Yonah Russ wrote:
> Really, the US could have easily approved the sale and just
> trained/hired other "americans" people to maintain the systems
> themselves using telephone support from sourcefire for technical
> questions. There is no real reason for Sourcefire to have access to the
> networks in order to provide support.
It's a matter of power. There is no Israeli operating system, PC and
database Israel had to rely on others.
Not true. For one, Magic is/was an Israeli database. A lot of the Army probably still uses it since it was one of the first to support hebrew afaik.
Secondly, Israel could just as easily install totally free and totally opensource linux on all the pcs. It doesn't because it would be much harder to support- ie. you need more than an 18 year old with 1/2g brain power to run a base's network, you don't get to call Linus 24/7 if you have a problem, and you can't pay for it in FMF (AFAIK the army logistics units don't know how to use anything "free")
Thirdly, there is no reason the army couldn't manufacture pc's from parts- they have more than enough manpower.
There is no end- of course Israel always had a choice - it's just easier to choose FMF
But the USA don't have to rely
on others - they have everything at home They want to keep the power
at home, and information security is part of it. I don't support it
personally, but I also don't support their immigration policy. If it
was up to me, I would open the gates for everyone. But I understand the
(selfish) reasons that causes them to make these decisions. They think
about themselves, and what's good for them. And it is good for them (at
least in the short term).
I don't see what technology has to do with free immigration. America realizes that democracy means that the majority rules. If you want to make sure your country stays yours, you can't let anyone come and vote. Imagine if all all of china decided to immigrate and annex the US! People can draw their own conclusions regarding our little nation but again- that has nothing to do with technology.
A few years ago, I wanted to install an SSH client on my PC. There was
a famous USA made SSH client, but it was illegal for people from other
countries to buy it. Eventually I found out a free and open source
client (I think it was TTSSH). By the way, now I use Putty.
That's ashame ;)
And when
PGP was invented, Phil Zimmermann was really harassed by the USA
government for inventing it and exporting it. That was the USA policy,
and I agree it is stupid. Because even if they want to, they just CAN'T
prevent the rest of the world from catching up with new developments.
They aren't trying to prevent the world from catching up- they are just trying to save themselves some CPU cycles = money while they read your email.
jmho
yonah
Best Regards,
Uri Even-Chen
Speedy Net
Raanana, Israel.
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Phone: +972-9-7715013
Website: www.uri.co.il
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