Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source code is openly shared so that people are encouraged to voluntarily improve the design of the software. This is in contrast to proprietary software, where the software is under restrictive copyright licensing and the source code is usually hidden from the users.
FOSS maintains the
software user's civil liberty rights. Other benefits of using FOSS can include
decreased software costs, increased security and stability (especially in regard to malware), protecting privacy, education, and giving users more control over
their own hardware. Free and open-source operating systems such as Linux and descendants of BSD are widely utilized today, powering
millions of servers, desktops, smartphones (e.g., Android), and other devices. Free-software licenses and open-source licenses are used by many software packages. The free software movement and the open-source software movement are online social movements behind widespread production and adoption
of FOSS, with the former preferring to use the terms FLOSS or free/libre.
Security and
user-support
According to Linus's law the
more people who can see and test a set of code, the more likely any flaws will
be caught and fixed quickly. However, this does not guarantee a high level of
participation. Having a grouping of full-time professionals behind a commercial
product can in some cases be superior to FOSS.
Furthermore, publicized source code might make it easier for
hackers to find vulnerabilities in it and write exploits. This however assumes
that such malicious hackers are more effective than white hat hackers which responsibly disclose or help fix the
vulnerabilities, that no code leaks or exfiltrations occur
and that reverse engineering of proprietary code is
a hindrance of significance for malicious hackers.
Hardware and software
compatibility
Sometimes, FOSS is not
compatible with proprietary hardware or specific software. This is often due to
manufacturers obstructing FOSS such as by not disclosing the interfaces or other specifications needed for members of the FOSS movement to
write drivers for their hardware - for instance as they wish customers to run
only their own proprietary software or as they might benefit from partnerships.
Bugs and missing
features
While FOSS can be superior
to proprietary equivalents in terms of software features and stability, in many
cases it has more unfixed bugs and missing features when compared to similar
commercial software. This varies per case, and usually depends on the
level of interest in a particular project. However, unlike close-sourced
software, improvements can be made by anyone who has the motivation, time and
skill to do so
Future AI might possess Superintelligence
agent
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence demonstrated
by machines,
as opposed to intelligence of humans and other animals.
Example tasks in which this is done include speech recognition, computer
vision, translation between (natural) languages, as well as other mappings of
inputs.
AI applications include advanced web search engines
(e.g., Google Search), recommendation systems (used by YouTube, Amazon,
and Netflix), understanding human speech (such
as Siri and Alexa), self-driving
cars (e.g., Waymo), generative or creative tools (ChatGPT and AI art), automated decision-making, and competing
at the highest level in strategic game systems
(such as chess and Go)
Superintelligence
A superintelligence,
hyperintelligence, or superhuman intelligence, is a hypothetical agent that
would possess intelligence far surpassing that of the brightest and most gifted
human mind. Superintelligence may also refer to the form or
degree of intelligence possessed by such an agent.
If research into artificial general intelligence produced
sufficiently intelligent software, it might be able to reprogram and improve
itself. The improved software would be even better at improving itself, leading
to recursive self-improvement. Its
intelligence would increase exponentially in an intelligence explosion and could
dramatically surpass humans. Science fiction writer Vernor Vinge named
this scenario the "singularity". Because it is difficult or
impossible to know the limits of intelligence or the capabilities of
superintelligent machines, the technological singularity is an occurrence
beyond which events are unpredictable or even unfathomable.
Bad actors and
weaponized AI
AI provides a number
of tools that are particularly useful for authoritarian governments:
smart spyware, face recognition and voice recognition allow widespread surveillance;
such surveillance allows machine learning to classify potential enemies of the
state and can prevent them from hiding; recommendation systems can precisely
target propaganda and misinformation for
maximum effect; deepfakes aid in producing misinformation; advanced AI
can make centralized decision making more competitive with liberal
and decentralized systems such as markets.
Terrorists, criminals and rogue states may use other forms of
weaponized AI such as advanced digital warfare and lethal autonomous weapons. By 2015, over
fifty countries were reported to be researching battlefield robots.
Existential risk
Superintelligent AI may be able to improve itself to the point that
humans could not control it. This could, as physicist Stephen Hawking puts it, "spell the end of the human race". Philosopher Nick Bostrom argues that sufficiently intelligent AI, if it chooses
actions based on achieving some goal, will exhibit convergent behavior
such as acquiring resources or protecting itself from being shut down. If this
AI's goals do not fully reflect humanity's, it might need to harm humanity to
acquire more resources or prevent itself from being shut down, ultimately to
better achieve its goal. He concludes that AI poses a risk to mankind, however
humble or "friendly" its stated goals might be. Political
scientist Charles
T. Rubin argues that "any sufficiently
advanced benevolence may be indistinguishable from malevolence." Humans
should not assume machines or robots would treat us favorably because there is
no a priori reason to believe that they would share our system
of morality
Reverse engineering in
source code can change future war
Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back
engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to
understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made
device, process, system, or piece of software accomplishes
a task with very little (if any) insight into exactly how it does so. It is
essentially the process of opening up or dissecting a system to see how it
works, in order to duplicate or enhance it. Depending on the system under
consideration and the technologies employed, the knowledge gained during
reverse engineering can help with repurposing obsolete objects, doing security
analysis, or learning how something works.
Although the process is specific to the object on which it is
being performed, all reverse engineering processes consist of three basic
steps: Information extraction, Modeling, and Review. Information extraction
refers to the practice of gathering all relevant information for performing the
operation. Modeling refers to the practice of combining the gathered
information into an abstract model, which can be used as a guide for designing
the new object or system. Review refers to the testing of the model to ensure
the validity of the chosen abstract.
Military applications
Reverse
engineering is often used by people to copy other nations' technologies,
devices, or information that have been obtained by regular troops in the fields
or by intelligence operations. It was often used during the Second World War and the Cold War. Here are well-known examples from the Second World War and
later:
·
Panzerschreck:
The Germans captured an American bazooka during
the Second World War and reverse engineered it to create the larger
Panzerschreck.
·
Tupolev Tu-4: In 1944, three American B-29 bombers on missions over Japan were forced to land in the Soviet Union. The Soviets, who did not have a similar strategic bomber,
decided to copy the B-29. Within three years, they had developed the Tu-4, a
nearly-perfect copy.
·
V-2 rocket: Technical documents for the
V-2 and related technologies were captured by the Western Allies at the end of
the war. The Americans focused their reverse engineering efforts via Operation Paperclip,
which led to the development of the PGM-11 Redstone rocket. The Soviets
used captured German engineers to reproduce technical documents and plans and
worked from captured hardware to make their clone of the rocket, the R-1. Thus began the postwar Soviet rocket
program, which led to the R-7 and the beginning of the space race.
·
China has reversed engineered
many examples of Western and Russian hardware, from
fighter aircraft to missiles and HMMWV cars, such as the MiG-15,17,19,21 (which became the
J-2,5,6,7) and the Su-33 (which became the J-15). More recent analyses of
China's military growth have pointed to the inherent limitations of habitual
reverse engineering for advanced weapon systems.
·
During the Second World War, British scientists analyzed and
defeated a series of
increasingly-sophisticated radio navigation systems used by
the Luftwaffe to perform guided bombing
missions at night. The British countermeasures to the system were so effective
that in some cases, German aircraft were led by signals to land at RAF bases
since they believed that they had returned to German territory.
Proactive cyber defence is the highest priority
Proactive cyber defence means acting in anticipation to oppose an attack through
cyber and cognitive domains. Proactive cyber defence can be understood as
options between offensive and defensive measures. It includes interdicting,
disrupting or deterring an attack or a threat's preparation to attack, either
pre-emptively or in self-defence. Common methods include cyber deception, attribution,
threat hunting and adversarial pursuit. The mission of the pre-emptive and
proactive operations is to conduct aggressive interception and disruption
activities against an adversary using: psychological operations, managed
information dissemination, precision targeting, information warfare operations,
computer network exploitation, and other active threat reduction measures. The
proactive defense strategy is meant to improve information collection by
stimulating reactions of the threat agents and to provide strike options as
well as to enhance operational preparation of the real or virtual battlespace.
Proactive cyber defence can be a measure for detecting and obtaining
information before a cyber attack, or it can also be impending cyber operation
and be determining the origin of an operation that involves launching a
pre-emptive, preventive, or cyber counter-operation.
