A tipster draws our attention to a posting from one Saddam Hussein on the linux-elitists list, pointing out an oddity concerning the US Department of Homeland Security's newly-launched web site. The site was announced on Friday, running on a spiffy combo of Linux and Oracle 9i, but if you consult its recent history at Netcraft you'll note that this isn't the full story.

It was JRun Web Server on Windows 2000 at a netblock owned by the US Office of Personnel Management up until the grand unveiling, then it switched over to proper hosting solutions.

Enter X-files conspiracy theorists. Did not Homeland Security launch its site just as the dreaded worm hit? Might they not have run cover? Well no, it's inconceivable that you could whizzle up a whole Linux/9i web site in a couple of hours, so they'd have had to know about the worm well in advance in order to be able to do that. Which we agree has the makings of a much better X-files conspiracy theory - government-sponsored cyber counter-terrorism, anyone?

Saddam has what appears to be the text of the press release announcing the site, which is described as having been "designed, tested and deployed within 30 days." Which isn't a couple of hours, but is pretty good, and a pretty good commercial for the software. The Windows 2000 report predecessor, we'd guess, was merely a placeholder ahead of the switch on.

Still, it's nice to see Linux defending the homeland, and to know that the Department of Homeland Security doesn't hold with this stuff about the GPL being communism. Unless... Now, there's another good conspiracy theory... ®

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