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(venting a bit warning but also going to talk openly about why we did something.) So @DragosInc acquired NexDefense to release its tool to the community. @digitalbond didn’t like that answer that we’d do this do help folks. He challenged me publicly on it and I explained.
After explaining the full details of why he still decided to run in his newsletter the following: “I'm not buying the stated reason of helping the community by moving Sophia/Integrity to open source.” To a large public audience.
It’s up to everyone to make their own decision but since we’re being called a liar essentially I’d like to expose the reasons to everyone. Which by the way don’t actually impact anyone because it’s still a free tool for folks to use regardless.
The rationale to buy NexDefense had everything to do with releasing its tool for free. This was discussed with them on day 1 of acquisition discussions. The reasons are numerous. First, our infrastructure is important and we all (all the vendors not just Dragos) care about that.
We all live and work in this community. Almost exclusively the tool will be used by small infrastructure provides who will never buy the Dragos Platform. It’s not even good sales lead ins. It’s just small players in the community and an opportunity to help.
Second, NexDefense was founded by my friend Michael Assante & many folks have worked on Sophia and Integirty there and at INL. It was absolutely the *right* thing to do. Not everything has to be about business. Do the right thing and business will follow. They deserved a good end
Third, I’ve seen folks challenge me on “well why the sales lead form on the tool.” We don’t do that on any other content we have, it all has a skip button. But we *have* to on this. INL helped develop the tool and they have export controls on it. We can’t just geoblock.
So we legitimately have to validate company and country origin before releasing the tool. So business emails are required. Will we use the leads? Absolutely. We aren’t purposely bad at business. But it’s different than our normal content for a reason.
So why am I ranting in public? Why address @digitalbond’s accusation at all who I ABSOLUTELY respect and consider a long time friend? Because it’s absolutely silly that the ICS community has folks that can be so overtly cynical as to essentially encourage people not to take help
I’ve been part of this community a heck of a lot longer than I’ve been a vendor. I’ve been friends with Dale and a supporter of S4 before it was ever something to sponsor or use. The ICS community needs optimism. Not skepticism about every single little thing.
And I get the “you’re giving voice to it by addressing it” argument. But the ICS community is important to me. And to essentially be called a liar in a widely sent email to the ICS community is a total bullshit move Dale. So I’m calling it out as such.
