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Iron Man's New Villain — an Open Source Terrorist

Posted by kdawson on Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:37 AM
from the engineers-make-good-terrorists dept.
Sci-Fi Entertainment
An anonymous reader writes "In a recent interview on Comic Book Resources about his new continuation of the Marvel comic-book series 'Invincible Iron Man,' Matt Faction provides information about the the new series (debut will be May 7). The villain is Ezekiel Stane, son of Obadiah Stane (the villain of the new Iron Man movie opening on May 2). Whereas Obadiah was a ruthless billionaire who fought as the Iron Monger, Zeke 'rejects the strategies of his father as being the crude tactics of Attila the Hun.' Instead, he will be 'a post-national business man and kind of an open source ideological terrorist.' As the author puts it, 'Windows wants to be on every computer desktop in the world, but Linux and Stane want to destroy the desktop.' The concept has gone over well on the CBR forums."
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Submission: Open Source Terrorist to be Iron Man's New Villain by Anonymous Coward
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  • Since 9/11, every goddamned thing is considered terrorism. Shoot a gun downtown? Terrorism. Drink someone's milkshake? Terrorism. Ship cocaine from Colombia to the U.S. Yep, terrorism.

    No! It's not! There are proper terms here, and by calling any crime terrorism you insinuate that the crimes are perpetrated by terrorists. That's giving a whole lot of credit to idiot criminals.

    Installing Linux on the computers of unwitting Windows users may be a dumb plot, but it's hardly terrorism. If it were, every goddamned user on Slashdot would be a terrorist for trying to wrest Windows from Granny's warm, wet hands.

    I'd like to see this OSS terrorist face the CEO of Nerv (from that other forgettable hacker movie a few years back). Geek Terrorist. Coming soon to a basement near you!

    • Re:People! Not everything is terrorism! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 15 2008, @12:53AM (#23074128)
      Agreed, people who use that sort of language must be branded stupidity terrorists, and treated accordingly.

    • Re:People! Not everything is terrorism! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 15 2008, @12:56AM (#23074150)
      Your argument sounds like something a terrorist would say.

      Don't you remember? 9/11 changed everything! If you break the law you are a terrorist because using the police to respond to your crime takes manpower and resources away from fighting terrorism. And if that doesn't convince you then it is obvious that *you* are trying to obstruct the fight against terrorism by not fully supporting every policy of the government.

      So stop hating freedom, terrorist.

    • Re:People! Not everything is terrorism! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by orzetto (545509) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @01:04AM (#23074188)
      1. Wait for large terrorist act that scares the crap out of the nation
      2. Pass draconian terror laws suspending civil rights and allowing torture ("But just for terrorists!")
      3. Extend definition of terrorism to include any activity you want to persecute; if met with complaint, answer "Why do you hate Freedom so much?"
      4. ...
      5. Dictatorship!

    • Re:People! Not everything is terrorism! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kojiro Ganryu Sasaki (895364) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @05:56AM (#23075288)
      The same thing that happened to "rape" has happened to "terrorism".

      Incidentally, i find it very interesting that in a country like Sweden where there is practically no threat of terrorism, the government is redefining the crime of rape.

      Before 2005 (or 06, 07 i'm not sure exactly which of those years it came into place), we had a law that basically said that sex with a minor is "abuse of minor". Now a later law rewrote that so sex with a minor is no longer "abuse of minor" but plain "rape". That is, even if the sex is consentual, there is no legal difference. There's a dillution of terms. Sure it's abuse, but is it rape? No. Rape is forcefully having sex with someone. Abuse of minor is abuse of minor and not rape. They've now changed the definition of rape to be "forcefully having sex with someone, OR having sex with someone who's younger than ".

      From what can be discerned in current debates, the next step is widening the definition further by defaulting that sex without proven consent is rape too. The idea is to put part of the burden of proof on the "criminal" by forcing him to prove that the "victim" wanted to have sex and did not protest. The excuse is that too many rapists go free. (If the girl gets plastered, then gets fucked, and then regrets it, was it rape?

      They've already widened the definition of child porn to encompass drawings and something that's being debated is the possibility of writing in another exception in the child porn law that would
      1: Set a definite 18 year old limit on porn (currently the definition is "if she looks sexually mature, the porn is legal")
      2: Set a secondary limit defined by her looks that goes beyond point 1. That is, "if she does not look sexually mature the porn is illegal even if the girl is proven to be over 18".

      The widened definition of child porn is, not entirely surprisingly, supported by the man who is also one of sweden's most vocal opponents of filesharing (Thomas Bodström). The same person is also a supporter of the swedish child porn filter which has previously been used to block The Pirate Bay (and some site about bonsai trees). Coincidence?

      My personal belief is that the US fight on terrorism is inspiring those with a desire for more power into finding scapegoats. In order to create more scapegoats that can be used in order to expand oppressive laws, they widen the definitions of existing crimes. After all, if drawings are child porn, then surely the amount of child porn has suddenly seen an increase and then the supporters can come out and say "Well look even if we're fighting THIS HARD against child porn it's not doing anything good so we must fight even HARDER". And as mentioned before, this also works wonders as they can use the same weapons they use against child porn against file sharing.
        • What about a 17 year old male and a 15 year old female? Where they meet in the pub, where she's drinking with her father, says she's 16 and they later have consensual sex? Is the 17 year old male a rapist, to be sent to prison for years and branded a sex offender for life?

          That's no hypothethical. That's actually what happened under Ireland's statutory rape laws [www.rte.ie] (age<16 == rape). So, sorry, but I have nothing but contempt for your mindless "you must not be a parent" drivel that results in politicians placating you and your ilk with "statutory X" and "minimum sentence" laws. You make this world a *worse* place for your children and mine.

          Thankfully, the Irish law was eventually ruled unconstitutional, but not before the young man concerned had, wrongfully, spent 6 years in jail.

  • In related news (Score:5, Funny)

    by dedazo (737510) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @12:45AM (#23074094) Journal
    The FSF has announced Richard Stallman will be engaging in a speaking tour of comic conventions to demand they be called free ideological terrorists.

  • OpenSourceTerroristMan and his sidekick... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Thanshin (1188877) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @12:52AM (#23074122)
    Sharerman!

    He will share global economy to it's knees!

    His nefarious plan of... sharing stuff, has to be stopped!

      • Re:OpenSourceTerroristMan and his sidekick... (Score:5, Funny)

        by Jesus_666 (702802) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @03:38AM (#23074814)
        Okay, how about this set of villains:

        The Open Sourceror: Wants the whole world to be covered by the GPL. Has a Shield of Arrogance labeled "RTFM" that can absorb the damage of any attack and turn it into a blast of pure rejection. Can use his package manager to quickly construct mostly-working devices for everything. Thinks the Free Initiative are his best friends.

        The Free Initiative: Don't want to be called "Freedom Initiative" because they don't want freedom, they want Free-as-in-freedom. Insist that there's a big difference. Hate the Open Sourceror, the non-Free world and each other, because they can't agree which variant of the BSD licence they want to put the world under.

        The Consultant: Sent by IBM manufacturer, the Consultant wears a heavy mechanized armor called the Z System. His goal is to destroy the world (except for IBM) and replace it with a virtual clone running on IBM mainframes. Attacks by throwing blade servers with deadly precision. Has the mysterious ability to drain cash from people's wallets at frightening speed.

        Sunray: Sent by Sun, this combatant lugs around a 500 liter canister of Java on his back, which e constantly drinks from by means of a straw. Insists that the caffeine in the Java makes him slower, despite the fact that he can barely move with the canister on his back. Has a on-again-off-again alliance with the Open Sourceror.

        Emmessdeeann: This mysterious alien was hired by Microsoft to ensure that every single person on the planet has a valid licence for every product Microsoft manufactures, plans to manufacture at some point or doesn't manufacture but wish they did. Has a Cash Launcher, which suffocates his enemies under wads of Dollar bills, then sets them alight. Also has a Crash Launcher, which causes his power armor to shut down until a service techician can fix it. Unfortunately, both are built into the same weapon. Insists on ending each sentence with ".NET" instead of a full stop. Has a son and a daughter, both called "hWnd".

        Google: Omnipresent and omniscient. Insist they aren't doing actual evil while using thir vast archive of footage of illegal activities to blackmail everyone into looking at their context-sensitive ads. Even though they are targetting the entire population of the planet, nobody could yet topple their "we only target evil people" argument.

  • Juh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by dancingmad (128588) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @12:54AM (#23074132)
    As the author puts it, 'Windows wants to be on every computer desktop in the world, but Linux and Stane want to destroy the desktop.'

    What part of that sentence did I understand?

      • Re:Juh? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by arivanov (12034) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @01:39AM (#23074328) Homepage
        DVD work?

        What DVD work?

        I have 400+ movies on my Linux file server with any computer around the house being able to work as a proper media player (with a proper IR remote and everything). You also can use a bog standard fanless and diskless thin client for this. No noise, nothing.

        Wanna try this with Microcrap Media Center Edition? Dream on...

        DVD is actually an area where Linux reigns supreme. I have tried many HD upscalers and I actually play my movies on a Linux box using VLC and Nvidia (with Nvidia drivers). It simply works better than any commercial upscaler I have seen so far. In fact it works so good that I do not see the point of buying and HD media for at least the next few years.

        You simply need to chose the _RIGHT_ drive or play off the hard drive. The problems with playing DVDs are usually not with Linux, they are with the DVDs being massively bastardised by Macrovision. As a result if you got the "wrong" DVD drive it will fail to read under anything - Windows, Linux, MacOS, etc.
        If you rip it all problems disappear. All my DVDs are actually stored on a file server in the loft. I got tired of dealing with scratches, dirt, Macrovision or simply trying to find the right DVD to watch.

  • meh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wizardforce (1005805) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @01:03AM (#23074184) Journal

    'Windows wants to be on every computer desktop in the world, but Linux and Stane want to destroy the desktop.'
    he seems to be operating under the assumption that Windows *is* the desktop. Even in that case, he is disasterously wrong. Linux isn't out to destroy Windows as in the words of Linus himself: "Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect."

    • Re:meh (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TuringTest (533084) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @02:16AM (#23074466)
      After I RTFA, is more like he assumes that Iron Man is Windows. He uses the Windows/Linux comparison as a metaphor of the kind of fight than Tony Stark will have to face in this story arc:

      He's the open source to Stark's closed source oppressiveness. He has no headquarters, no base, and no bank account. He's a true ghost in the machine; completely off the grid, flexible, and mobile. That absolutely flies in the face of Tony's received business wisdom and in the way business is done. There are banks and lawyers and you have facilities and testing. Stane is a much more different animal. He's a much smarter, more mobile and much quicker to respond and evolved futurist.

      • Re:meh (Score:5, Insightful)

        by hey! (33014) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @08:45AM (#23076636) Homepage Journal
        Here's an elementary principle of story telling: you can't get your hero to win against impossible odds, if the villain is stupider and weaker than he is. It follows that a hero must be at a disadvantage when facing his enemies.

        Part of the Marvel formula, of course, is the neurotic, conflicted hero. Following the principle of heroic disadvantage, it follows that it helps to give the villain clarity. And there is nothing that promotes clarity like a mad, Utopian vision. What makes the vision mad is not its lack of feasibility; what makes it mad is that getting there requires subverting the things the vision is supposed to accomplish. Dr. Doom is certain that if he makes decisions for people, they'll be better of in the end. In practice that means enslaving them. Real life examples include right wing terror groups who rob banks in the cause of non-interference with individual liberty, or left wing extremists who run kidnapping and extortion rackets in the name of human dignity.

        Heroes in comic book universes tend to be conservative. Not necessarily politically so, but they always act to preserve the status quo. In part, this is determined by the need to reset the universe story after story after story. The superhero might not know what he wants, but whatever it is, it does not involve change. Superman does not fight to make America a better place, he fights to preserve the "American way". Batman crusades against crime, but in his wealthy playboy alter ego he does not crusade for education, which would ultimately be more effective.

        Tony Stark, arguably, has the worst plan for using his super abilities of any comic book hero.

        Stark's super-ability is engineering. A physically super-powered character like Spider-man can only accomplish things that require him to be on the spot; Stark's potential super-deeds can be mass produced. Even a moderately talented engineer could do hundreds of times more for humanity than Spider-man, and Stark is not an ordinary engineer; he is prodigiously talented. He could use his unique engineering prowess to cure heart disease, or to provide mobility to paralysis victims. Instead he chooses to pursue a quixotic crusade against villainy which could be left to dozens, if not hundreds of other costumed superheroes. He's brought himself down from the level of engineering genius to the level of a mere superhero. Instead of designing mass producible solutions to humanity's problems, he designs combat technologies that threaten humanity when they are reproduced. Indeed he spends a great deal of superhero energy trying to put the technology transfer genie back in the bottle.

        In short, in the comic book universe it is never the superheroes who have a vision of a better world. It is the supervillains who are agents of change. Their vision, of course, is insane, otherwise they'd be super-philanthropists, not super-villains. But if it weren't for supervillains, superheroes wouldn't have the imagination to put their powers to any productive uses. Superman, by spending an hour a day or so on a super-treadmill, could provide enough power for Metropolis to shut down all it's coal fired power plants, improving the economic life and health of everybody in the city. Instead he wastes his out of costume time playing absurd games with secret identities.

        • Iron Man is interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

          by PCM2 (4486) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @11:13AM (#23078636) Homepage
          In the comics recently, Iron Man has contradicted some of your statements somewhat.

          Marvel recently had a big crossover plot line called "Civil War," in which it was decided that superheroes were too dangerous to have running around without government oversight. They were all required to register with the Federal government. If they failed to do so, they were subject to imprisonment in one of SHIELD's top-security prisons designed for supervillains.

          Who was the main man responsible for hunting down his fellow heroes and former comrades? Tony Stark, the invincible Iron Man.

          In fact, Tony went on to become the head of SHIELD, the government's most ultra-secret spy organization (think more oversight than the FBI, more freedom than the CIA). In most respects, they've taken the "Tony is a billionaire industrialist" angle and spun it into "Tony is an arch-conservative storm trooper of the old guard of manufacturing wealth, using the power of the government to enforce a neo-facist agenda that goes contrary to 50 years of Marvel Comics philosophy."

          It's interesting that they are portraying the latest villain as an "open source" one ... because Tony has very much become Microsoft. In fact, I can't read comics where Iron Man appears anymore, because every time the character opens his mouth I can't understand why they are still calling him a hero, when he seems to really have become little more than a smarter, more modernized version of Doctor Doom.

          • Re:Iron Man is interesting (Score:5, Informative)

            by hey! (33014) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @12:10PM (#23079494) Homepage Journal
            I actually think this proves what I was saying.

            The evil twin theme is very common in comic books, whether the twin is in a parallel universe, or is a pretender, or just somebody who is awfully like the hero. The quest for more complexity and realism in recent stories means there is no better candidate for evil twin than the hero himself. It's an even match, no kryptonite needed.

            It's a very plausible and useful theme. What is a supervillain, but a superhero with a plan to drag the world, against its will if need be, into a better future? He starts by acting as if his undeniable superiority gives him the right to make decisions for others. In the end he finds himself using lesser people as expendable means to his ends. What I've argued is that the classic comic book hero is really not all that heroic. The villains are arguably more heroic, but only from the perspective of their severe moral short sightedness.

            If you want to take a superhero on a journey from being a muscle-bound enforcer of the status quo to being real hero, the straightest path cuts right across supervillain territory.

            Is Tony Stark really any different from Dr. Doom? They're both vain, armor wearing geniuses with a serious authoritarian streak. As bona-fide geniuses they have more reason than most to believe themselves qualified to decide what is in the best interest of others. However, Dr. Doom will never be a hero, because there is no end to his self-delusion of omniscience; there are no limits to what he will destroy today to build a better tomorrow.

            Sacrifice is essential to heroism. A hero has to give something up for the greater good. In the DC universe, Batman is a kind of neurotic fixation of Bruce Wayne; Wayne fights crime, but in a way that precludes him having normally satisfying relationships with other people.

            Clearly, the easiest way to make Tony Stark into a hero is to give him something he has to give up; you can't take away his genius, which makes taking away his money futile. So you have to give him something, namely the power and authority he not-so-secretly craves. The best way to show that Tony Stark is different from Dr. Doom in an essential way is for him to become Dr. Doom. Then turn back. And, since this is Marvel, he'll return from the trip with enough personal demons to flummox Dr. Strange.

  • Wow (Score:5, Funny)

    by kamapuaa (555446) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @01:09AM (#23074202) Homepage
    I can see Comic books and open source uniting, working together to keep geeks around the world from getting laid.

  • We already have that (Score:5, Funny)

    by hcmtnbiker (925661) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @01:16AM (#23074238)
    But we already have Linux Super Villian. [ubergeek.tv]

    • Re:We already have that (Score:5, Funny)

      by TheVelvetFlamebait (986083) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @02:08AM (#23074428) Journal

      If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
      Let's see...

      In a theoretically infinite universe, there are theoretically infinite objects that could be considered brains. If I only didn't have one brain, then that means I have all but one of the infinite brains out there, which would imply, at the very least, that I would be much, much smarter than you.

      Where did you get that sig anyway? Some insult from some online forum?

      (Mods, this is the entertainment section. There's no great need to be strictly on-topic, right? ;)

  • Epiphany and Switcheroo (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dr_Barnowl (709838) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @01:17AM (#23074248)
    If you ask me, the plot is ripe for a twist ; Stark discovers that Stane is actually the good guy, and that the massed legions of commercial software are colluding with the hardware manufacturers in a plan to take over the worlds computers by putting secret encryption keys on the motherboards and only permitting "approved" software to run.

  • Some Villain (Score:5, Funny)

    by lusiphur69 (455824) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @01:29AM (#23074290) Homepage
    I find it hard to look at the concept as menacing.

    "We're going to provide Linux free of charge to anyone! MUHAHAHAHA!"

    "Beware my open source laser! Powered by the distilled tears of Microsoft execs, it will cut you out of vendor lock-in!"

    Or better, Stark teams up with Microsoft to combat the 'threat', then, during a battle as Iron Man powers up his blaster, the HUD flashes..

      WinIRON.sys
      The driver is attempting to access memory beyond the end of the
      allocation.
      Stop: 0x000000D6
      (0x89781000, 0x00000000, 0xBF82683F, 0x00000000)
      WinIRON.sys address BF82683F base at BF80000

  • Thanks for ruining Iron Man even more (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mex (191941) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @01:34AM (#23074314) Homepage
    First they make him the mastermind of the whole Civil War saga, for sending Hulk into space(which admittedly was a cool series, but it made Iron Man the bad guy), and responsible for Captain America's death, and now this?

    Iron Man was my fave character (A smooth but smart dude), but he's gone to shit in the past few years.

    Thanks, Marvel.

  • In (still) other news (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Torodung (31985) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @01:44AM (#23074346) Journal
    Iron Man will be renaming himself "Palladium," fighting to keep your computer trustworthy against open terror!

    I will be smelling stale milk for weeks after putting it out my nose laughing. I guess the "Heroes Happen Here" stuff isn't taking off?

    --
    Toro

    (Note: I believe this article was about a new comic book, not the movie [imdb.com], which features "Iron Monger" (Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane) as the enemy.)

    [[UAC warning: Someone is making a schizoid post! mod Funny or Informative? Yeah, you should probably just click "ignore" ;^)]]

  • Carefully choosing words (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BRSloth (578824) * <julio&juliobiason,net> on Tuesday April 15 2008, @02:19AM (#23074472) Homepage Journal
    From the article:

    Whether in the boardroom or on the battlefield, most of the opponents Iron Man confronts usually have some sort of ties to society and politics; ties which Stark has often used to his advantage. But Zeke Stane is a very different sort of enemy than what Stark is used to. "Zeke is a post-national business man and kind of an open source ideological terrorist," explained Fraction, appropriately putting the contrast into software terms. "He has absolutely no loyalty to any sort of law, creed, or credo. He doesn't want to beat Tony Stark, he wants to make him obsolete. Windows wants to be on every computer desktop in the world, but Linux and Stane want to destroy the desktop. He's the open source to Stark's closed source oppressiveness. He has no headquarters, no base, and no bank account. He's a true ghost in the machine; completely off the grid, flexible, and mobile. That absolutely flies in the face of Tony's received business wisdom and in the way business is done. There are banks and lawyers and you have facilities and testing. Stane is a much more different animal. He's a much smarter, more mobile and much quicker to respond and evolved futurist."
    Yeah, it sounds bad. But then you find "he's the open source to Stark's closed source oppressiveness. [...] He's a tru ghost in the machine; completely off the grid, flexible and mobile." Makes you almost like the guy already.
    • Just because the movie is sponsored by SCO, Microsoft and NVidia does NOT mean that it is prejudice. Honest, gov.

      • Re:Open Source Terrorism? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Max Littlemore (1001285) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @01:47AM (#23074354)
        I'm sure if the movie was sponsored by Red Hat, Sun and IBM, Iron Man would get his arse kicked by Big-Iron Man - who runs Linux of course.

      • Re:Open Source Terrorism? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by MrNaz (730548) * on Tuesday April 15 2008, @02:01AM (#23074408) Homepage
        Doesn't the ridiculous labelling of open source software as "terrorism" call into question all the other things that get labelled terrorism? Examples:

        The ANC anti-Apartheid movement [wikipedia.org] under the white South African government was labelled a terrorism. Nelson Mandela was public enemy number 1, the Osama Bin Laden of his time and place. White South Africa bought into their government's propaganda.

        The White Rose [wikipedia.org] organisation was labelled terrorist, and its leaders beheaded. for their non-violent anti-Nazi position in pre-WWII Nazi Germany. The German body politic bought into their government's propaganda.

        Today, the word terrorism gets thrown around like some Muslim / Arab / Islamist (whatever that means) is hiding in the bushes outside your house with his AK-47 pointed at your door just waiting for you and your kids to step out so he can vent his hatred of your freedoms. The American people buy into their government's propaganda.

        When you hear the label "terrorist" used, you should think about who is doing the labelling, and what exactly their agenda is rather than just taking their word for it that you are in danger and need their protection.

        • Re:Open Source Terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by totallyarb (889799) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @06:23AM (#23075432)

          Apartheid is always going to be a touchy subject, so I have to watch my words here, but... Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. That his cause was noble is beyond doubt, and his leadership of the post-Apartheid South Africa was magnificent, but the fact remains that he was the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe [wikipedia.org], which carried out bombings of civilian targets and which was therefore a terrorist organisation.

          They say that one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist, and I agree with the parent post that we have to be very sceptical whenever somebody uses the term "terrorist" because they usually have an agenda in doing so. But we also have to be careful not to condone acts that are genuinely terrorism just because we don't think the perpetrators are bad people. The world isn't made up of saints and sinners, and sometimes even good people cross a line.

        • Re:Open Source Terrorism? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by sm62704 (957197) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @08:06AM (#23076230) Journal
          Yesterday's communist is today's terrorist. Anti Flag said it well in Anatomy of your enemy:

          10 easy steps to create an enemy and start a war: Listen closely because we will all see this weapon used in our lives. It can be used on a society of the most ignorant to the most highly educated. We need to see their tactics as a weapon against humanity and not as truth.

          First step: create the enemy. Sometimes this will be done for you.

          Second step: be sure the enemy you have chosen is nothing like you. Find obvious differences like race, language, religion, dietary habits fashion. Emphasize that their soldiers are not doing a job, they are heartless murderers who enjoy killing!

          Third step: Once these differences are established continue to reinforce them with all disseminated information.

          Fourth step: Have the media broadcast only the ruling party's information
          Iron Man anti-open source movie, anyone? Remember, this is an American movie, and the multinational corporations own and control the US government

          this can be done through state run media. Remember, in times of conflict all for-profit media repeats the ruling party's information. Therefore all for-profit media becomes state-run.

          Fifth step: show this enemy in actions that seem strange, militant, or different. Always portray the enemy as non-human, evil, a killing machine.

          Sixth step: Eliminate opposition to the ruling party. Create an "Us versus Them" mentality. Leave no room for opinions in between. One that does not support all actions of the ruling party should be considered a traitor.

          Seventh step: Use nationalistic and/or religious symbols and rhetoric to define all actions.
          This can be achieved by slogans such as "freedom loving people versus those who hate freedom." This can also be achieved by the use of flags.

          Eighth step: Align all actions with the dominant deity. It is very effective to use terms like, "It is god's will" or "god bless our nation."

          Ninth step: Design propaganda to show that your soldiers have feelings, hopes, families, and loved ones. Make it clear that your soldiers are doing a duty; they do not want or like to kill.

          Tenth step: Create and atmosphere of fear, and instability and then offer the ruling party as the only solutions to comfort the public's fears. Remembering the fear of the unknown is always the strongest fear.
          I remember the "duck and cover" drills. The tactics would be competely useless if there was an atomic explosion, it had no purpose whatever except to create and maintain an atmosphere of fear.

          -mcgrew

          • Re:Open Source Terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Jesus_666 (702802) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @03:09AM (#23074682)

            What's the point of having the world's best military if you don't use it to stomp on some evildoers now and again? ;)
            Not being one yourself. When you put the world's most powerful military and the world's most powerful corporations together and add one of the world's most important resources in an area occupied by people easy to label as evil, you end up with a very nasty situation in which it's hard to unambiguously define anyone as the "good guy".

          • Re:Open Source Terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by mqduck (232646) <.ten.kcudqm. .ta. .kcudqm.> on Tuesday April 15 2008, @05:11AM (#23075104)
            "No ambiguity in the term"? When a roadside bomb attacking military vehicles is "terrorism", the word has lost all meaning.

            • Re:Open Source Terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)

              by sm62704 (957197) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @08:19AM (#23076366) Journal
              When a roadside bomb attacking military vehicles is "terrorism", the word has lost all meaning.

              "Terrorism" was originally defined as violence against civilians to affect politics. How are actions against soldiers in any way considered "terrorism"? Yet the American government called the barracks bombing (pre-911, under Clinton IIRC) "terrorism" and the present terrorist-in-chief (if military actions against soldiers is terrorism then?) considers roadside bombs to be "terrorism", then as you say, the word has lost all meaning.

              It is now just a propaganda ploy.

                • Re:Open Source Terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)

                  by sm62704 (957197) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @12:51PM (#23080080) Journal
                  If a civilian in the US were to attack our government troops it would be an illegal act.

                  Kind of like when civilians fired on British troops during the US Revolution? The winning side's "freedom fighters" are the losing side's "terrorists".

                  If you target civilians for political purposes it's terrorism. Calling anything else "terrorism" is propaganda, and a lie to boot.
              • Then please, give me a definition of terrorism that does not make the US military a terrorist organization(And remember not to use intent! Governments do not have feelings, and the slain do not care about the motivations of their killers).

                Once you do this, then explain how the US would not be a state sponsor of terror, based on our confirmed historical support of right-wing paramilitaries in Nicaragua, and our more recent involvement funding warlords in Somalia, and violent separatist groups in Iran.

                For extra-credit, justify the US's refusal to prosecute perpetrators the My Lai massacre, or our WW2 era concepts of total war, or even better, the African National Congress's tendency to or Irgun.

                After you finish with the mental acrobatics necessary to do such a thing, then apply these new and broad standards to Hezbollah, Hamas, or the Mahdi army.

                The point? Things are not black and white, and we do not possess any moral high-ground upon which to condemn others. Terrorism is just a tactic, one used for good and bad. And at the same time, a tactic that kills far less people then organized war.

            • Re:Open Source Terrorism? (Score:5, Informative)

              by totallyarb (889799) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @06:57AM (#23075666)

              ...farmers often shot their farmhands just to make a point to the others...

              Serious citation needed here. You can't make such a sweeping statement (*often*?!?) without giving at least some proof. I paid quite a lot of attention to the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission [wikipedia.org], and I don't remember hearing any such thing.

              ...the average white South African treated blacks as slaves...

              That's a gross exaggeration. The average white South African was more or less indifferent. They played no part in actively oppressing blacks, but were happy to accept the advantages that the systemic oppression brought them, so long as it didn't cause too much trouble. It's hard to get people to stand up when other people's rights are being trampled, isn't it? Not a lot of Americans complained about the Trail of Tears [wikipedia.org] either.

              The trouble with politics is that it's the extremists who are most likely to be politically active. Decisions are made by those who show up, and those tend to be the people with strong views. Very few Russians in 1916 were enthusiastic communists; the rest were just prepared to go along with it. And very few South Africans in 1948 were hardcore racists; but they were OK with the fact that their government was made up of scumbags and that is their guilt.

          • Re:Open Source Terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by compact_support (968176) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @02:38AM (#23074552)
            Still, we have ATi (AMD) specifications at least. For many users, closed drivers are as good as no drivers.

            • Re:Open Source Terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)

              by fractoid (1076465) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @02:53AM (#23074612) Homepage
              For a few ideological zealots, closed source drivers are as good as, or worse than, no drivers. For "many users", closed source drivers make the product work and thus are fine.

              • Re:Open Source Terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)

                by colmore (56499) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @10:52AM (#23078356) Journal
                Once you've had the experience of a system software upgrade rendering hardware unusable, and the manufacturer flat doesn't want to provide new drivers for old equipment, you will immediately see the value of open source drivers.

                A working closed driver is nice when it supports your system. An open driver means that if more than four or five hardcore geeks out there run a similar system as you, you WILL have a driver.

                So no, for day to day use on current consumer desktops that are free to update and reinstall whenever, closed drivers aren't a big deal. That isn't the only type of system out there.

    • Re:Muhahahaha (Score:5, Funny)

      by bky1701 (979071) on Tuesday April 15 2008, @01:11AM (#23074216) Homepage
      We need to stop Doctor GPL! he wants to allow everyone to see everyone else's privates, and give them a way to directly modify them! His perversion of source code everywhere must be stopped, but who...

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