

Open Source Warfare - nir
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/09/bazaar_dynamics.html

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stcredzero
Cute, but without centralized command and control, or at least some sort of
efficient communications, there's the potential to heightened vulnerability to
deception.

What if the successful attack opportunities are actually honeypots set up by
the adversary? Without a centralized command and control, there is no one with
a global viewpoint to do the fact-checking and correlation that could reveal
this.

Also, open source development depends on open and efficient communications.
The adversaries can download your releases and and browse your code
repository. It's an outside legal framework that protects OS from being co-
opted by proprietary actors. Also, very often with Open Source, it _doesn't
matter_ if the adversary knows everything you do. Their culture and their
legacy code base prevent them from exploiting any advantage the information
could give them. In the case of terrorism, these are not barriers. While
mainstream culture of the enemy might object, the enemy intelligence services
will have no compunctions. There is also no "operating system" for
intelligence information.

Lastly, Divide and Conquer has always been one of the best strategies of the
imperialists. Distributed cells come pre-divided! Witness the internecine
fighting of the various offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. (Who are
the intellectual forebears of Al Quaeda.)

The one thing you don't want to do: be the "Big Bad Enemy" that everyone must
unite to oppose. At least, don't do it too soon. Wear them down by playing one
side against the other and take them down piecemeal, until they realize they
must unite to win. (And by then, it's too late and you have them conveniently
all in one place. Ref: Julius Caesar in Gaul.)

~~~
nir
>What if the successful attack opportunities are actually honeypots set up by
the adversary?

How many examples of this have we seen in recent experience? (Post Troy ;))

>Distributed cells come pre-divided! Witness the internecine fighting of the
various offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

Good point - but I think we saw that they also have the ability to unite
temporarily to fight off a common enemy.

I think it's not unlike what we see in software: projects fork, groups have
internal conflicts, participants lose interest, but one in a hundred (or
thousand) will manage to produce something very effective with little
resources. It seems like Pakistan (nukes and all) is in danger of soon
becoming a major "success" story for this methodology.

