Radix Fidem Blog

In a previous post, I noted my interest in Linux and Open Source was primarily a matter of self-sufficiency, though I phrased it as a matter of having control over my computer. People want such control when they are ready to take responsibility for things, when they decide to be self-sufficient in some area of life.

In a broad general sense, self-sufficiency has a bad reputation in this world. It’s called everything else, including isolationism, tribalism, paranoia, etc. Those of us reaching for more self-sufficiency have no beef with the rest of humanity doing what they please, we just don’t want to be vulnerable when it serves no good purpose. There are plenty of things in this life where being open to injury is utterly necessary, and absorbing abuse is good and right. That’s what mysticism does to you; it makes you believe some things here aren’t as important as they seem because there are issues somewhere else, on another plane, which take priority. By the same token, such a concern over higher priorities will inevitably result in choices for greater self-sufficiency, if only to avoid unnecessarily burdening others.

In the virtual world, the Internet landscape, it is absolutely necessary we cooperate. Indeed, the Internet is the ultimate voluntary community. There is a certain necessary assumption in the very nature of the thing which calls for a high level of self-sufficiency in some areas, and somewhat more dependence in others. Failure to discern where those lines should be drawn is what makes it so ugly for the rest of the Net. For example, I note frequently the International Merchant Culture, with it’s utterly mercenary spirit, does everything in its power to subvert the nature of the Internet. That they aren’t strongly opposed is part of what makes the Net work, but using technology to route around them, as if they were some kind of damage or bottleneck, is wholly justified. If you want to block advertising and in your browser, it is entirely appropriate. They call it unfair, with all sorts of dire warnings this will hinder paying the bills for keeping good content on the Net, but I’m not so sure their content will be missed, since what they fund never fails to be self-serving. The mainstream media is, as a whole, a liar first and foremost. Sure, some decent folks will be caught in the middle, but nothing is simple. By using technology to frustrate their power grab, we remind Merchants it is all cooperative.

I don’t see WordPress, the host of this blog, suffering much by the lack of advertising on my blog, for instance. There are a few people who manage to do business without cutting throats, but I find them few and far between.

It’s that same evil mercenary spirit of the Merchant Culture which causes me to distrust them in my choice of operating system. I count Red Hat as a company generally lacking in the mercenary instinct, in part because such instinct simply won’t fit in with using Linux in the first place. Red Hat doesn’t contribute much to making Linux pretty or fun, but their developers are the single greatest source of kernel patches, and security improvements in general. If you want the extra toys and eye candy, you’ll have to get them for yourself. That’s self-sufficiency, particularly in the issues where you should have it. Where you should be able to trust them, with the arcane science of Linux internals, I find them trustworthy. It’s a compromise, and it works for me.

All the more so when the Merchant Culture is not the only threat in the Net. It’s not just the lawless crackers and Internet mafia folks, either, but governments. A particularly significant threat is the US government. The Internet was born here in the US, and it was a government project. However, it was funded by government because no one else could afford it in its infancy. Really expensive computers operated by academics at colleges and government research labs were government property, though not always owned by the same government entity. Basically, it was not really a government operation, but an academic one. The government was actually quite slow to catch on to its value. It was a large collection of academics, government employees, and some brilliant independent scientists who got it roaring before the ruling elite awoke to its power.

Here in the US in particular, government elites still say with a straight face they are simply serving the people. Since they promote this mythology, they have to come up with all sorts of fresh manipulations and lies when “We the People” who supposedly rule decide to do something with what our taxes have wrought, which activities tend to interfere with their Olympian plans. Yes, we know it’s all a big lie, but they are the ones who keep saying it’s our nation and our government, and they simply carry out our wishes. If our actions prove they are lying, because there is a conflict between what they say are our wishes versus what we clearly and obviously intend to do against their wishes, then they should have sense enough to realize they failed us. They usually do, but utterly lacking in any moral sense, they blame us.

I lose no sleep at night defying their wishes. A significant element in my choice to run Red Hat (or its clones CentOS and Scientific Linux) is defying elements of their unjust grab for power over my computer. I, for one, am utterly certain there are backdoors in Windows wide open to the NSA and other government agencies. While the federales have certainly poked their fingers in my eye once or twice intentionally, I rather suspect they don’t have the resources to pay attention to me right now. That doesn’t mean they won’t harm me, if nothing else, while targeting someone else.

By no means would I expect anyone going to jail for the crime of setting loose the Stuxnet worm on the Net. Not the real crooks, anyway. The government thugs already have laws on the books forbidding them doing such things, but they consider themselves a class apart; such laws apply to “We the People.” On the one hand, we hear this is one of the best constructed viruses ever. When reports came out later saying it wasn’t so brilliant after all, I figured that was at least partly lying propaganda, trying to put out the fire after the fact. If you ask me, having that nasty thing hit other computer systems besides the ones in Iran was just a part of their cover, a plausible deniability factor. Who’s to say their next nasty attack won’t hit ordinary folks like you and me? If it destroys the systems of a bunch of We the People mundanes, it’s just part of taxation, as far as they are concerned.

Somewhere between the need for security and need to get things done without wasting too much time, I find running Red Hat a pretty good compromise. You may well find the balance somewhere else, and I applaud you for at least looking into it and deciding for yourself. It occurs to me a greater mix, a proliferation of differing and distinctive operating systems connected to the Net, instead of the near-monopoly of Windows, would reduce the botnets and spam, not to mention the unintended consequences of government sponsored evil.