Despite overwhelming evidence that it doesn’t work, the FCC still favors security through obscurity, and is issuing a new rule that essential bans the use of open source software (including Free Software) from use in software-defined radio. Despite the advice of experts in industry and academia, they think that keeping the source code secret will somehow prevent miscreants from being able to operate radios outside their frequency and power regulations. In practice, the bad guys will still figure out how to do whatever they want, but legitimate end users will pay higher costs and be deprived of features that would arise from the open source community. [h/t CNET News]
FCC mandates security through obscurity
Despite overwhelming evidence that it doesn’t work, the FCC still favors security through obscurity, and is issuing a new rule that essential bans the use of open source software (including Free Software) from use in software-defined radio. Despite the advice of experts in industry and academia, they think that keeping the source code secret will somehow prevent miscreants from being able to operate radios outside their frequency and power regulations. In practice, the bad guys will still figure out how to do whatever they want, but legitimate end users will pay higher costs and be deprived of features that would arise from the open source community. [h/t CNET News]