UK to US: we'll only buy open-source fighter jets

By Cory Doctorow at 6:13 am Thursday, Mar 16

The UK government has threatened to cancel an order for US-built Joint Strike Fighter jets unless America turns over the source-code for the jets' firmware.

Britain is worried that the jets could contain back-doors that let the US remotely disable them.

Lord Drayson, minister for defence procurement, told the The Daily Telegraph that the planes were useless without control of the software as they could effectively be "switched off" by the Americans without warning.

"We do expect this technology transfer to take place. But if it does not take place we will not be able to purchase these aircraft," said Lord Drayson.

This is the big fight for the next twenty years: do your devices take orders from you or someone else? Whether it's the box on top of your TV, the phone in your pocket, or the fighter-jet in the hangar, no one wants to own a device that can be 0wned by its manufacturer or whomever that vendor sells you out to. Link (via /.)

Update: Beaumains points out that Australia has made the same demands.