More on Arctic methane—Vast kilometer-wide methane "plumes" seen in Arctic ocean as sea ice retreats

Via commenter eggroll_jr, in response to this post —

"We're in a planetary emergency" thanks to Arctic ice melt and Greenland permafrost

— we find this article about the appearance of "methane plumes" now rising through the newly warmed Arctic ocean.

From The Independent last December:

Vast methane 'plumes' seen in Arctic ocean as sea ice retreats

Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane - a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide - have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.

The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.

We talked about methane here (scroll down) in reference to the methane trapped in Greenland permafrost and sealed from the atmosphere by now-disappearing ice sheets.

This story is about methane shooting up through the Arctic ocean itself in vast torch-like plumes and headed straight for the surface and the atmosphere.

The scale of the phenomenon — as usual — is the big surprise:

"Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we've found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It's amazing," Dr Semiletov said.

"I was most impressed by the sheer scale and the high density of the plumes. Over a relatively small area we found more than 100, but over a wider area there should be thousands of them," he said.

One thousand meters is a kilometer, folks — more than half a mile. These are high-density methane columns, compressed tight by the high pressure of the ocean itself, many wider than a kilometer. And they think there are thousands of them.

Add methane from the ocean depths, methane from the Greenland permafrost, and methane from the Siberian permafrost to the air, and we have unleashed a monster.

How big a monster? This big:

Scientists estimate that there are hundreds of millions of tons of methane gas locked away beneath the Arctic permafrost, which extends from the mainland into the seabed of the relatively shallow sea of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.

And this big:

The total amount of methane stored beneath the Arctic is calculated to be greater than the overall quantity of carbon locked up in global coal reserves[.]

I want to send you to the article for the rest; it's fascinating in a data-rich way.

There's even a discussion about why methane is so dangerous, and why those estimates of its effect relative to CO2 move around — from 20 to 25 times more damaging — depending on who provides them.

Time to get cracking. My personal climate estimate, 2022, may sadly be on target [EDIT: or way to optimistic]. The next post will focus on solutions. Stay tuned.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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Report on Putin: Life as a Galley Slave

It's not nearly as easy as you might think to be a modern tsar in Russia. The mansions, the yachts, the helicopters, the $75,000 toilets. It's rough. What's especially difficult is pretending that you're a simple guy, with simple tastes while so many struggle to reach even the middle class.

According to the report (which includes photos or the alleged mansions, yachts and jets) by his former deputy prime minister, Putin has amassed wealth far beyond what most even imagine. His greatest fear of giving up his leadership position is losing access to his luxurious lifestyle. (Accessing the report is not easy though this article includes photos of some of his properties.)

As Russians do join the middle class, will they continue to support Putin? For years my Russian friends and colleagues (who eventually all left Russia) tolerated it because there was a general movement upward for many. Now there is more frustration and a general realization that things may be about as good as it gets in Russia. Will that be enough for Putin?

There are the columned facades of palaces outside Moscow, in the southern resort of Sochi, and dozens more around the country. On an island in the centre of Lake Valdai, stands a 930 hectare estate serviced by a 1,000-strong staff that includes a "presidential church, swimming pool, two restaurants, movie theatre, bowling alley and concrete helipad".

The authors compare Putin's nearly two dozen official residences to the number held by other state rulers – two for the leaders of the United States and Germany, and three for the president of Italy. Nine of the villas were built while Putin was at the helm of the country, they note.

The leader has long attempted to present an image of average Russian machismo, staging regular photo ops with factory workers and bikers. Images of his stark home life stand in contrast to the meetings he holds in the Kremlin's gilded halls. During a televised meeting of his participation in Russia's nationwide census in 2010, Putin appeared on a drab beige sofa in one of the two modest flats he is officially registered as owning.

Yes indeed. Just a simple galley slave, as Putin calls himself. Read the rest of this post...

Syrian capital in chaos

Almost every report coming in from Syria right now is contradicted by another report. The only claim for which there appears to be good evidence is that the capital is in chaos with gunfights and explosions being heard.

The government claims that the defense minister and President Assad's brother in law were killed by a suicide bomber is contradicted by claims of responsibility by the Free Syrian Army and Liwa al-Islam, an Islamist group. And those are not the only people claiming responsibility.

According to an alternative version of events, the defense minister was killed by his own bodyguard. If that is true it is possible that the attack was actually an attempt at a coup, a Syrian version of the Stauffenberg bomb plot against Hitler.

According to the BBC World Service, Russia and even Iran are losing patience with the Syrian regime. But these reports have to be read with some skepticism as the BBC World Service exists to promote the world view of the UK Foreign Office. The Russian Ambassador to the UN is extremely clear that Russia opposes and will veto any Security Council resolution under Chapter 7, that is one that would authorize military intervention.

Russia is in a particularly weak diplomatic situation right now, having been on the losing side in (almost) every single international crisis since 1979: The invasion of Afghanistan, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Yugoslav civil war and most recently Libya.

The Arab Spring can be seen as a vindication of the 'domino theory', the revolution in Tunisia led to the uprisings in Egypt, Sudan and Libya. The fall of Libya has put renewed pressure on Syria. If Syria falls it is quite likely that there will be renewed unrest in the Gulf states, but what is likely to worry Russia rather more is the possibility that it would spread northward to the Caspian sea region.

With fighting in the capital, it now appears to be a question of when and how Assad falls rather than if he falls. Russian interests would certainly be best served if Assad was removed from the scene. Read the rest of this post...

The consequences of cyber-warfare in Iran: US and StuxNet, Part 2

In yesterday's post I described the key facts that we now know about the Stuxnet cyber attack. We now know that Stuxnet was developed by the US and Israeli governments to attack the Iranian uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. What we do not yet know is what the consequences were and will be.

Available evidence strongly suggests that the Stuxnet attack delayed the Iranian nuclear program by many weeks if not months. The Iranian government has confirmed that the plant was affected by a cyber attack and the IAEA has reported a sudden increase in the rate at which replacement of certain centrifuge parts. But it is also clear that the attack did not permanently incapacitate the plant.

Even if the reports of damage are true, these do not mean that there actually is an Iran nuclear bomb making program as alleged or that it was damaged. The Natanz plant is a civilian plant monitored by the IAEA whose purported purpose is to enrich uranium for use in Iran's nuclear power program. According to the reports produced by the monitors, the enriched uranium produced at Natanz to date is only suitable for power generation and not for bomb making.

If Iran is in fact diverting material from Natanz to a weapons program they must have at least one other enrichment facility that is not publicly known, or be planning to withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaties and use their civilian facilities to produce weapons grade uranium.

If the purpose of the attack was to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb it has to be considered a predictable failure. It is hard to see how causing premature failure of a few centrifuges would stop anyone. Short of an actual invasion there is nothing the US can to to prevent Iran getting the bomb if they make it a national priority. Iran has far more wealth, expertise and technology available to it in 2012 than the US had when it built the first bomb in 1945.

The best that can be said for Stuxnet is that it has caused much less damage than a 'kinetic' attack. 'kinetic' being the euphemism that the military people engaged in this field have decided on for the old fashioned approach of bombs and bullets. They also refer to the field as 'cyber-engagement' rather than cyber-warfare and there is a good reason for that which I will get to in the next part. The response from Iran has been minimal and as far as we know, Stuxnet has not killed anyone.

Admitting responsibility for Stuxnet certainly does Obama no harm as far as domestic politics are concerned. The Stuxnet news gives the lie to Romney's debate claim: "Look, one thing you can know and that is if we reelect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. And if we elect Mitt Romney, if you elect me as the next president, they will not have a nuclear weapon."

The difference between the Republican party approach to national security and the Obama administration policy is clear: Bush started two wars and failed to win either. Obama has ended the Iraq war and eliminated Bin Laden and Iran still does not have a nuclear weapon.

Equally clear is that what Obama is really offering is a competently executed version of the policy Bush attempted incompetently. Being better than the alternative does not mean a policy is good. While some of the comments on my first post claimed Stuxnet was 'terrorism' what the attack really amounts to is some petty vandalism and comes with some very significant costs.

Some of those costs are short term: Iran now has a pretty good excuse to leave the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and the US admission that it was behind Stuxnet is going to give Russia and China a lot of leverage in their attempt to change Internet standards to make it easier for governments to control. I will deal with both of those issues in future posts. First however I want to focus on the longer term problem: Stuxnet has opened up a Pandora's box.

I will deal with that issue in part 3. Read the rest of this post...

Massive anti-Putin protest in freezing Moscow

It took courage to join the initial anti-protests and now it takes courage to get out there on the streets during the Russian winter. The Guardian:

Tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators are marching through Moscow and other Russian cities in protest at Vladimir Putin's grip on power. Thousands of Putin supporters are also staging a rally in the capital a month before the presidential election that the prime minister is expected to win, putting him in power for six more years. The rival demonstrators were undeterred by the freezing temperatures, which have plunged as low as -20C, with opposition leaders saying that up to 100,000 people had joined the protest in Moscow on Saturday.

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Putin reassigns 'puppet master' to appease protesters

Unfortunately Putin can't be photographed doing something rugged as he did in the past to win over support. That was so yesterday. With the crowds of protesters increasing Putin had little choice but to acknowledge the demands for change. He's going to have to do a lot more than superficial changes if he wants the protests to stop. The Guardian:

The order by president Dmitry Medvedev to make Vladislav Surkov a deputy prime minister in charge of economic modernisation was variously interpreted as a sign that leaders recognise the need for significant reform and as a cosmetic move with little meaning. Allegations of fraud in December's national parliamentary election sparked a wave of protests unprecedented in post-Soviet Russia, including two vast rallies in Moscow that attracted tens of thousands. Putin, who was president in 2000-2008, seeks to return to the Kremlin in elections in March, and the protests have undermined his image as the inevitable winner. Putin and Medvedev have sought to dilute the protests by rolling out a set of proposed political reforms, but have firmly resisted the protest leaders' main demand that the parliament elections be annulled and rerun. Opposition forces also say the proposed reforms are too little and too late.

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Tens of thousands again protest Putin

More power to them. It takes guts to do this and as this goes on, it's likely to get even more dangerous.

Tens of thousands have taken to the streets of Moscow to protest against allegedly fraudulent elections, as opposition leaders issued scathing personal attacks on Vladimir Putin in the hope of preventing his return to the presidency next year. Mikhail Gorbachev has urged Putin to follow his own example and step down. Former leader Gorbachev said on Ekho Moskvy radio that if Putin stepped down now he would be remembered for the positive things he did during his 12 years in power. Security sources said 80,000 people turned out for the four hour protest on Moscow's Sakharov Prospect, despite a freezing temperature of -5C. Police put the number at 29,000 while protest organisers said up to 120,000 had gathered.

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Putin's wealth valued at $179,612

Some people believe that Mitt Romney is just a simple "99%" kind of guy or that Obama really had no real chance to change the system. There are surely some people who will fall for this too, but are there enough of them this time to believe such a tall tale?

Vladimir Putin has faced claims that he is the richest man in Europe, presiding over a mafia state and with a personal fortune of more than $40bn (£25.5bn). But Russia's central election commission has said his bank balance was rather more modest – a mere $179,612. The prime minister's income from the past four years was $557,744, it added. Putin was also said to own two modest apartments, in Moscow and St Petersburg, and a plot of land. The politician, who usually travels in an armoured state-owned Mercedes, owns several cars, including two vintage Volgas – a 1960 GAZ M21 and a 1965 GAZ M-21P – as well as a 2009 Lada. He also has a car trailer made in 1987.

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Russian protests larger than expected

It takes dedication to go out and protest against someone like Putin, especially during a Russian winter. They're not likely to get new elections but they're definitely putting their mark on politics for the future. The Guardian:

Up to 50,000 people braved the cold and snow on Saturday to turn out for the largest ever protest against the rule of prime minister Vladimir Putin.

Bolotnaya Square, across the river from the Kremlin in central Moscow, was filled to overflowing with thousands standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the bridges and along the riverfront leading to the site. Tens of thousands of police and interior troops were deployed around the area, but protesters had been allowed by officials to gather in an unprecedented show of discontent.

Shouts of "Russia without Putin!" and "Freedom!" were mixed with demands that the Kremlin annul a disputed parliamentary election that saw Putin's United Russia party gain nearly 50% of the vote despite widespread accusations of fraud.

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Russians plan nationwide protests today

Reuters is calling it the "rise of the middle class" in Russia and after working closely with Russians for the last eight years, I'd have to agree. The Russia of today is not what it was even ten years ago, but Putin doesn't understand what happened. Things may become a little more clear for him today as Russians plan a large protest in Moscow and many more smaller protests around the country.

To his credit, Putin's policies helped grow the middle class. Unfortunately Putin missed a few history classes and failed to understand that when this happens, people want and expect to have some say in the future of the country. Being pushed aside while the mega-rich zip by, above the law, is not sustainable. Russians now expect more and will eventually get it. Al Jazeera:

Russia is bracing itself for the first nationwide protest against Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule amid signs of swelling anger over a poll won by his ruling United Russia party with the alleged help of widescale fraud.

Moscow authorities gave permission for 30,000 people to gather on a square across the river from the Kremlin at 10:00 GMT after detaining some 1,600 activists over the past few days who joined unsanctioned rallies against the December 4 vote.

The opposition is also organising rallies in at least 14 other major cities in a rare outpouring of mistrust in a system put in place by Putin when he first became president in 2000.

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Putin’s DDoS attack against democracy

It is now very clear that the Russian election was rigged. The evidence is incontrovertible. The question is whether enough people living inside Russia will get to see it.

Putin has for many years maintained an alliance with the major cyber-criminals operating inside Russia. The criminals are allowed to operate openly in return for performing political favors. One of these groups, the Russian Business Network, operated out of the regular office block in St. Petersburg shown below for many years and was only forced to move offices and change their name after the Economist published an article that finally embarrassed the authorities enough to make them move and change their name.


Since the weekend, a large portion of the two largest criminal botnets have been re-targeted to perform DDoS attacks on opposition Web sites.  (Background on what a DDoS attack is.)

This operation went into overdrive after the election as video evidence of ballot stuffing started to appear on YouTube.

What is inexplicable about these attacks is that Putin was the overwhelming favorite to win the Presidential election in March fair and square. His main rival is the leader of the discredited Communist party who citizens blame for the economic catastrophe that fell in the wake of the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Putin is still the candidate most likely to win the election, but Russian politics have suddenly changed and it is now possible to imagine Putin might not win on the first round. Read the rest of this post...

Putin: Protests in Russia are all Hillary's fault

I really wish Hillary Clinton could stop rigging elections in Russia to make it look like Vladimir Putin won in suspicious conditions. Please Hillary, you have to stop tampering with the Russian elections and let Putin return the country to being a proper democracy.

Vladimir Putin has accused Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, of fomenting an increasingly vociferous opposition movement in Russia, threatening to derail the two countries' fragile resetting of relations.

The accusation builds on months of Russian statements and media coverage blaming popular uprisings around the Arab world on western scheming. It comes as Washington and Moscow tussle over a host of disagreements, from missile defence to Syria.

Speaking to supporters on Thursday, Putin accused Clinton of giving "the signal" to opposition leaders, who are expected to gather with tens of thousands of supporters for a protest on Saturday. He rejected Clinton's repeated criticism of a parliamentary vote last weekend that gave Putin's United Russia party nearly 50% of the vote amid widespread reports of fraud.

Ahhh, the secret signal that all Americans know and love. Was it the double eye wink or was it the secret code word that every American knows? Read the rest of this post...

Anti-government protests increasing in Russia

The PR-spin days of Putin may be nearing an end. While Russians were fine with his flashy antics a few years ago, suddenly they want more. They want more freedom and less Putin. In the early days of Putin, Russians were just glad to be back on the map after the fall of the Soviet Union. They could tolerate and even accept Putin's desire to be on the front pages.

Russians used to be very insular but thanks to prosperity in the oil industry as well as other areas (software, for example) more and more Russians have circulated outside of Russia. After seeing the world a bit, Putin's games are no longer as attractive as it used to be. If you're going to rub your billions into the faces of the public, you should expect some backlash, eventually. Parts of Russian society have progressed, but not enough and not quickly enough. The Guardian:

With concern inside the Kremlin growing, Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, met their security council, including the interior and defence ministers, the head of the federal security service (FSB) and the country's foreign intelligence chief, to discuss the situation.

Helicopters hovered in the skies over Moscow, while the police presence on the streets of the Russian capital remained strong following two protests that led to hundreds of people arrested.

The movement was triggered by a disputed parliamentary election result that protesters say wildly overstated the popularity of Putin's United Russia party.

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Putin's party fails to secure 50% in elections

What a fall from grace for the very macho Putin. Somehow photos of him shooting animals or wrestling wild bears is no longer doing the trick. Speaking of tricks, by many accounts, the elections yesterday were allegedly full of dirty tricks that would make even Republicans blush. Putin's party may be in the lead, but failing to hit 50% even when cheating shows how the times are changing. The Guardian:

A YouTube user in east Moscow illustrated how the pens at booths in school #1114 were filled with invisible ink. In the Siberian city of Novokuznetsk, a user showed how ballot boxes had arrived at a polling site one-third filled with votes.

A Moscow user filmed an election official at polling station #2501 filling out ballots as he sat at his desk. Several users filmed buses, nicknamed "carousels", which appeared to be carrying the same people to various stations so they could vote over and over again.

"Today we have witnessed the dirtiest, foulest elections of the last 20 years," one opposition leader, said Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy premier. "We can't even call them elections – it's the theft of votes from the Russian people."

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Tunnel to link US and Russia?

It's an interesting idea for engineers to consider but does this really make sense when it links two of the most remote parts of Russia and the US? Bad winter weather would likely make transport very difficult for part of the year.

The Times newspaper in the U.K. said that idea to construct a $60 billion tunnel under the Bering Strait was this week backed by some of President Dmitry Medvedev’s top officials.

The paper described the idea as "the greatest railway project of all time."

The tunnel would mean Russian territory would meet U.S. jurisdiction underneath the islands of Big Diomede, which is Russian, and Little Diomede, which is American. One problem might be that there is no rail line to Alaska's west coast.

The Times named one of the officials supporting the plan as Aleksandr Levinthal, the deputy federal representative for the Russian Far East.

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Russia declares "war on drugs"

Not just war, but "total war" because it's that much more macho. Sort of like taking the dial up to eleven. Just in time as the others are starting to realize that such programs have been a complete flop and expensive. It's been great for pumping cash into defense contractors, privatized prisons and the hands of third world politicians but there are some crazy types out there that question how valuable it has been to society. The Guardian:

Drug dealers are to be "treated like serial killers" and could be sent to forced labour camps under harsh laws being drawn up by Russia's Kremlin-controlled parliament.

Boris Gryzlov, the speaker of the state duma, the lower house, said a "total war on drugs" was needed to stem a soaring abuse rate driven by the flow of Afghan heroin through central Asia to Europe.

Russia has as many as 6 million addicts (one in 25 people). Every year 100,000 people die from using drugs, Gryzlov said in a newspaper. The scale of the problem "threatens Russia's gene pool", he said. "We are standing on the edge of a precipice. Either we squash drug addiction or it will destroy us."

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Life in a kleptocracy: How Mikhail Khodorkovsky came to own the giant oil company Yukos

Matt Taibbi, who once lived and worked in Russia, has an interesting piece about the current media concern over Putin's prosecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of both the massive Russian oil company Yukos and the large Russian bank Menatep.

For Taibbi, it's foolish to feel bad about Khodorkovsky, since he's not quite the "moderate businessman" he's lately painted to be. My interest in the article is the story behind Taibbi's justification for vilifying Khodorkovsky.

This is what life looks like in a kleptocracy, a state that's run by crony capitalism on steroids. In a kleptocracy, everything owned by the government can be stolen or bought cheap if you have the right connections — and those connections are in government precisely for the purpose of selling public property to their friends for personal gain. It's institutionalized looting.

Here's Taibbi on how Yukos, the formerly state-owned oil company, was acquired. Note the role of the bank Menatep, which Khodorkovsky runs, in the process:

Khodorkovsky acquired his controlling stake in Yukos via the "loans-for shares" privatization auctions in the mid-nineties. In those auctions, the Russian state essentially sold off stakes in giant government-owned industrial companies in exchange for cash, the ostensible object being twofold: raise money for the cash-strapped state and also speed up the transformation from a Soviet command economy to a capitalist system.

But Khodorkovsky didn't do much to add cash to the state's coffers, because he got the money to buy Yukos from ... the Russian government! In those days the Russian Central Bank farmed out some of its operations to private banks. As part of that policy, Menatep ended up holding billions in state funds that were meant to be distributed for government actions, like for instance the prosecution of a war in Chechnya. A state audit eventually found that some $4.4 billion in Russian government money was never returned to the state by Menatep. And a research paper by the Harvard Business School concluded that Menatep was many billions in debt to the the Russian state when it made its winning bid for a controlling stake in Yukos for the preposterously low price of $350 million.

Even better, Khodorkosky got his buddies in the Yeltsin administration to allow Menatep to administer the Yukos auction; it naturally excluded its rivals from bidding on the stake, making the Yukos auction a one-horse race.

In other words, he used public money to buy the company, and he ran a rigged auction in order to exclude rival bids (which, by the way, offered the state more for the sale). All because of his "connections."

Taibbi concludes with a mafia metaphor:

To quote Goodfellas, this is all "real greaseball shit." Khodorkovsky was an ex-Komsomol insider communist hack who was handed a huge company by his thug pals, but when his gang asked him to toe the line and his Don, Vladimir Putin, asked him to do a service, he balked and went solo. So they took back his cheese and threw him in jail.

We're not there yet, but we're closing in on it. The acquisition of Yukos is not much different from some billionaire financing the political campaigns of western senators; then getting the Senate to make public land available for private profiteering — oil leases, for example, or logging, or grazing rights; then rigging the auctions.

It's only a question of scale. In Wisconsin, one of Scott Walker's proposals is the right to sell off state-owned power plants and utilities. How is this different?

One final point — I've recently been posting about coalitions, the progressive coalition and the so-called Democratic "coalition" that contains both progressives and Rubinite neo-liberals. In what world are progressives not dead-opposite to neo-liberals on issues like "privatization" (aka looting)?

Conclusion? Strengthen the progressive coalition using Cruickshank's suggestions, and show your teeth and your bite to the neos. They'll never respect you otherwise.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Putin's $1 billion palace?

This even puts to shame any perks that retired US presidents have received after leaving office. Either way it's a form of corruption, though $1 billion is a seriously large number. Too bad money can't buy taste because this palace is tacky. Read the rest of this post...

Report: TSA would not have been able to stop Moscow airport terror attack

Too bad nobody in Washington cares. It's easier to buckle under and live with the expensive waste of money rather than stand up for privacy. And before the GOP starts with their "privatize it" nonsense again, the private companies are following TSA procedures so the same would apply to them. Following the Tuscon shootings we heard one member of Congress talk about putting a shield around Congress for safety so brace yourself for more ridiculous ideas. ABC News:

"I see the classified results and it gives me great concern, I saw what happened [in Moscow] and I have even more concern," Rep. Mica said today on the ABC News program Good Morning America.

The suicide bomb attack at the Moscow airport highlighted a physical vulnerability long recognized by both security officials and terrorists.

"Every airport in the world, including every airport in the United States, has virtually no security until you get to the security checkpoint," said Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant and former White House counter-terrorism official.

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Russian government to go 'open source' by 2015

Good luck with that transition. Ditching old applications can take years and writing them from scratch is not a quick process either. It may be even more difficult (or at least, more expensive) since many of the brightest software engineers in Russia are already employed by foreign software vendors who are building products for global businesses and governments. Putin may have a point about the privacy issues though open source offers no guarantees either. WSJ:

At the end of 2010, the "open-source" software movement, whose activists tend to be fringe academics and ponytailed computer geeks, found an unusual ally: the Russian government. Vladimir Putin signed a 20-page executive order requiring all public institutions in Russia to replace proprietary software, developed by companies like Microsoft and Adobe, with free open-source alternatives by 2015.

The move will save billions of dollars in licensing fees, but Mr. Putin's motives are not strictly economic. In all likelihood, his real fear is that Russia's growing dependence on proprietary software, especially programs sold by foreign vendors, has immense implications for the country's national security. Free open-source software, by its nature, is unlikely to feature secret back doors that lead directly to Langley, Va.

Nor is Russia alone in its distrust of commercial software from abroad. Just two weeks after Mr. Putin's executive order, Iran's minister of information technology, citing security concerns, announced plans for a national open-source operating system. China has also expressed a growing interest. When state-owned China Mobile recently joined the Linux Foundation, the nonprofit entity behind the most famous open-source project, one of the company's executives announced—ominously to the ears of some—that the company was "looking forward to contributing to Linux on a global scale."

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