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The NSA's Openwashing Efforts Assisted by Apache

Summary: Apache's liaison with the agency that is cracking Apache leaves much to be concerned about

The ASF - which is now led by a Microsoft employee, has done something a bit dubious. Ignoring some stupid and misleading headlines from The Register [1], the original can be found in NSA.gov. The NSA is now openwashing itself in the very front page of its site. The Apache folks, in the mean time, 'pull a Microsoft' and liaise with NSA to do all this. As SJVN put it in one of the earliest reports on this subject, "NSA partners with Apache to release open-source data traffic program". Later coverage of this [1, 2, 3] played a slightly different tune, but either way, NiFi is now an Apache Incubator Project. Does Apache really want to associate itself with a group of people who are actively cracking Apache all around the world? It discredits Apache. What next? NSA contributing patches to Apache? NSA getting involved in the Apache build process for binaries (this usually means adding some back doors or weakening – not hardening – some parts)?



Related/contextual items from the news:


  1. NSA SOURCE CODE LEAK: Information slurp tools to appear online
    The NSA has decided to let the public have a peek at what it's been up to, for a change, by promising to release some of its data analysis tools under an open-source license.

    On Tuesday, intelligence-gobbling agency said it hopes to make the code to NiFi – a project previously known internally as Niagarafiles – available as an Apache Incubator Project under an Apache License.


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