short months would be completely disruptive to our society.

So incidental deaths WOULD up the kill rate beyond 50%. Orphan children would die from accident or starvation because there would be no support services to come and rescue them. The old and the sick would die in hospitals and in their homes from lack of medical care and emergency response. Fires would burn out of control because emergency services would all be at home sick - and those struggling through the sickness at home who would survive otherwise would likely burn to death. There are all kinds of reasons why once you hit a 50% mortality rate, lots of OTHER people who would have otherwise survived - die.

But you're right - on the other side, there would be survivors who would start rebuilding society and depending on your perspective, the reduced population and destroyed industrial/information society on the other side might be a golden age, an "Eden", even. There is genetic indication that we've been thinned out even more aggressively than THIS in the far past, and came back. In the worst case scenario - that isn't something I want to experience - not the GETTING there, but not the immediate AFTERMATH, either.

But the most important observation is the first one - the logic is flawed that 50% fatality means 50% of the population will die. That assumes 100% communicable with no natural immunity in the population. The truth of the matter is probably more modest. The degree of how much more modest is important. We need to know just HOW communicable the infection becomes once it is airborne. Would we expect 40% of the population to become infected, or 50% or more? If we go with a 50% global infection rate with 50% fatality - we're talking about 25% of the global population dead. That is 1 in 4 on a global scale. Still huge and hugely significant - we would feel it and a lot of things would slow or shut down and it would not be a comfortable ride. Regardless, I think this is an issue where the discussion, "how open should this information be" is an important discussion to have.

50% dead is just thinning the herd. Bigger apartments for everybody.

Getting there wouldn't be a nice ride, but there's no devastation involved.
If 90% of the population dies off, then some knowledge is in danger of being lost. But 50%... no, even subcultures would remain intact.

Of course, it would have a major impact on the culture, the way of thinking, everything. Just like the renaissance after the black plague.

On containing outbreaks:
The original bird flu traveled with migrating birds... somehow I don't see terrorists running around east asian wetlands trying to spray the wildlife with aerosol infectants. And while the bird flu traveled the world, it never became a pandemic.
Sars too was easily contained.

It costs money, though.

"50% dead is just thinning the herd. Bigger apartments for everybody."

I think this is exactly the kind of outlook I voiced concern about in the original article. This is a particularly callous attitude and speaks to a certain philosophical outlook that I doubt I am on board with, if taken at face value.

I disagree with your assessment on the impact, as well. A > 50% reduction in population would likely leave us unable to support global infrastructure and goods transportation, manufacturing and production. It would be devastation to the current post-industrial, oil-driven, information based society we exist in today. On the other side all those bones of industry may still be there - but good luck getting the keys turned to start it all up again - unless of course, you carefully select who gets culled and who gets to rest safe in underground bunkers while things bottom out top-side.

Which, might seem OK to a lot of people from a certain perspective. I'll tell you what - I'm fine with the project, as long as we roll it out after my grand-children have lived their full lives - beyond that, I have no possible emotional connection to whatever descendants of mine might suffer the process. But for right now and for the foreseeable future, I'm just fine with the status quo. Let Monsanto keep creating GMO corn and Al Gore and Apple keep suing people for blatantly ridiculous patents and Wall Street Bankers keep eroding the middle class while consolidating wealth at an unprecedented rate - and let the polar bears become REALLY good swimmers. I'm strongly hesitant about welcoming the idea of us actively pursuing a policy that releases a contagion that is highly communicable and 50% lethal.

History is just individual interpretation. We can find as many historians willing to support the argument that the black plague prolonged the dark ages as would be willing to claim that the black plague somehow brought about a new way of thinking that brought about the renaissance - as well as an equal number that would disagree (or agree) with both. But you keep pushing that as if it were fact, if it suits you. My *opinion* is that your interpretation is flawed.

The original bird flu did not travel just with migrating birds - or it is highly unlikely, because there was cross contamination where cross-migratory paths were unlikely. It is far more likely that infected samples were inadvertently transferred by artificial means from one geographic location to another, bypassing quarantines and restrictions implemented to contain the outbreaks. You had multiple vectors for travel and transmission - and surely many if not all of those paths were exploited in the travel of both the Avian flu and SARS.

An aerosol infectant doesn't need to be employed against birds. Cut out the middle-men (animals) and just infect people and set them out on jets coughing on other people the whole way. You've just compounded the difficulty in containing the outbreak. Now you've got infected humans who *DESIRE* to circumvent quarantines and isolation zones.

we are talking about something that could happen.
If it were to happen, it will after that have already happened.
This is important: if we talk about things that have already happened, exactly how useful is it to wish that it had not? Human, yes, but useful?

So, while I am totally disgusted when I read Atkins-freaks suggesting that the world should have a population of just 300000 people, so they could have all the bacon they'd need to stay thin (!)... yes, while I am disgusted by things like that, if a disaster has struck, I do not think the survivors should kill themselves in grief. Nor mope about uselessly.
The show must go on, and all the more so after a disaster.
And it will. And after they pick themselves up, they'll have a better deal in life than they'd have had without the disaster. That's no compensation for lost loved ones, but what about their children, and their children again. The benefit will last, and the sorrow will fade.

The point of all this is: It is NOT "the end of the world as we know it".

As you point out, viruses leave infrastructure intact. While there would be some property damage as a secondary effect (of course), there is no primary infrastructure damage.

Studies conducted in the '60s even determined that a nuclear direct hit on Houston would result in a lot of people being effectively wealthier, by inheriting the remaining properties of those who died -- and a nuclear weapon is even the sort of thing that was invented specifically to destroy as much stuff as reasonably possible.

Your reference to the golden age following a historical plague is another point that was addressed in such studies in the '60s, which observed that golden ages tend to follow drastic depopulation incidents in the historical record. Of course, that's a crappy way to get a golden age.

That immediately followed the black plague in Italy -- in fact, many would argue that it began during the plague.

We've discussed a couple places elsewhere - but I'm not sure where in this thread... but anyhow... To summarize:

History is interpretation - not fact. Interpretation depends on perspective.

In the case of your point... Cause, or correlation? The suggestion has been that the Renaissance arose directly BECAUSE of the black plague. That is a lofty claim that seems nearly impossible to support *or* disprove.

But here... the claim is, that societal collapse frequently leads to golden ages.

What golden age came after the fall of Rome? Mmmm... the Dark Ages.

The point that was being made that I disagreed with was that the black plague seems to have LED to the Renaissance. We're probably going to now rephrase this suggestion as "There seems to be a strong correlation between the massive sudden and catastrophic restructuring of a society and a resultant, following golden age among the survivors".

Society is a hardy animal. It is, by definition, equipped with an insane amount of parallel redundancies.
These Stephen King scenarios of "It's all broke, all broke" rocking back and forth mumbling... it has nothing to do with how humans actually have coped.
Holocaust survivors don't do that.
People with AIDS don't do that.
Nobody but bloody teenagers do that!!! And even they only do it because it's fashionable.

About the infrastructure: Yes; the odds that a given installation has 100% of it's vital personnel intact might be kinda low. But the fact is that people with the required knowledge will be abundantly available, especially given that the amount of facilities needed would be much lower. The survivors won't need fifty-five brands of bread... not right away at least.
So the people reorganize themselves, facilites and operators are matched, life goes on. Immediate survival is no problem, and proliferating the knowledge is only a question of a couple of years.

Agriculture will be even less affected, since a farmer can handle an area far bigger than the average farm. Farming is more limited by the availability of land. So, the potential food production capacity wouldn't even dip.

There are easy counterpoints (see AnsuGisalas' response for some of them), but at least you responded with a reasonable set of discussion points and moved things forward for a change. I can only guess this happened because Sterling did not mention Linux. Have an upvote.

The real reason I set out to respond here, though, was my surprise at discovering that there is another person who knows the difference between "led" (past tens of "lead") and "lead" (a dull gray, malleable metal that insulates well against radiation and poisons children's toys). I know a few such people, but the numbers are unfortunately small, and I'm encouraged to find another.

English is a dying art, it seems.

was not a causal link by any means. Ansu stated that 'great plagues are followed by "golden ages"'. He didn't say they were caused by them, merely that the one tends to succeed the other.

(I went back and forth on "led", by the way... "Is that right. Yes. No... wait... yes... I'm going with yes..." And... "past-tense", not "past-tens", although I'm not throwing stones over a typo in the forums when it comes to the proper use of the English language, for reasons that should be clear. )

Chip -

Well... the correlation though is *just* a correlation - and I gave a counter-example where it wasn't the case. The fall of Rome was a societal collapse that resulted in a prolonged period of ignorance, suffering and theocratic despotic rule. I mean, an eventually re-awakening resulted - but by virtue of cycles, every time you hit rock bottom, you can count on things turning up eventually. It makes the whole thesis kind of irrelevant or pointless, if we're not suggesting that the likely result of a collapse is a glorious new and more progressive society rising from the ashes, eventually (and hopefully sooner than later).

I guess we need elaboration and clarification on what point Ansu was driving at by leading in this direction. I don't understand the point of having the example if it is just a casual correlation that isn't in any way consistent. What does it illustrate?

As for "there I go with societal collapse again":

Modern mechanized agriculture relies on oil driven machines. Most globally farmed land does not have the traditional, pre-industrial equipment that would be necessary to continue agriculture with a disruption of oil and goods shipment. Assuming that in any local area enough of the people who knew *how* to farm survived - they would have an overwhelming task *even if* they knew how to farm *without* the industrial equipment that would be sitting dormant on their massive farms. Best case scenario with such a drastic population reduction is that they could provide survival for their immediate needs and those of a surrounding rural area. But what about urban areas that are completely disconnected from agrarian production? There are no shipments, or drastically reduced shipments. Sure, there is a drastically reduced population and demand, too - but you're assuming that the decreased shipments of produce and other goods could continue to support urban cores that are largely based of knowledge work. There would be large incidental die-offs from starvation, social unrest and other residual impacts.

At least, I think so. At some point, this tipping point is inevitable. At some point, there *is* a societal collapse due to a sudden depopulation. Witness the Mayans - (or the Aztecs, or the Incas) who effectively disappeared from the historical record at some point as their society reached a breaking point that was no longer sustainable. Most of their knowledge, engineering, and achievements were lost and indigenous cultures were set back. There was no "golden age" following this collapse - unless we're going to call the arrival of the Spanish an "enlightenment". Instead, the loss of those cultures was the start of a dark age for indigenous South, Central and North American cultures that arguably goes on to this day.

So then, the point on which you and I disagree with here is at which point the societal collapse becomes unrecoverable and actually becomes a societal COLLAPSE as opposed to... what... a societal "speed bump"?

Let's visit a handful of societies that I think *collapsed*. Ancient Sumeria, Babylonia, Egypt and Rome. The Incas, Mayans and Aztecs. Those are the most common ones, right? Did they collapse completely, or were they evolution into a "golden age" that spawned each later civilization? Perhaps *perspective* is important here. From mine, if I place myself as a Sumerian - the later rise of Babylonian or Egyptian dynasties built on the ashes of my culture after a period of Anarchy is little comfort. But if I'm a Roman building on the principles of fallen Grecian culture, maybe I see the fall of their society as the seed that spawned the arrival of the glorious culture I live in.

So if your thesis is that through the fall our our present society a more glorious tomorrow may arise... (and correct me if I'm putting words in your mouth)... I'm not sure I want to sign up for that. Like I've said... wait a couple dozen generations before you try that experiment.

My point is that *I think* anything greater than a 50% rapid decline in global population disrupts oil first and that everything else collapses based on that alone. You disagree, Ansu - tell me at what point you agree that this happens, if you think it is possible at all?

The decline of a civilization is something quite different. The fall of Rome, for instance, was not occasioned by a sudden depopulation, but rather by invading Goths who met little resistance. The Sumerians succumbed to the rise of the Akkadians. These were both examples of increased competition, not suddenly reduced competition.

We were also talking about societal collapse as it relates to the current topic at hand... which was a RAPIDLY spreading plague which could lead to rapid societal collapse (as opposed to the long re-occurring and lingering time frame of the black plague resulting in a significant depopulation through the dark ages). My contention was that a rapidly advancing, highly fatal disease like an airborne H5N1 would look more like a rapidly advancing invading force than the black plague, and would result in a far more dramatic, significant, and rapid decrease in population. The worst of both scenarios.

But I'm feeling like we've split this hair so far there isn't much more to be said down this branch, anyhow.

After all, the faster the pandemic spread, the faster it will be over.
How does that lead people to forget the books they've read? How does it lead people to abandon the civilization?
It hasn't before. And it won't either.

That is pulp fiction. Like everything by Stephen King.
Serves a purpose, but is NOT predictive, nor descriptive.

Populations might experience sudden decline, but civilizations die very slowly. The fall of Rome did not occur on one day, it required hundreds of years of societal decline to bring it to the point where the Goths could knock it over with a feather. The Sumerians actually experienced a Renaissance (Ur III) after the Akkadians came to power, but it proved to be their last hurrah, and only lasted a little over a hundred years. Egypt had been in a cultural and political decline for hundreds of years before the Assyrians arrived, and continued their slide through the Persian, Greek, Roman, Arabic, Turkish, and English occupations. Sudden calamities don't destroy civilizations, slow rot does.

A society is like an organism; it responds to overweight by growing lethargic and complacent. It responds to hard times by applying itself better.

You're suggesting a sudden, global decrease in population by 50% would not be critically disruptive to society - that such a scenario is Stephen King pulp fiction escapist fantasy.

I completely disagree. The entire infrastructure of society comes to a breaking point if we suddenly lose 3.5 billion people in a matter of say, 90 days to a year. This isn't some Roland Emmerich production. Part of the problem, and your counterpoints allude to this - is that this kind of scenario is unprecedented. Past plagues have occurred in much less globalized societies with far less ability to rapidly travel the globe - and past plagues have arguably been less aggressive than the kind of bug we're talking about here.

I feel that both of you are approaching this from a very optimistic perspective. I see your basic points (the sudden decrease in population is going to require far less resources to support, for example) - but I think those oversimplify the challenges of dealing with such an unimaginable decrease in global population. I don't disagree with your historical analysis of how civilizations have gone into decline - I'm saying that what we're talking about here is a different kind of calamity. This is something more along the lines of a global nuclear exchange or a super-volcano or asteroid impact. Just because infrastructure remains intact doesn't mean that it does any good for the survivors if a certain minimum population thresh hold is crossed.

Ultimately we're both making assumptions. Hopefully none of us live to see the day those assumptions are tested.

The question is, FOSS or not: Just because it can be done, does that mean it should and must be done? Should this virus have ever, ever been produced? Why not ship the recipe right off to Achmanijad or name-your-villain? Is publishing a cursed paper all there is?

If the good scientist don't do it, the bad scientist will, right?

Or creation according to Star Trek, life on earth was actually seeded in this manner?

... and hey, what actually did happen to the atmosphere of Mars?

tbmay - you propose that the degree does matter - where there is a difference between life and death and just general open-source, many eyes philosophy to address a common problem by sharing it quickly,easily and transparently with as many qualified eyes as possible who will contribute to a solution.

Do you think that Dr. Fouchier is motivated by this same basic principle? Do you even agree that he might have adopted this principle from experience in the FOSS community, either as a user or even as a developer himself? That is - would you find it plausible that Dr. Fouchier could be a "true believer" in the philosophy of FOSS and be applying that to try and solve the legitimate problem here?

I'm just curious about that - I don't really have a hidden agenda or point I'm trying to build off getting a response one way or the other.

Because - it DOES seem suspiciously that way to me. It is so close in motivation and approach (at least, what I've heard about it) that I can't help but think that this guy is probably a Linux using academic, who is brilliant, who truly believes in the FOSS method of many-eyes on a problem - and this is JUST that sort of problem from his perspective.

And to be honest, I can't say for certain he is wrong. I'm just not sure he is right. I *get* the counterpoint position on this, even Chad's. Yes, bad guys are trying to do this, and Dr. Fouchier has already established it CAN be done. Nature may do it anyhow - so if we get it out there and get the best minds studying it with full understanding - we'll probably figure out a fix for it sooner than later.

Possibly. Or we might just give the bad guys that little boost they need to kind of give it a little nudge, a kick-start... a leg-up on global catastrophe.

That is my real thesis... what a "darned if you do, darned if you don't" situation. We're close to the edge on this one, and it is potentially serious regardless of HOW you look at it. The fact that it all comes down to a question of "many eyes" or NOT is chilling, to me. If they do approach it from a "many eyes" model - I honestly hope I'm wrong. I hope Chad Perrin's perspective bears out as superior to mine. Don't we ALL?!?

As offended and incensed as Chad is reacting - I think he has missed this. I'd rather he be RIGHT about this one if they decide to fully disclose.

Fortunately, if "they" decide to close it down and they avoid the catastrophe anyhow, Chad can say it was just a fluke - that it would have been quicker and superior if the information had been distributed as freely as Dr. Fouchier originally wanted.

The only way we lose is if I'm right. Trust me, that isn't worth winning an online argument. I haven't lost site of that. I hope no one else has, either.