The Linux Extremist

One of my favourite jokes goes like this: a new recruit to the French Foreign Legion is being shown by his commanding officer around his first post, which is a fortress in the middle in the desert.

The officer shows the private where the men eat, sleep, and of course, where the latrines are. At the end of the tour, he asks, “Do you have any questions?”

“Oui, mon capitain.” the recruit replies, “what do you do when you have urges?”

“Urges?” the officer asks.

Making some suggestive movements, the recruit says with a nervous wink, “You know, urges.”

“Ah.” the officer says, pointing to a camel tied up in the courtyard, “well most of us use Daisy over there.”

Not fancying the idea of making love to a four legged animal, the recruit decides it’s best to stay away from Daisy. One month passes, two months, then three. Finally, frustrated beyond all endurance, the recruit runs screaming into the courtyard and leaps onto the camel, making love to it with all his might, and then collapses into a heap on the ground. The officer then speaks to the young man:

“Well, I hope you’re happy…but most of us use Daisy to ride to the brothel in the next town.”

Speaking of people who could probably only get a date of the four legged variety, the terrorists who have blighted air transport in and out of Britain probably don’t realise the consequences of what they’re doing. It was already inconvenient to fly. Flying is right down there on my list of experiences along with dentistry: one stands in line to check in, one stands in line to get through security, one stands in line at Duty Free, one stands in line to get on the plane, one stands in line to get through passport control on the other end, one stands in line to wait for baggage that never comes, and one has to look at a line of drivers to either find your dear ones hidden behind a Hells Angel who is moonlighting as a limo driver, or a driver who has so badly misspelled your name that he’s turned it from English into Martian. Of course the trip itself involved being crammed into a space designed for circus midgets while stewardesses who in their spare time probably work as “Katrina of the Whip” fling sandwiches at you which are hard enough to take out an eye. The terrorists, in their continuingly futile efforts to make themselves seem anywhere near macho rather than hung like a baby earthworm, have just made this entire experience even more unbearable.

This is where technology steps in. I don’t have to go on a business trip, and neither do you. In fact one doesn’t even have to leave home. Good men and women have tirelessly worked to bring broadband to the point of overcapacity to ensure that video conferencing, e-mail and document sharing are almost instantaneous. Terrorism will likely encourage this transition from jet age business to information age business.

Some might say, OK, if technology is wonderful, what about the use that these worst sort of “animal lovers” make of the internet? It’s true that Al Qaeda uses the ‘Net to communicate, but so does the FBI, CIA and MI6. In fact, maybe Al Qaeda’s operatives should try to read something other than the Koran, because, thanks a lot fellas, but communicating in the open like this helps our boys find out who you are.

Truly, we technologists have a vital role to play in the War on Terror. We need to continue to press on with developing alternatives to face to face business to sustain our economies, and to assist the authorities in tracking down terrorists who use technology for their own malign ends. We are footsoldiers in this war on terror. So, infidel geeks of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but some bandwidth.

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