Open source anti-Semitic as well as communist shock

We've long known that "open source" is a just a mechanism for espousing communist philosophy, but for the anti-Semitic angle we're grateful to yesterday's mailing from the Openmoko project, which explained that President Obama is simply a shill for a Zionist comspiracy.

Openmoko is a open-source phone handset - both the hardware and software conform to an open philosophy enabling hacking equally by those wielding a soldering iron and/or a keyboard. While sort of out-there, this hardly seems conducive to the wild conspiracy-theory tosh sent out to subscribers expecting to receive updates on the status of the Openmoko project.

According to the email, which was sent to the openmoko-announce mailing list, Obama "completely supports the theft of trillions of American taxpayer dollars to the Zionist international bankers", which came as a shock to us as we didn't know the American taxpayer had trillions of dollars left these days. But that's only part of an overriding plan that will see Obama leading "America, Palestine and the world to the bloody altar of Jewish Supremacism [sic]".

However, the Obama-as-the-pawn-in-a-Jewish-world-domination-conspiracy seemed too insane to have come from the Openmoko guys, who are no more than a little odd.

Sure enough, this morning the project sent out an apology and explanation that their email addresses were spoofed, which allowed the nutters in, and a fix was delayed by the Chinese New Year, amongst other things.

Still, it is embarrassing to have one's mailing list hacked with a forged email. While we support the idea of an open source handset, the Openmoko project might have to become a little more closed - next time the forged mailing might not be so easily identified as such. ®