Lobbying for insecurity. NSA secure Linux project tangled in politics [The Register]

Last week NSA released a new round of changes to SELinux, which is good.  Not so good are recently-published allegations that software industry lobbyists have convinced NSA leadership that contributing to Linux is a bad thing.

I respectfully disagree.  Evidence indicates that NSA has long contributed to security improvements in commercial software (particularly commercial cryptosystems).  Open Source projects like Linux shouldn't be punished just because they might compete with commercial software.  NSA intends to benefit the American public with their contributions, and releasing SELinux under a free software license is undoubtedly of benefit to Americans.

It's not as if commercial operating systems have distinguished themselves as being more secure than Linux.  If anything, it could be argued that commercial operating system vendors spend less time and effort on security.  The competition with SELinux can only make commercial software more secure.

10:45:34 AM