Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) will
present several new open source-based desktop and security
applications on Wednesday at a local Linux event.
The applications include an e-mail encryption tool for Windows
users, a security suite for the public and private sectors, and
desktop systems for public administrations, BSI said Tuesday.
The GNU Privacy Guard for Windows (gpg4win) application is based
on the free software GnuPG, designed to enable data encryption and
easy integration with other applications, including Microsoft
Corp.'s Outlook 2003. The software, available for free under terms
of the GNU General Public License, can be used not only by public
administrations and businesses but also by consumers.
The product is available for download at: http://www.gpg4win.de.
BSI's open source security suite (BOSS) allows public and
private sector organizations to centrally monitor the security of
their entire IT networks. The application is based largely on the
open source scanner Nessus and the tool Security Local Auditing
Daemon (SLAD), designed to perform local security checks against
GNU/Linux systems.
The product is available for download at: http://www.bsi.bund.de/produkte/boss/index.htm#download.
As part of the government-funded Experiment with Open Source
Software (ERPOSS) project, which aims to make open source software
more easy to install and use by public administrations, BSI and
Credative GmbH collaborated to make the ERPOSS4 desktop
application. The application, based on the Debian GNU/Linux 3.1
operating system and KDE 3.3 graphic interface, includes
OpenOffice, KMail with integrated virus and spam protection and the
Mozilla Firefox browser, as well as a preconfigured personal
firewall.
The product is available at: http://www.bsi.bund.de/produkte/erposs/index.htm.
Most of the information about the BSI products is in German
only, but the agency points out that because of the input from
international groups, some information is also available in
English.
English-language information about BSI is available at: http://www.bsi.bund.de/english/index.htm.
The agency will present the open source applications at the
LinuxTag conference and exhibition, which runs from May 3-6 in
Wiesbaden, Germany.
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