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 ™ 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

European Qualifying Examination (EQE) Being Reduced to Pieces of Papers One Can Buy, Patent System Rapidly Losing Its Legitimacy
Welcome to the "new Europe"
IBM Cannot Even Do Payroll, Now a "Legitimate Target" of Iran
Missiles or not, it seems like IBM systems will be targeted more by cybercriminals
 
When Everybody Has a Right/Access to An Attorney/Lawyer (But Some Get Funding From Malicious American Corporations to Spend a Million Dollars on Many Lawyers and Several Barristers)
And send about 75 KG of legal papers to the residence of the "opponent"
Priorities in 2026
2026 is an interesting year
Willis Towers Watson (WTW) Producing More Propaganda for EPO "Cocaine Communication Managers"
The Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) has this new paper about Willis Towers Watson (WTW) and its annual EPO-sponsored propaganda, pretending all is well when things are clearly dire
Head of Microsoft Office and Microsoft 360 is Leaving Microsoft Amid Problems and Mass Layoffs
Microsoft is like a "legacy" company
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 12, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, March 12, 2026
Gemini Links 13/03/2026: "Someone to Take Over Antenna" and Random Seed/RNG
Links for the day
By Expanding to Advocacy of Ponzi Schemes and Bill Epsteingate (Sex Trafficking), Linux Foundation Revenue Grew to $220,730,594, But Salary of Linus Torvalds Not Even in Top 10 Anymore!
true!
In the Name of Transparency, Today We Show Our Defence and Counterclaim
already uploaded by the other side
Links 12/03/2026: Heating Bills to Soar, "Banks in Gulf Evacuate Their Offices"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/03/2026: On Phone Anxiety and Bjorn "Looking for Someone to Take Over Antenna"
Links for the day
Cultification: best candidates avoiding Debian leader elections
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman (RMS) et al Cited in 'Nature' (Journal/Site) Today, "CODE beyond FAIR"
Under Open Access
The Register MS, on Verge of Collapse, Keeps Promoting a Ponzi Scheme for China
Publishers that participate in this simply don't care about their readers
Overview of False Narratives and Lies Used to Lower Salaries at the European Patent Office (EPO), Abandoning Patent Quality and the EPC
Many of the latter slides are the same as Munich's
Links 12/03/2026: Atlassian Layoffs, GAFAN Covering up Slop-Induced Outages, "Age-verification in Operating Systems and the Internet"
Links for the day
The EPO's President, Who Covers Up Cocaine Use, is Trying to Suppress Communication Between EPO Staff Under the Guise of 'Privacy' (and in Defiance of a Court Ruling)
Why does Europe's second-largest institution: 1) curtail communication among staff (including union) and 2) go out of its way to avoid obeying a court order from ILOAT in Geneva?
Exactly One Week Before Next EPO Strike, Media Intentionally Not Mentioning EPO Strikes
One form of propaganda technique/s involves the systematic suppression of certain topics, or of particular "narratives"
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 10 Out of 200: Showing Public Tweets is Not a Privacy Violation, But This Isn't About Justice, It's About Censorship
It's time to put a stop to this abuse of process (which is what the Judge deemed it to be last year)
Suicide of disgruntled employee? Bus fire at Kerzers / Chiètres, Switzerland, at least six dead
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 11, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Gemini Links 12/03/2026: "on Urbit" and the True Cost (or Criticism) of "Social Control Media"
Links for the day
Slop About "linux" in Google News
Once people recognise that those sites are fake it's hard to 'unsee' what they are
An American War on GNU/Linux, Software Freedom, and British Investigative, Science-Based Reporting - Part V - Attempts to Take Down and Suppress Criticism of Back Doors Controlled by Microsoft and the American Government
The cost of maintaining illusions
IBM's Payroll: Cannot Even Pay the People What They're Legally Entitled to
How financially-stressed is IBM at this point?
Slides From the European Patent Office (EPO) Explain Why They're Striking, How They're Striking, and What Comes Next
A week from now the strike will go ahead
GAFAM Datacentres Are Facilities of War, So Risk of Downtime by Missiles or State-Sponsored Cracking Has Vastly Increased
How safe is your business in "clown computing" or DCs marked as some "legitimate targets" at wartime?
Companies That Take Away Blood and Sweat From the Community to Sell a Ponzi Scheme to Everybody
We need Free software that is run by communities
1,234 People Gather Online to Plan Next EPO Strikes and Other Industrial Actions
yesterday an online gathering orchestrated the next moves by EPO staff
Links 11/03/2026: Fake Videos Swarm YouTube, "Ukraine Can Now Manufacture ‘China-Free’ Drones"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/03/2026: Lagrange for iOS and Android and "Turning a Folder of Git Repos Into Project Launcher"
Links for the day
Kafkaesque: Unlawful Activities in the UK to Cover Up Unlawful Activities in the United States of America
Why is bribery and even extortion seen is OK? Because rich people do those things?
Former IBM Executive, Ron Hovsepian, Doomed S.u.S.E. (SUSE)
SUSE is like a child nobody wants to raise
Quiet Layoffs or Silent Layoffs Alleged at Microsoft
Will some investigative journalists do their job now and ask Microsoft tough questions?
After a Long Lull LinuxTeck (linuxteck.com) Came Back Only as a Slopfarm
Unlike Linuxiac, LinuxTeck wasn't very active in recent years
Links 11/03/2026: EPO and USPTO Software Patents Thrown Out Again, Copyright Concerns Over Slop (Plagiarism Using Buzzwords)
Links for the day
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 9 Out of 200: 5RB Barrister Does Not Even Know the Name of His Own Client (That He Was Paid Well Over $200,000 to 'Speak' or 'Cover' for)
If you assault women in the United States, there's a barrister available for you in the UK
IBM's Fedora is Now Led by GAFAM Slop
The official word of Fedora is partly slop
IBM 'Dinobabies' Speak Out
"They want newbies out of school at a much cheaper rate"
Links 11/03/2026: "Drill, Baby, Drill" and Social Control Media Recognised as Threat to Democracy
Links for the day
5 Years Since Freenode Conflict
IRC isn't going away
A Week Ahead of Next EPO Strike the Staff Representatives Show the Administrative Council That the Office Lost the Best Staff, It's No Longer Attractive
the message circulated regarding the open letter to the Administrative Council
Jeff Bezos as an Individual Said to Have Enough Capital to Buy IBM
Assuming a market capitalisation of 234.70 billion
Starting Soon: Another New Series About Richard Stallman
There are some inside stories we can tell
Gemini Links 11/03/2026: School, Code Slop, and "Fancy Weapons"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 10, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 10, 2026