Bonum Certa Men Certa

Red Hat Joins the Joke Which is Amazon's 'Secure' Federal 'Cloud'

Summary: Another Red Hat move which puts citizens' data in the hands of unaccountable spies and their corporate partners/accomplices

Amazon, which is a very special partner of the CIA* (we gave dozens of references before in order to highlight this), has already earned Ubuntu some tough words and a snub from the EFF, FSF, as well as many others (nongroups). For Red Hat to play buddies with Amazon makes little or no sense. Amazon not only does many disgusting things (to customers, staff, externalities) but it also pays Microsoft for GNU/Linux, including RHEL. Like with Azure (as we explained repeatedly before), putting any computational resource on Amazon 'clouds' is like handing it all over to the NSA (for surveillance, interception, interference, censorship, modification leading to framing, and so on). Red Hat is said to have joined some nonsense programme that involves AWS [1-4], marketed as "secure" and "federal". Who is this secure from? The Federal government of the United States? Surely not, unless of course you happen to be the government itself. The whole thing sounds so dodgy and it won't give Red Hat much credibility now that Red Hat's relationship with the NSA [1, 2, 3] is debated in some circles (it was last mentioned in an article from Sam Varghese earlier this week).



Making things even worse, Red Hat makes an approach [5] towards something which resembles Mono and promotes Microsoft APIs. This is not a wise move, for reasons that we are going to deal with in the next post.

Red Hat's CEO speaking of himself as a "great leader" (without saying so directly) in Red Hat's self-serving Web site that's now treated as a news site by Google News [6]. Some say that Red Hat is a one-of-a-kind [7], but if Red Hat leans towards the NSA, puts customers' data on Microsoft-taxed and NSA-eavesdropped 'clouds', hires executive staff from Microsoft and even promotes/spreads .NET and Hyper-V (which provides an NSA back door into GNU/Linux guests through Windows hosts**), then maybe it's better to promote alternatives to Red Hat as a flag bearer and GNU/Linux leader. Red Hat recently found itself in somewhat of a scandal involving OpenStack [8-10] while it also formed OpenStack partnerships [11-15]. Red Hat really can do and should do more to embrace and disseminate freedom, not cages like AWS. Red Hat's middleware business is a good example of this [16,17] as business (as in revenue/sales [18], like IBM's) becomes the top priority, even when Red Hat makes public appearances [19,20].

Perhaps what we need now is more strength for community projects like Arch and Debian. They, unlike Red Hat, don't share a bed with malicious companies that violate users' rights. ____ * The CIA was, just earlier this week, found to be illegally spying on government officials that act as watchdogs.

** Proprietary virtualisation software is the issue here. VMware is not much better because it's run by former Microsoft executives (Microsoft is the top NSA partner) and is owned by EMC, which also runs RSA, the NSA's notorious back doors partner.

Related/contextual items from the news:


  1. AWS launches Red Hat Enterprise GNU/Linux in AWS GovCloud (US)


  2. Red Hat Enterprise GNU/Linux now on Amazon's GovCloud


  3. Red Hat Courts Government Customers with GNU/Linux for AWS GovCloud


  4. Red Hat GNU/Linux now available on Amazon's secure federal cloud
    If you're a government worker and have been wanting to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux securely on your Amazon cloud, it's your lucky day. The popular open-source operating system is finally available on Amazon Web Services.


  5. Red Hat brings Microsoft .NET Apps to its OpenShift cloud
    Uhuru was founded just over two years ago by veteran ex-Microsoft executives: former vice president Jawad Khaki and former general manager Jawaid Ekram. They are self-proclaimed experts in bringing Windows to Open Source PaaS.


  6. Great leaders are comfortable with who they are
    Over the last 25 years of my career—from serving as a partner at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), to my time at Delta Air Lines, to my current role as president and CEO of Red Hat—I've been exposed to my fair share of leaders. I've learned that leaders and leadership styles can vary greatly depending on the company culture, industry and size, but there's one commonality I've noticed among all of them: to be effective, leaders must be respected.


  7. A Formula for Launching the RedHats of the Future
    The bottom line, therefore, is that in order for the model promoted by Levine to succeed, it’s predicated on the existence of underlying projects that achieve the balance of benefits that I alluded to above. Without the right scope of opportunity, sufficient success in recruitment, and abundant skill in execution, there will be no more RedHats emerging from this new model than the last. But where this methodology is understood and followed, not only will such opportunities emerge, but they will do so with far greater predictability than in the past.


  8. Piston OpenStack 3.0 Arrives, Focused on Private Clouds


  9. GNU/Linux Ebb & Flow, Red Hat Oops, and Chakra Reviewed
    There's rarely a dull moment when looking through Linux newsfeeds. Today we find Jesse Smith has reviewed Chakra GNU/Linux 2014.02. LinuxInsider.com looks at why distributions gain popularity then disappear. And finally, The Register covers a bit of convention confusion between Red Hat and cloud newcomer Piston.


  10. The importance of a community-focused mindset
    Piston, an Openstack-in-a-box vendor[1] are a sponsor of the Red Hat[2] Summit this year. Last week they briefly ceased to be for no publicly stated reason, although it's been sugggested that this was in response to Piston winning a contract that Red Hat was also bidding on. This situation didn't last for long - Red Hat's CTO tweeted that this was an error and that Red Hat would pay Piston's sponsorship fee for them.


  11. Red Hat Increases its Focus on OpenStack Partnerships
    Red Hat originally made a name for itself as the only U.S.-based public company exclusively focused on open source, as it has proved that its Linux-focused strategy could be very profitable. But the company's future is increasingly being tied to cloud computing and OpenStack in particular. This week, Red Hat marks two years of collaborating with contributors and developers on key OpenStack.org projects "to bring OpenStack from a project to a product."
  12. Red Hat Enterprise GNU/Linux OpenStack Platform Leveraged by Alcatel-Lucent, CloudBand â„¢ as Part of Its Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Platform
  13. Alcatel-Lucent to deploy Red Hat Enterprise GNU/Linux OpenStack Platform


  14. Alcatel-Lucent deploys Red Hat Enterprise GNU/Linux platform
    Red Hat, a provider of open source solutions announced that Alcatel-Lucent deployed Red Hat Enterprise GNU/Linux OpenStack platform based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), as the common platform for its Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) solution, CloudBand.

    "Alcatel-Lucent specifically chose Red Hat Enterprise GNU/Linux OpenStack Platform for use in managing CloudBand Nodes, the turn-key, all-in-one compute, storage and network node system that interfaces with the CloudBand Management System, along with any other OpenStack-enabled nodes," the company said.


  15. Alcatel-Lucent Embraces OpenStack, as Network Function Virtualization Efforts Expand
    A key part of the overall solution is Alcatel-Lucent's Cloudband technology which is the company's NFV platform that provides the server, storage and networking infrastructure with the Cloudband Node. Cloudband also includes management and orchestration functionality to deploy and manage network functions deployed on the infrastructure.


  16. Red Hat Launches a 3-fer for Enterprise BPM Users
    Red Hat's new JBoss BPM Suite is in part the result of its 2012 acquisition of Polymita, noted 451 Research analyst Carl Lehmann. The addition of that technology and other new features brings Red Hat's BPM offering on par with other BPM suites and "gives Red Hat some competitive differentiation in the market," he said. "I think they did a pretty good job there."


  17. Red Hat's Polymita acquisition to spawn new products
    That’s according to a Red Hat spokesperson who gave me some additional insight into a press conference that the Raleigh-based open source software company will hold on Tuesday at 11 a.m. to announce new products in middleware.


  18. Red Hat Executives Named 2014 CRN Channel Chiefs


  19. Red Hat to Webcast Middleware Press Conference on March 4


  20. Videos From Red Hat's DevConf.cz Conference Now Online
    Videos from the DevConf.cz conference that happened earlier this month in Brno, Czech Republic, are now available online from the Red Hat focused event.


Recent Techrights' Posts

Windows in Åland Islands: From 100% to Less Than Half
Åland Islands lost the sense of urgency to move to GNU/Linux
Not Just Slow News But Also Late News (Julian Assange Landing in Thailand)
Why did AP take so long (nearly a week) to release these?
[Meme] Smart Alec Poettering
How many Microsofters can the Debian Project withstand?
Getting Rid of Microsoft Does Not Go Far Enough
Microsoft already has many problems. One day Microsoft won't exist anymore. But that does not guarantee users' freedom.
Alyssa Rosenzweig's LibrePlanet Talk About Freeing the Apple GPU
Alyssa Rosenzweig is the graphics witch behind the reverse-engineered drivers for the Apple GPU. She previously led Panfrost, the free drivers for Arm Mali GPUs powering devices like the Pinebook Pro. She graduated in 2023 with a Computer Science degree from the University of Toronto and now writes free software full-time.
Links 30/06/2024: LLMs Under Fire and Dictatorship of the Old
Links for the day
[Meme] Walking Outside the Guardrails of the Walled Gardens Built by Monopolies
So-called "advertiser-unfriendly" material was never a problem for Wikileaks
 
200 This Week
Monday started with 40 articles/pages and this is #200
Press Complicity and Public Apathy All Along Enabled 14 Years of Illegal, Arbitrary Detention and Coercion Into Plea Bargain of Julian Assange on Brink of Death
They basically blackmailed him into letting the US 'win' the argument
At the End Journalism a Crime (If It Involves Accessing or Gaining Access to Documents Marked "Confidential" or "Classified" by Those Looking to Hide Their Misconduct/Crimes)
At least in the US, especially where the imperialism is at stake
Links 30/06/2024: Tensions in Korea and Japan, Criminalisation of Sleeping Outdoors
Links for the day
100% Slop/Spam From linuxsecurity.com
This is the kind of stuff that's killing the Web faster
Gemini Links 30/06/2024: Murdoch and Ideal OS
Links for the day
In the First 6 Months of 2024 Thailand Moved to GNU/Linux, Not to Windows Vista 11
maybe users moved from Vista 10 and 11 to GNU/Linux, seeing where Microsoft was heading with forced hardware "upgrades"
Eko K. A. Owen, New Outreach and Communications Coordinator for the FSF
Nice to see many new additions to the FSF's team
Microsoft Has Slaves and Enablers, Not Partners
Obligatory meme too
Tobias Platen Covered Freedom-To-Play Games in LibrePlanet 2024
Freedom-To-Play games using Taler
[Meme] Opening a 'Webapp' With 'Only' 4 GB of RAM
Until 2020 none of my PCs ever had more than 2 GB of RAM
Destination 'Five Percent'
We reckon GNU/Linux can break the 5% barrier some time by the end of this year, even without counting Chromebooks
A Crisis of Online Journalism
Almost a week ago a journalist was forced to plead guilty for an act of journalism
Germany One of Many Countries Where Microsoft's Bing Lost Market Share After All That LLM Nonsense (Bing Chat and Further Rebrands/Renames)
openai.com traffic plunged 60% last month
Microsoft’s Latest Antitrust Scrutiny
4 new stories
Microsoft Layoffs, Mass Plagiarism, and More
outrage included
GNU/Linux Climbed 0.25% This Month (in statCounter)
Around midday on Tuesday we'll start seeing preliminary data for July
Ilya Gulko Introduces Pollyanna
"Pollyanna is a web framework that makes it easy to create your own libre social space, such as a social network or blog."
'FSFE': Underage Labour, GAFAM Fronting, and Identity Theft to Undermine the FSF's Current Fundraiser
looking to raise funds at the same time as the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 29, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, June 29, 2024
Links 29/06/2024: Astronauts at Risk, Ukraine Updates
Links for the day
Fedora and Red Hat Leftovers
mostly redhat.com
Microsoft is Now Googlebombing or Spamming 'Open Source' and 'Linux' to Promote Proprietary Surveillance, Azure
Notice the title and the image, what's being promoted etc.
Seychelles: GNU/Linux Doing OK
Seychelles cannot be considered poor
This War Crime Footage, Nothing Political Per Se, Is What They Made Julian Assange Plead Guilty To (War Criminals Not Convicted, Only Those Who Expose Them)
Wikileaks' Julian Assange: Exposing the US Military Crimes
Gemini Protocol Isn't Even Remotely "Dead"
"Lupa knows of 505,000 (half a million!) working Gemini URLs at present, up from about 425,000 this time last year"
About 10 New Free Software Foundation (FSF) Members Per Day
The total changed from 46 to 47 while typing the article
20 Years Passed, Let's Go Even Faster Now
We are hoping to bring more original stories
Vista 11 Adoption Unusually Low in Germany and It's Going Down, Not Up
This is not happening only in Germany
Kevin Korte on Computers Being Allowed to Make Decisions Based on Cryptic Algorithms and Proprietary/Secret Data
It uses buzzwords where none are needed
[Meme] Garbage In, Garbage Out (linuxsecurity.com)
It is neither Linux nor security, just chatbot-generated slop
Microsoft-Invaded CISA Spreads Anti-Free Software FUD (as If Proprietary Software Has No Memory Safety Issues), Brittany Day Uses Chatbots to Amplify and Permutate the Microsoft FUD
linuxsecurity.com became an anti-Linux spam site
Microsoft Laying Off Staff in an Act of Retaliation and Union-Busting
retaliatory layoffs at Microsoft
Gemini Links 29/06/2024: Content Drowning in 'Goo' and LLM Slop
Links for the day
Windows Lost Almost 92% Market Share in Egypt
From over 99% to just over 7%
In Ecuador, GNU/Linux Adoption Surged From Under 1% to Over 4% in About 3 Years
Not even counting Chromebooks
LibrePlanet: Cultivating Backups (of Recordings)
an appeal to recover some of these talks
Microsoft/Windows Machines Are Turned Off (or Windows Deleted/Decommissioned) in Web Servers, as the "Market Share" Collapse Continues
Taking full history into account, this is a decrease of over 90% in some cases
Corwin Brust Hosting Freedom: A Behind-the-scenes Tour With the GNU Savannah Hackers
"the "smiling faces" behind it."
Android at 90% or More in Chad
Windows below 2%
David Wilson: Cultivating a Welcoming Free Software Community That Lasts
"a feeling of shared ownership for all users."
Julian Assange Might Continue Wikileaks, But Certainly Not Yet (Recovery Time Needed)
And probably at a symbolic capacity only
Bringing in 12 Santas and Taking 13 Out (Old Interview With Julian Assange)
Julian Assange's life inside the Ecuadorian embassy
Neil Plotnick on GNU/Linux in the High School Classroom
uploaded to the LibrePlanet instance of MediaGoblin
Asia Appears to be Fastest to Adopt GNU/Linux
the home of a considerable majority of the world's population
Alexandre Oliva's LibrePlanet 2024 Talk About "Software Enshittification"
in spite of technical difficulties encountered while recording
What They Used to Do With Mono They Now Do With Systemd (Lower and Deeper Down Than Userspace)
Now we have a project started primarily by Red Hat (and managed by Microsoft GitHub, which is proprietary) being managed by Microsoft and primarily serving Microsoft and IBM
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 28, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, June 28, 2024
Links 28/06/2024: Kangaroo Courts and Patents Spam, EFF Still Fighting for CPC's TikTok (a Digital Weapon)
Links for the day
Links 28/06/2024: Overton window and Polarization
Links for the day
[Meme] In 50 Years...
Microsoft's Vista 11 will take 50 years to be fully adopted
Only About 1 in 8 Russian Windows Users is Using Vista 11
it looks like over the past 12 months Vista 11 hardly grew and it remains very low at around 12% of Windows usage in Russia
Links 28/06/2024: More Attacks on the Press, More Censorship in Russia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/06/2024: Christmas Prematurely, Self-hosting
Links for the day
IBM: So Long, Suckers. Your Free OS is Now Proprietary. Pay IBM or Else.
almost exactly a year after turning RHEL into proprietary software
Vista 11 is Doomed and Despite Lack of Adoption Microsoft Already Speaks of Vapourware ("12")
"Microsoft has pulled a Windows 11 update after users reported boot loops and startup failures."
ChromeOS Reaches Highest Share in Years at the World's Most Populous Nation, Windows Now at All-Time Low of 13%
We're talking about India today
[Video] "It Is Incredible That Julian Assange Survives"
There was a positive and mutual relationship between Wikileaks and Dr Jill Stein
Never Assume That Because the Law Exists the Powerful Will Follow the Law
Who's going to hold them accountable now?
Nearly a Month Has Passed and Nobody at the Debian Project Even Attempted to Explain What Seems Like Back-dooring of Debian (and Hundreds of Distros That Are Debian-Derived)
I can cynically guess that only matters when a user with a Chinese name does it
[Video] Julian Assange Explains Wikileaks' Logistics
predating indefinite detention
IBM Was Never the "Good Guy", Just a Self-Serving and Opportunistic Money- and Power-Hungry Monopolist, Living Off of Taxpayers' Money (Government Contracts)
The Nazi Party of Germany was its second-biggest client at one point and now it's looking to profit from the work of slaves
"I Hated Working at IBM. They Were the Most Unfriendly People."
Don't forget what Watson the son did to a poor woman on a plane
State of the News (and Depletion of Journalism Online, Not Just Offline)
Newspapers are not coming back and the Web is not coming back either
GNU/Linux Consolidates in North America
Android rising a lot this year, too
[Meme] More Monopolies Granted While Patent Examiners Die (Overworking for Less Compensation)
Work more; Get less
Staff Union of the EPO (SUEPO) is Taking the New Pension Scheme (NPS) to an International Tribunal (ILOAT)
SUEPO wants more EPO staff to participate in collective action
Stella Assange and the Legal Team Speak to the Media a Day After WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Arrives in Australia
Published yesterday by a number of mainstream publishers
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 27, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, June 27, 2024
RIP Daniel Bristot de Oliveira, Red Hat death
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock