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The NSA Will Release 'Niagarafiles' Data Analysis Tool as Open Source

posted by janrinok on Wednesday November 26 2014, @03:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'd-prefer-the-data dept.

sigma writes:

A ZDNet story explains that Niagarafiles, renamed as NiFi, will be released under the Apache license. The tool, which is conceptually derived from flow-based programming, is used for automating data flows across multiple networks, even where data formats and protocols differ.

The project's lead developer, Joseph Witt, said the NSA took great pains to develop the tool in a way that would eventually allow the agency to release its source code.

"From its inception, NiFi was developed with an open source philosophy in mind and with the hopes of eventually being truly open sourced," Witt explained.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by itn on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:37AM

    by itn (4865) on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:37AM (#120459)

    Forbidding the use of that research creates little incentive for anyone to do that kind of research again. Not using that research means that all those people died horribly for nothing.

    The first one might be a pretty flawed argument. The experiments in question were done for the purpose of war. Someone who's willing to freeze people to death, in order to wage a war more efficiently, surely isn't that concerned about citations. More importantly, his leaders aren't. Besides, after you win the war, you get to write the history.

    Granted, this principle would not apply only to war, so I think there's some merit. But it will never stop something like the Nazi experiments.

    It's gruesome but I think there's only one question to ask: Will using the results make the society (or humankind) better or worse?

    What is unethical about better understanding rockets by studying Nazi engineering?

    Maybe the fact that the research and the results were used for killing a lot of people (far more than died in the hypothermia or pressure chamber experiments)?