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FBI official: No immediate changes to encryption policy under Trump – The Hill

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Donald TrumpDonald TrumpSessions urges respect in Senate farewell speech Trump attacks Nordstrom over daughters clothing line Trump's Labor pick lays out plans to avoid conflict of interest MOREs White House has discussed encryption policy with the FBI, a bureau official indicated Wednesday.

James Baker, the FBIs general counsel, said he is unaware of any planned changes on encryption policy under the new administration.

There have been some discussions, obviously, about this, he said at an encryption policy event in Washington, D.C.

It is a big topic and one that people have discussed, he continued. I am not aware of any policy change or even a determination at this point in time, given how soon we are into the new administration.

Encryption is a hot-button issue in the ongoing debate about privacy and the federal governments access to secured communications. While the use of encryption is broadly recognized as important to privacy and cybersecurity, it has created problems for federal investigators as they pursue criminal and counterterrorism cases.

The issue took center stage last year in the legal fight between Apple and the FBI as the bureau fought to access an iPhone used by one of the attackers in the San Bernardino, Calif., shooting in December 2015.

At the time, Trump argued that Apple should have aided the bureau in accessing the phone, calling for a boycott of the technology company until it did so.

Ultimately, the FBI paid professional hackers to break into the device.

The use of encrypted messaging apps has risen in recent years, as fears over hacking have compounded.

Baker spoke alongside software and legal experts at an event on the burdens placed on law enforcement by encryption that hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Wednesday afternoon.

The panelists agreed that the new administration and Congress will likely take up the issue of encryption and other matters related to law enforcements access to data.

I think this will be on the agenda for discussion, said Victoria Espinel, a former government official and president and CEO of BSA the Software Alliance.

I hope its not on the agenda for discussion because of some horrible event that propels it forward.

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FBI official: No immediate changes to encryption policy under Trump - The Hill

Encryption Without Compromise – ISBuzz News

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Over the past decade, organisations across every vertical market have attempted a wary balance between regulatory compliance and business agility. Yet with the arrival of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) set to raise the bar yet again in 2018, how can organisations navigate ever more onerous regulatory requirements and penalties for failure to comply; escalating security risks; dispersed and diverse infrastructure models and still achieve operational performance objectives?

Given evolving regulatory demands and threat landscape, securing data in motion especially across Wide Area Networks (WAN) is clearly essential. But when traditional encryption has fundamentally compromised both network performance and essential troubleshooting, once again security and agility are in conflict.

Paul German, CEOCertes Networks, explains the role stealth encryption is playing in delivering data security without operational compromise.

Encryption Imperative

In this increasingly regulated environment, encryption is or should be a fundamental component of the defence in depth security model. Whilst organisations globally have been wrestling with the escalating security demands created in a continually evolving cyber threat landscape, the introduction in 2018 of the GDPR radically extends the business implication of any data breach. After May 2018, not only must a company inform all affected by the security breach, as well as the Information Commissioners Office,within 72 hoursbut the fines can be up to 20 million or 4% of global revenues. There is a very real risk that a data breach could lead to company failure.

Given the growing acceptance that breach is a when not if event, organisations have evolved beyond perimeter only security models to increasingly lock down data both at rest and in motion. Yet data encryption has had a chequered history. Whilst in theory the ability to make all information unintelligible, unusual and valueless to hackers and thieves is clearly compelling, the challenges associated with deploying, maintaining and managing encryption technologies have deterred and inhibited many organisations.

The key problem is the way in which encryption has been deployed to date. Traditionally an organisations infrastructure is broken down into seven layers following the Open Systems Interconnection model (OSI model), from the physical (Layer 1) through to Application (Layer 7). The usual technique of adding encryption at Layer 2 (Data Link) and Layer 3 (Network) essentially means asking routers and switches to undertake an additional and demanding task.

The result is not only drastically compromised network performance but also significant management and troubleshooting issues often bad enough to drive organisations to switch off the encryption solution. In addition, as soon as Layer 2 and Layer 3 encryption is switched on, the organisation is completely blind to the traffic going across the network: it is not just the data that is encrypted but the file headers and network packets. The only option, therefore, when the application team needs to investigate performance problems is to switch off encryption creating additional risk and leading to a security/operations stand-off.

Layer 4 Encryption

The answer to the continued friction between operational goals and security imperatives is to decouple encryption from the infrastructure completely. Rather than being embedded in routers, switches or firewalls, Layer 4 encryption technology is completely separate from the underlying infrastructure. By creating an overlay solution that is dedicated to providing the level of trust for data in motion and applications moving across the infrastructure, this model avoids any impact on network performance and complexity. Furthermore, Layer 4 operates in stealth mode: it is only the data payload that is encrypted not the entire network data packet.

This approach has two essential benefits. Firstly, a hacker that cannot see that encryption has been turned on (because the file headers are not encrypted), will have no idea whether the data is sensitive or not it all looks like worthless data, malformed and of no use. Secondly, if the organisation needs to troubleshoot, key information such as source/destination ports and IP Address information is still visible, enabling investigation and remedial work to be undertaken whilst the encryption is still turned on. All of the complex management and maintenance problems created by Layer 2 and Layer 3 encryption are removed. The data in motion is secure without adding complexity or compromising operational performance of the infrastructure.

Layer 4 encryption also overcomes the problems created by application vendors opting to introduce third party encryption solutions into applications to create a secure connection between clients and servers. While the theory was great, security threats such as Heartbleed and Poodle, which compromised sessions, threw application vendors into a spin. The challenge of getting the third party to fix the problem, then update the application, download a patch and ensure customers have applied that patch across their estate is huge leaving many applications still unpatched years later. Creating a Layer 4 encryption overlay ensures that application data is secure and resolves the software providers security challenges. Indeed, even if the application encryption has been updated, adding Layer 4 encryption creates a double encryption model that ensures whatever may happen in the future to compromise the application Heartbleed Mark 2 the organisation will be secure.

Zero Trust Model

The additional benefit of decoupling encryption from the infrastructure is that it supports the zero trust model that is gaining growing support across the security industry in response to the ever changing threat landscape. While it may appear logical to assume all owned infrastructure from data centres to branch offices, LANs to private WANs is under the organisations control and hence secure, in practice the reality is very different.

Firstly, the vast majority of data breaches now occur as a result of user compromised credentials providing a hacker with direct access to that trusted network. Secondly, the concept of a private WAN is flawed: private WAN services are typically multiple organisations connections delivered over a single shared managed service network using simple labels to separate customer traffic. Unfortunately, simple misconfigurations can result in the networks of two or more organisations becoming merged; at which point secure data is not only open to the service provider? but also at the mercy of that organisations security posture or lack of it. That owned infrastructure is neither under the organisations control nor secure.

What value is a Service Level Agreement with a service provider when the organisation has been breached, the regulator is set to impose huge fines and customer confidence has plummeted? Passing the baton of security over to a third party without truly understanding and then mitigating that risk is a mistake. The only way to ensure that an organisations data is secure is to encrypt it before it hits the WAN if the data does fall into the wrong hands it is of absolutely no use at all.

Conclusion

This is the fundamental concept that organisations need to understand trust nothing, secure everything. By adopting a zero trust model and accepting an inherent risk of breach organisations can take a far more proactive approach to securing data across the entire infrastructure.

Adding Layer 4 Stealth encryption not only secures critical data and underpins compliance with regulations including GDPR but it does so without compromising network performance or operational agility.

About Paul German

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Encryption Without Compromise - ISBuzz News

Microsoft to offer patent protection for Azure customers using open source software – OnMSFT (blog)

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Microsoft wants to help fight legal claims against intellectual property (IP) in the cloud, according to its most recent announcement. With the rise of patent litigations pushing against Azure (and alternative cloud) customers, the tech giant is beginning to push back with a new initiative to fight these claims.

The Microsoft Azure IP Advantage program will encourage afocus on digital expansion and development, according to the Microsoft blog posted today.

1) Our best-in-industry intellectual property protection with uncapped indemnification coverage will now also cover any open source technology that powers Microsoft Azure services, such as Hadoop used for Azure HD Insight.

2) We will make 10,000 Microsoft patents available to customers that use Azure services for the sole purpose of enabling them to better defend themselves against patent lawsuits against their services that run on top of Azure. These patents are broadly representative of Microsofts overall patent portfolio and are the result of years of cutting-edge innovation by our best engineers around the world.

3) We are pledging to Azure customers that if Microsoft transfers patents in the future to non-practicing entities, they can never be asserted against them. We do not have a practice of making such transfers, but we have learned that this is an extra protection that many customers value.

Bloomberg Technology reports that Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith describes the new program as creating a patent umbrella and we let our customers stand underneath it. Quite a big umbrella if the tech giants claim of 60,000 patents total is to be believed. But, they are only offering 10,000.

Microsoft has offered patent protection for its own technologies already, but this new initiative adds open source protections, as well.

Since this type of initiative is incredibly new to the cloud computing market, Microsoft is taking a step out of the comfort zone. Maybe it will even dissuade the increase of IP claims in the future. One thing is for certain, however, and that is that Azure is now offering a service that no other cloud provider offers. Yet.

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Microsoft to offer patent protection for Azure customers using open source software - OnMSFT (blog)

Open source users: It’s time for extreme vetting | CIO – CIO

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Open source software is the norm these days rather than the exception. The code is being written in high volumes and turning up in critical applications. While having this code available can offer big benefits, users also must be wary of issues the code can present and implement proper vetting.

Josh Bressers, cybersecurity strategist at Red Hat, emphasized this point during a recent talk with InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill.

InfoWorld: Why is Red Hat getting on the soapbox about open source security?

Bressers: We've been on this soapbox for a long time. Fundamentally, there's a supply chain with software. In the past, you've not really thought of software using the supply chain concept. [In the past, it was thought of as] some dude writes software, and that's how it is. We're realizing now that there are vendors, and vendors provide you with a thing that goes into your product and obviously it's designed in a way that with a supply chain if you use low-quality parts, by definition, you're only going to get a low-quality product out the other side.

I think we're starting to recognize that if you're just grabbing any piece of software you find from a commercial vendor or from the open-source community and you don't know what it is or it's not vetted and you don't know the quality, you put your final product's quality at risk.... You have developers going out to GitHub, going out to Stack Overflow, and they are downloading code. They're not necessarily paying attention to what they're getting and how it's being taken care of.

Open source won. It won because it's used everywhere now. But now we have a supply chain problem we need to start thinking about and that is, where did you get it and how is it being taken care of, because software doesn't age well. This is something that you have to take care of and you have to pay attention to. You can't just pull software into your project and you're done.

InfoWorld: Where do you go from here?

Bressers: Fundamentally, what it comes down to is you need to understand where your software came from, which means in the open source context, you have to think of open source as a third-party vendor, which means who's paying attention to it? From an organizational perspective, you need either a team paying attention and taking care of this, or you need to find a vendor to work with who will be your representative here and will do all the heavy lifting in terms of vetting the software, understanding what's good, what's bad, keeping it updated, making sure you understand what that means.

That's the piece that's missing today. There's lots of organizations that have developers that will go out, find what they need in the open source universe, pull it in, and then they don't think about it a second time. Obviously, if you do that, if you never update this stuff, eventually there's going to be some sort of problem that you have to deal with in the software. Think of something like Heartbleed. It's a great example where people had literally just pulled this OpenSSL version into their applications, and a lot of them didn't even realize it was there.

InfoWorld: So what do you do about this situation?

Red Hat: I can tell you what Red Hat does, and every organization will be different. We have a team that's dedicated to paying attention to the open source universe, and they watch for security issues. This is where open source is unique compared to some of the third-party, typical software vendors, we could say, is there's a very understood relationship there where essentially they have a product, you pay them for the product, and the expectation is they will maintain it and you will go to them for help and support. In open source, it doesn't exactly work like that. You have two choices.

Number one is you go to a vendor that specializes in essentially productizing open source. [That is] the traditional software vendor relationship. However, there's the alternative option now where you can actually treat open source as your vendor, but it doesn't work in the same way now because you have to pay attention to the community and you probably have to get involved.

I would say if you have an organization that's concerned about this and they are using open source, they need people in-house who can work with the community, who can understand what's being used, and then they can engage at the appropriate level depending upon what's being used. The other side of this coin is you have to make sure that your developers aren't just pulling any random piece of stuff they find. You have to actually have a vetting process to ensure that the software you're using is accounted for so there are no surprises. [And] it has to be high-quality.

InfoWorld: What kind of vetting do you do of the Linux kernel?

Bressers: At Red Hat, obviously, we're known for Red Hat Enterprise Linux but even Red Hat Enterprise Linux is literally hundreds of other open source components put together. It's not just the Linux kernel. The Linux kernel is a big piece of it. Granted, a very important piece. Even though we have tons of kernel expertise, we still have people who focus on the security of the Linux kernel and making sure that we understand what's going on in these kernels: Does this stuff make sense, what are the security issues that we're seeing? What do we do with them, how do we fix them, what's going on?

Heartbleed affected the OpenSSL library, and that was included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but we also included it in some of our middleware products, for example, for shipping web servers. We had various other products that used the OpenSSL from Red Hat Enterprise Linux embedded into their own product like an image that could ship them. We pay attention to all of these pieces, and we have teams dedicated to just paying attention to this stuff to make sure that we're using good software that's being vetted.

InfoWorld: What processes do you use at Red Hat, and what do you recommend for others?

Bressers: This is going to depend on, team size, maturity level and just talent to some degree. We fuzz-test certain libraries and applications inside Red Hat. We do automated source code scanning. We do some level of manual scanning. We have a bunch of internal tools that will look at the artifacts that we build, which are making sure we're not making obvious mistakes or making sure that, for example, when you have an RPM package that installs the application or library onto the system, is it putting things in places that make sense? We have dedicated build systems so we understand what's being built, how it's being built.

InfoWorld: Would you say open source software today is more secure than it was five years ago? Is it more secure than proprietary software?

Bressers: Open source is not more secure than proprietary software nor is it less secure. The concept of proprietary software doesn't really exist anymore because virtually every organization has open source inside of the products they're building.

You also asked, is open source more secure today than it was five years ago? There isn't good information on this, necessarily. I would hesitate to say we're more secure. But I think we better understand a lot of the problems, I'm willing to say. Because we have various groups, and Red Hat is one of these and there are also various bug bounties that exist. There are security groups in places like Google that are doing a bunch of testing. There's all these organizations now that everybody is using open source, they're starting to give back. I suspect that as long as things continue the way they are, the future will be better than the past but, of course, it's up to us to make sure we get there because if people stop contributing back to the community, the power of open source is lost. That's the key here around security. You can't just take it and use it. You have to be involved and be a part of it.

InfoWorld: What's next for securing open source software?

Bressers: The big thing that's happening now is this concept of open source needs to be part of your supply chain. The message is starting to get out there, but I don't feel like it's where it needs to be yet because I still think there are a lot of organizations that are treating GitHub or Stack Overflow as a bunch of free software they can just take and that's fine, you never have to worry about it again. But it's not like that. My comparison here would be, what do you think would happen if a car manufacturer literally found some parts in the warehouse? They didn't know where they came from, they didn't know who made them but they're like, "They look great, let's just use those." That would end horribly. That's kind of where we're at in some of these instances where you've got developers just like, "That looks great, I'll take that." We're reaching a point now where we need organizations using this stuff to start understanding their supply chain with open source as part of it.

This story, "Open source users: Its time for extreme vetting" was originally published by InfoWorld.

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Open source users: It's time for extreme vetting | CIO - CIO

Lessons from the rise and fall of an open source project – CIO

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Eight years ago, the CyanogenMod project exploded onto the mobile device software scene. The Android-based open source mobile operating system quickly caught the attention of developers, Android fans and investors, and attracted interest from tech giants including Microsoft and Google. But at the end of last year the project imploded spectacularly. Today the CyanogenMod project is no more, but the arc of its story offers fascinating insight into the world of open source software development.

The project started out innocently enough following the discovery, in 2008, of a way to root mobile phones running Google's Android operating system, allowing modified firmware to be installed on rooted devices. One such piece of firmware was created by a developer called Steve Kondik, whose online handle was Cyanogen a colorless toxic gas made by oxidizing hydrogen cyanide. The modified firmware was known as CyanogenMod.

[ What CIOs don't know about open source software ]

Developers are able to create modified firmware because Android is, at its heart, an open source operating system, and pretty soon CyanogenMod became a project with a community around it. At the center of this was a core group of software hackers who became known as Team Douche. The project was hosted on GitHub, had regular releases, and versions were built to support an increasing number of Android devices.

One hiccup the open source project encountered at the tail end of 2009 was a potentially serious legal problem. Android firmware for most mobile devices includes the open source Android operating system as well as a group of proprietary Google apps (collectively known as GApps), including Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, and Google's Android app store (which is now called Google Play.) Google licenses these GApps for inclusion in vendors' firmware, but they are not freely available for inclusion in modified firmware such as CyanogenMod, as Google explained in a blog post at the time.

As a result, Kondik received a "cease and desist" letter from Google asking that the GApps be removed from CyanogenMod. That was a serious problem because the ability to run those GApps is a significant part of the attraction of Android. Without them, and particularly without Google's app store, an alternative firmware distribution is severely diminished.

It's worth considering at this point that Google's approach to Android isnt unique, although it is slightly different. Many commercial organizations offer free open source software and also sell a product based on that open source code that includes proprietary add-ons that extend the functionality, as well as additional services, such as support. A good example is Kubernetes, a Google-incubated container management and orchestration tool that forms the basis of many commercially available container management systems such as CoreOS's Tectonic platform. Where the situation with Android differs is that Google doesnt sell its GApps to monetize Android. (Instead, it uses Gmail and YouTube to generate advertising revenue, for example.)

In the face of criticism from developers and others in the open source community, Google changed tack and said that the proprietary GApps could be backed up from a phone's original firmware and then reinstalled with CyanogenMod. (Today, an app called OpenGApps, which, ironically, is available on Google Play, makes it easy to install GApps onto a modified firmware that does not include them.)

Then, in 2013, Kondik decided a change of approach was needed for CyanogenMod to continue to thrive. He started a venture-backed business he called Cyanogen Inc. as a vehicle to commercialize CyanogenMod. Seventeen employees were based at two offices: one in Seattle and the other in Palo Alto.

Kondik outlined his motivation in a blog post:

"What we have with CM (CyanogenMod) could not have happened any other way a huge community came together and created something awesome that did not exist before, because it was needed."

"We have had some serious growing pains though, and scaling with this kind of growth has been incredibly hard. What could we build if all the barriers were removed and we could dedicate our time to it?"

The backer that put up $7 million in the Series A funding round for Cyanogen Inc. was Benchmark Capital, a company that also backed such well-known open source companies as Red Hat and HortonWorks, a company that sells a commercial version of the open source big data analysis project Hadoop.

Now, Red Hat and HortonWorks appear to have built thriving businesses based around open source software, but it's not clear that Cyanogen Inc. was able to generate significant revenues in the first months of its existence from its commercial product, Cyanogen OS. This was a firmware distribution based on CyanogenMod but with additional proprietary apps such as Google Play and a collection of its own apps including AudioFX, Gallery, Theme Chooser and Themes Store, known collectively as C-Apps.

That's despite CyanogenMod boasting a user base in excess of 10 million and forging licensing deals with Chinese phone makers Xiaomi, OPPO, and OnePlus (which is connected to OPPO) to use Cyanogen technology. Now here's where things get slightly bizarre. In October 2014 it was reported that Cyanogen Inc. had rebuffed overtures from Google about a possible acquisition. Instead, Cyanogen was valuing itself at close to $1 billion and was seeking investment from major tech firms.

Then, at the start of 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft was about to invest in Cyanogen, leading to speculation that Microsoft was planning to abandon its failing Windows-based mobile platform and use something based on CyanogenOS as the basis for possible new Android-based Microsoft phones.

This never happened, but Microsoft did launch an initiative to get its applications and services running on Android, and in April 2015 Cyanogen announced a partnership with Microsoft which involved Microsoft apps and services being integrated into Cyanogen OS. Later, (following the 12.11 update) Cyanogen OS started suggesting Microsoft apps and services in the "open with" menu when the operating system encountered file types it couldn't already handle.

In the meantime, the partnership with OnePlus evaporated due to a reported clash of personalities at the two companies, as well as a fiasco in India caused by Cyanogen Inc. signing an exclusive deal for the sub-continent with low-cost smartphone manufacturer MicroMax. This resulted in sales of OnePlus handsets powered by Cyanogen OS being temporarily banned in India.

But in 2016 things rapidly went downhill. In the middle of the year a large number of staff were made redundant, and the Seattle office was closed. CEO Kirt McMaster stepped down, and Kondik was removed from the board. In November he officially left the company, and has not responded to a request for comment for this article.

Finally, on December 23, Cyanogen Inc. released a curt notice that read: "As part of the ongoing consolidation of Cyanogen, all services and Cyanogen-supported nightly builds will be discontinued no later than 12/31/16. The open source project and source code will remain available for anyone who wants to build CyanogenMod personally."

The result is that CyanogenMod as an active project is no more in name at least. The good news for users is that they have not been completely abandoned, because it is a simple matter to switch to an actively maintained alternative firmware or a device's stock firmware. (That contrasts favorably with the situation that can arise if a business relies on an open source project when the sponsor walks away and no obvious alternatives exist.)

[ What CIOs need to know about open source forking ]

Of course in that situation it is always possible for a company to take the source code and take on the development task itself (or pay someone else to do so), or hope that someone else will take over the project.

And that, in fact, is what has happened with CyanogenMod. The code has been forked and a new project, called LineageOS, has been started by some in the CyanogenMod community to continue the CyanogenMod project under a new name, independent of Cyanogen Inc.

Continuing a project after it is abandoned by a commercial organization is not without precedent. The LibreOffice project was forked off when OpenOffice was abandoned by Oracle; SuiteCRM emerged after SugarCRM stopped releasing open source versions of its CRM product; and Nautilus (now Gnome Files), the file manager for the Gnome Linux desktop environment, is still thriving long after Eazel went out of business. And something similar happened when MySQL was acquired by Oracle, but in that case it was the developers who abandoned Oracle rather than the other way around, preferring to continue a parallel project called MariaDB.

What does the LineageOS project hope to achieve by continuing the CyanogenMod work? It's hard to say for sure as a request for information received no response at the time of writing.

One problem that the LineageOS may face is that CyanogenMod was a very complex project, and one that had the benefit of at least a proportion of the estimated $100 million in venture funding. That means that it may struggle unless it finds a commercial organization to sponsor it, says Greg Soper, CEO of SalesAgility, a company that backs the SuiteCRM open source project. "You need expertise, and the will and desire to continue a project (after it is abandoned)," says Soper. "But can a project like LineageOS continue without a commercial organization to help develop it? I have my doubts. I think that the LineageOS project may wither on the vine unless people put money into it."

Can a project like Lineage survive and thrive with nothing more than a dedicated community of enthusiasts? Time will tell.

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Lessons from the rise and fall of an open source project - CIO

Open source code could save money, spur tech growth – Northside Sun

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oxford Entrepreneur Harley Garrett has an intriguing idea that deserves consideration by our state leaders: Use a portion of Mississippis technology budget to promote university-based start-ups using open source code.

Mississippi spends $250 million a year on software to run its government. Much of this software is proprietary code with big national companies. We get locked in to the software. Switching becomes impossible. Steep price increases follow. Taxpayers lose.

Garrett proposes a better way. Working with our university computer departments, the Legislature should create a Center for Collaborative Software Development. A portion of our state IT spending should be set aside to support this. Student teams could design and compete for state software contracts using open source under university supervision. The winners could go on to found successful software companies based in Mississippi.

By using open source software, competition will always be assured and state agencies will save money. The money would stay in the state and fund Mississippi technology companies that could then expand nationwide.

We have brilliant computer gurus at our top universities. But the employment opportunities are greatly limited in Mississippi. So we suffer brain drain. Our best students have to leave the state and work elsewhere for somebody else. Imagine if we could harness this talent, fund Mississippi-based software companies, and lower Mississippis massive and inflating IT expenditures all at the same time.

This would require cooperation of state and university leaders, but it can be done with leadership. Other states have done this. We should too.

In the early days of software, everything was proprietary. The software company owned the code. Once you got locked in, it was almost impossible to switch without massive re-training costs. This allowed big proprietary software companies to impose steep price increases.

That situation has been changing with the advent of open source software. Open source software is not proprietary. A new company can acquire the code and compete with the old company. The result is more innovation at a much lower cost.

Last year the federal government began requiring 20 percent of new software to be open source. The policy statement states, This collaborative atmosphere makes it easier to conduct software peer reviews and security testing, to reuse existing solutions and share technical knowledge.

I can give you a personal example. Emmerich Newspapers used to buy proprietary software for our websites. Every time we wanted a minor change, we had to pay through the nose. We had big annual software fees. Innovation was slow.

Several years ago, an open source website software came into existence. Its called Drupal. The software is free. It is modular. We can buy features from thousands of programmers and just plug them into the

Drupal framework. We own our own servers and have complete control. Competition is maximized. Innovation is maximized. Costs are minimized.

Even better, we can now employ Mississippi programmers instead of paying some big out-of-state company. Its a win-win.

This same scenario can be played out on a gigantic scale using the $250 million Mississippi IT budget. Top computer programmers at our universities can compete to write state software as part of their education. Upon graduation they can bid and win state contracts and found new companies. They wont have to leave the state to get a job.

The first step would be for the Legislature to pass enacting legislation to establish this collaborative center. The center should include the computer department heads of our major universities, Mississippi software experts and state agency heads. State agencies could be directed to allocate 10 percent of their software budget to this collaborative open source software initiative.

All software budgets would be open source. Special efforts would be made to link our skilled programmers on university campuses to the tasks at hand. It would be an incubator.

Virginia offers Mississippi a model. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership coordinates with the states 21 two-year and four-year colleges to promote technology start-ups.

Oregon State is another leader. Its Open Source Lab is a nonprofit organization working for the advancement of open source technologies.

Its website states: The lab, in partnership with the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University, provides hosting for more than 160 projects, including those of worldwide leaders like the Apache Software Foundation, the Linux Foundation and Drupal.

Together, the OSLs hosted sites deliver nearly 430 terabytes of information to people around the world every month. The most active organization of its kind, the OSL offers world-class hosting services, professional software development and on-the-ground training for promising students interested in open source management and programming.

By enabling innovative projects and distributing software to millions of users globally, the lab is working to accelerate the growth of high-impact open source software projects and promote an open source culture of accessibility and increased productivity around the world. The lab partners with industry leaders and policy makers to bring open source technologies to new sectors, including education, health and government.

I challenge our university and state leaders to create a similar open source lab in Mississippi, working in conjunction with our state agencies.

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Open source code could save money, spur tech growth - Northside Sun

Cryptocurrency wallet KeepKey adds Dash to roster – EconoTimes

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Tuesday, February 7, 2017 6:18 AM UTC

KeepKey, a Washington-based bitcoin hardware wallet provider, announced that Dash cryptocurrency is now in public beta on its wallet.

With this addition, KeepKey users can safely store Dash on the device and also can do that with KeepKey client itself. Dash will be joining the likes of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Dogecoin and the cryptocurrency stands in the seventh position among blockchain assets by market cap.

KeepKeys support for Dash also extends to ShapeShift. With the addition of Dash, users can now exchange 20 unique currency pairs in the KeepKey client, the announcement stated.

The KeepKey client will open a new stand-alone window that offers more accessible and user-friendly interface. Unlike the drop-down window, this window can be moved or resized.

Users can download Dash public beta from their chrome web store and must make sure to uninstall or disable any existing KeepKey Chrome Apps or Extensions prior to installing.

The bitcoin hardware wallet stated that it will be continuing to expand its first-class security platform to the digital assets based on the users' demand.

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Cryptocurrencies: Who Outperformed Bitcoin in January? – Eastern Daily News

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To most people especially those not familiar with other altcoins when they come across the word cryptocurrency, they only think of Bitcoin. Well, this is understandable because Bitcoin is the most popular and the most commonly used cryptocurrency. Since its introduction eight years ago, Bitcoin has been growing at a rapid rate and iswidely referred to as the father of all cryptocurrencies. Other cryptocurrencies have been developed since then, though most of them are not well known. They are really providing real competition for Bitcoin. All these altcoins want a share of the market and, just like Bitcoin, use the blockchain platform.

There are hundreds of cryptocurrencies out there, so its almost impossible to know them all, but there are those that cant be ignored due to their increased number of users and their increased growth in value. Bitcoin has been doing fine so far this month (February 2017) with its price currently above $1,000. In January, however, things were not so good. At one time in January, its price dropped from $1,200, to about $987, in a matter of hours. According to this article, Bitcoin was able to pick itself up because it started the month at $963 and ended at $970 and has continued to grow in February.

Bithubprepared a list of the 20 best performing cryptocurrencies in the month of January 2017. As you can see on the list, Bitcoin performed okay. Looking at the best performers, starting with CounterParty (XCP); its an asset issuing platform. It announced last year that all the functionality of Ethereum will be available on the Bitcoin blockchain. This extended Bitcoins capabilities to include smart contracts. This cryptocurrency gained 70 percent in a month. Moving on to the second best Cryptocurrency performer in January Bitcrystals (BCY). This cryptocurrency acts as the currency in EverdreamSofts free-to-play game mobile game Spells of Genesis. This is an arcade-style game that embraces the blockchain technology in its story line and its economy. Bitcrystals gained 65 percent in January.

MaidSafeCoin (MAID) is the currency behind the MaidSafe network. In this network users can do a lot of things through a decentralized mesh network of computers, which includes creating and hosting websites and also storing private data. MaidSafeCoin grew by 47 percent in January. There are other Cryptocurrencies that were left off thislistdue to their smaller market share, but rose significantly on small volumes hece are worth mentioning. Pascal Coin (PASC) which grew by 10,765 percent, Byteball (GBYTE) grew by 244 percent and Golem (GNT) which grew by 192 percent.

Looking at how the fiat currency, in this case the USD, performed that month; as we have seen in recent years since the introduction of cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies cant match the cryptocurrencies in terms of growth. This is because, unlike digital currencies, they are affected by factors such as inflation and political developments. The US Dollar is reportedto have dropped by 2.6 percent in the month of January.

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Cryptocurrencies: Who Outperformed Bitcoin in January? - Eastern Daily News

Obama may have commuted Chelsea Manning’s sentence but his legacy on whistleblowers is not one of clemency – Open Democracy

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Obama should be remembered for his persecution of whistleblowers and presiding over a culture of intimidation. Its a legacy that Trumps administration will happily build on in the years to come.

Xinhua/SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved.In one of his final acts as president, Barack Obama appeared to show some mercy by commuting Chelsea Mannings sentence. The US army private turned whistleblower was responsible for leaking classified military and diplomatic material more than 700,000 documents and videos to WikiLeaks, who in turn worked with news organisations to coordinate widespread publication throughout 2010. But the fact remains thatObama has persecuted more whistleblowersunder the Espionage Act of 1917compared with allprevious administrations.

Whilst Mannings release in 2017 is of course better than 2045, as her original sentence of 35 years demanded, she still served longer than most other whistleblowers. Indeed the average sentence for leaking classified material in the US is typically one to three years. In contrast, Manning spent more than three years behind bars just awaiting the start of her military trial, and then another four years after her conviction.

Manning has served in abhorrent conditions, including solitary confinement for 23 hours a day for a period of 11 months. Following a 14-month investigation into the treatment of Manning, UN special rapporteur, Juan Mendez,concluded the conditions she endured could have constituted torture. Imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime, he asserted is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity as well as of his presumption of innocence.

The US military for a long time refused to accept Mannings gender dysphoria and request for gender realignment therapy. Being a transgender inmate held in the mens military prison at Fort Leavenworth, she attempted to take her own life on two occasions in 2016. In an interview published only days before the commuting of her sentence, shedescribed her current situation:

I need help. I am living through a cycle of anxiety, anger, hopelessness, loss, and depression. I cannot focus. I cannot sleep. I attempted to take my own life.

In an understatement unbecoming of the great orator,Obama proclaimed: "Chelsea Manning has served a tough prison sentence." Moreover, he felt very comfortable that justice has been served because Manning had indeed repented and served time.

Of course by commuting the sentence rather than pardoning her, Obama ensures Mannings conviction remains on record. She was also demoted and dishonourably discharged from the army, both of which also remain unchanged.

It is important to remember that those admissions, of course, came in a court where she faced an even harsher sentence: the Justice Department was seeking 60 years imprisonment. Because the case went to military tribunal, Manning was also unable to plead a public interest defence. That is, using the fact that her revelations uncovered actual wrongdoing as a mitigating factor in her trial or even sentencing. Eventually she wasacquitted of aiding the enemy, but convicted of espionage violations.

Far from signalling the end to an era of a vendetta against whistleblowers,as the Icelandic Pirate Party's Birgitta Jonsdottir hopes, US policy on whistleblowers is likely to persist. Firstly,Obama made a strong suggestion to this effectwhen he announced the commuting of Mannings sentence:

What I can say broadly is that, in this new cyber age, we're going to have to make sure that we continually work to find the right balance of accountability and openness and transparency that is the hallmark of our democracy, but also recognize that there are adversaries and bad actors out there who want to use that same openness in ways that hurt us whether that's in trying to commit financial crimes, or trying to commit acts of terrorism, or folks who want to interfere with our elections.

Secondly, the administration also sought to differentiate between the pleas of Manning and Snowden, arguing that Mannings self-reproach meant she should be treated differently. Only days before Obamas announcement, White House press secretary Josh Earnest claimed there was a stark difference between the cases of Manning and Snowden:

Chelsea Manning is somebody who went through the military criminal justice process, was exposed to due process, was found guilty, was sentenced for her crimes, and she acknowledged wrongdoing. Mr Snowden fled into the arms of an adversary, and has sought refuge in a country that most recently made a concerted effort to undermine confidence in our democracy.

Though of course the alleged fleeing into the arms of an adversary, was a direct consequence of the US withdrawing his passport, as Snowden was quick to point out:

The message from the US here is not that whistleblowing is a legitimate last resort, but that they will prosecute and punish.

Thirdly, we already have an indication that these policies against whistleblowers are likely to persist or even deteriorate under president Trump and a House/Senate dominated by the Republican Party. His spokesperson,Sean Spicer claimed Trump wastroubled by this action:

"It's disappointing and it sends a very troubling message when it comes to the handling of classified information and the consequences for those who leaked information that threatened the safety of our nation."

House Speaker Paul Ryan waseven more unequivocal:

"This is just outrageous. Chelsea Manning's treachery put American lives at risk and exposed some of our nation's most sensitive secrets. President Obama now leaves in place a dangerous precedent that those who compromise our national security won't be held accountable for their crimes."

RepublicanSenator John McCain also claimedObamas decision was "a grave mistake that I fear will encourage further acts of espionage and undermine military discipline."

When president Trump eventually commented on the case, he naturally did so via his personal Twitter account incorrectly labelling Manning a traitor, since she was found not guilty of aiding the enemy:

In the past Trump has expressed similar disdain for Edward Snowden, tweeting (of course) in 2014 that he should be executed:

The first victim of Trumps presidency is unlikely to be Snowden, however, as his Russian visa has recently been extended for three years. Instead we are likely to see a steady dismantling of rights and infrastructure designed to protect whistleblowers. One such mechanism was The Office of the Whistleblower which the Securities and Exchange Commission was forced to establish by the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, following the financial crisis. The whistleblower who knows of possible securities law violations can be among the most powerful weapons in the law enforcement arsenal of the Securities and Exchange Commission, it proclaims on its website.

President Trump has surrounded himself with elite bankers, including Jamie Dimon (the CEO of JPMorgan) and Gary Cohn (former Goldman Sachs president). It should come as no surprise then that one of the many executive orders he has signed in the first weeks of his presidency, is to review the Dodd-Frank Act by instigating a review of how financial markets are regulated. Whilst there is little detail about how this will be achieved, The Office of the Whistleblower will likely be on a target list of regulations to be abolished.

Obamas legacy on whistleblowers is not one of clemency, compassion, leniency or even mercy. Rather president Obama should be remembered for his persecution of whistleblowers and presiding over a culture of intimidation against those who seek to uncover wrongdoing and to hold power to account. If their current rhetoric and early actions is anything to go by, president Trump and his administration will happily build on Obamas legacy to continue persecution of whistleblowers for years to come.

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Obama may have commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence but his legacy on whistleblowers is not one of clemency - Open Democracy

‘Imago’ wins Edward Snowden Award in Berlin – Inquirer.net

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Ruby Ruiz in Imago

After winning in Toronto last year, Filipino filmmaker Raymund Ribay Gutierrezs Imago received another prize in Berlin, Germany. Imago won the Edward Snowden Award at the 15th International Festival Signes de Nuit or the Internationales Festival Zeichen der Nacht. The jury commended the short film for introducing [viewers] to the unknown world of a single mother with a peculiar job.

The Snowden award honors films which offer sensible, unknown information, facts and phenomena of eminent importance.

Since its inception, the Paris-based fest has screened a thousand films in 33 countries. The films screened in the fest reflect new views, original imagery and a critical approach to the crucial points of modern human existence.

It validates our work, [and tells us] that we did well, Gutierrez told the Inquirer. I dont spend too much time thinking about awards because it will only get in my way and fuel frustration. Id rather turn my passion for filmmaking into an obligation. BAYANI SAN DIEGO JR.

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'Imago' wins Edward Snowden Award in Berlin - Inquirer.net


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