Governments picking Linux over Microsoft for national security

NEW YORK -- For reasons of national security and national pride, government officials in countries like China, France and Germany are increasingly adopting the free, open-source computer operating system known as Linux.

In some cases, the software being replaced is produced by the Microsoft Corp., which, users say, is more prone to viruses and hackers.

"A lot of countries feel uncomfortable having the fate of their computer infrastructure in the hands of a large American software company," said Eric Raymond of the Open Source Initiative, an advocacy group.

In China, the federal government is prodding its ministries toward homegrown versions of Linux, which unlike Microsoft's operating system doesn't keep secret its core instructions, or source code.

The Chinese information and science ministries are investing in a version called Red Flag Linux "to pry the computer industry from the grip of operating systems giants like Microsoft," the official People's Daily newspaper reported last spring.

Security experts tend to agree that computers are less prone to hacking and viruses when running open-source software like Linux or the Web server Apache. When vulnerabilities are found, programmers can fix them by tinkering with the code and publishing the results.

In France, the ministries of culture, defense and education have switched to Linux for reasons of security and uniformity, dropping programs from Microsoft, Sun and Lotus, a Public Works Ministry spokesman said.

Germany's minister for economy and technology, Margareta Wolf, has urged use of Linux in "security relevant" computer servers and says the government -- currently overwhelmingly dependent on Microsoft -- is looking into ways to convert other ministries.

'Transparent' security

Among the reasons Wolf cited was "protection from economic espionage."

"Security through obscurity is the motto of yesterday," Wolf said in July at a Stuttgart tech conference. "The slogan of today is security through transparency."

Another rallying point for Europeans is the fact that Linus Torvalds, the programmer known as the father of Linux, is a native of Finland.

In China, as well, software is a matter of national pride.

The Chinese are keen to use their enormous market potential to boost Chinese products rather than foreign ones, said Li Gong, Sun Microsystems' chief representative in China.

"They don't want to build an economy entirely on Western technology," Gong said.

There are also unproven fears of so-called "back doors" in proprietary operating systems like Microsoft's Windows. Some governments fear they could be spied on by U.S. intelligence through a built-in secret channel.

In March, a report in the respected German news magazine Der Spiegel claimed that country's defense ministry had banned Microsoft products because of an alleged "back door."

Microsoft's director of security assurance Steve Lipner calls the back door references a baseless rumor.

"The logic of that conspiracy theory is pretty strained," Lipner said.