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Here It Is:

Canadian Programmer Says U.S. Cut Funding After
Comments
By JENNIFER 8. LEE


ASHINGTON, April 23 ? A respected Canadian computer
programmer says the United States government severed
research financing for a computer security project he
was working on after he made remarks in the Canadian
press critical of the American military. 

The programmer, Theo de Raadt, the 35-year-old founder
of an international collaborative software project
known as OpenBSD, had been receiving support from the
Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, or Darpa, a
research arm of the American military that is closely
tied to the founding of the Internet.

The money, part of a $2.3 million grant given to the
University of Pennsylvania, was part of a military
effort to create computer systems more resilient to
hacking, viruses and other attacks. The American
military estimates that it experiences 250,000
cyberattacks each year.

The controversy highlights the delicate balance
between the military and the anti-establishment bent
of some in the technology community. It also shows
that the international pool of computer programmers
and hackers, possessing vast technological expertise,
is not entirely sympathetic to the American military's
current role in world affairs.

A recent interview with Mr. de Raadt, published by The
Globe and Mail of Toronto, portrayed him as being
uneasy about the military source of the financing. He
was quoted as saying, "I try to convince myself that
our grant means a half of a cruise missile doesn't get
built." The article also said he considered the war in
Iraq a grab for oil.

Mr. de Raadt said that a few days after the interview
was published, Jonathan Smith, the Penn professor who
heads the military grant project, told him people had
"expressed discomfort with what I had said." Then last
Friday Professor Smith sent out an e-mail message
saying that work had to cease immediately because the
military stopped the financing and the project was
"over."

Mr. de Raadt said this left the OpenBSD project in
crisis because it had already committed tens of
thousands of dollars to bringing together 60
programmers from around the world for a four-day
"hackathon" in Calgary in May. Darpa money has
supported other hackathons for this project.

Some cautioned about reading too much into the
military's decision. "These kinds of `stop works'
happen all the time," said Fernando Pereira, the head
of Penn's computer science department. "Federal
budgets and priorities change all the time."

Nevertheless, some computer specialists saw the
incident as a rebuke. People quickly voiced their
displeasure on Web sites, over e-mail lists and to the
organizations involved. 

On Monday, Darpa said it had not cut off all financing
for the project, just money for the hackathon. Jan
Walker, a spokeswoman for Darpa, said the agency was
reviewing the rest of the project, which has three
months left in its two-year contract. Decisions about
financing had been made because of "recent world
events and specifically the evolving threat posed by
increasingly capable nation-states," Ms. Walker said.

Mr. de Raadt said the decision extended beyond the
hackathon because the project's staff members had been
notified this week that their salaries would no longer
be paid by the military financing. He said the
hackathon would go on, financed by modest online
donations of $50 or $100. He noted that even while he
was on the phone with a reporter, $65 in donations had
come in.

"We are free people, we are hobbyists," he said. "We
do this for fun." 
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