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Windows Back Door? Who's guarding the guards? That would be us | |
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| Time: 08:27 EST/13:27 GMT | News Source: E-Mail | Posted By: Brian Kvalheim | ||
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The essay "Open Source Is Fertile Ground for Foul Play" suggests three areas where security might be a concern for governments when considering open source software. However, all three arguments are flawed "straw men" when subjected to rational analysis. Indeed, some of the author's own arguments demonstrate the strengths of open source when weighed against any closed source alternative. First, the author suggests that security breaches could be inserted into open source software by an insider, perhaps hidden in code submitted as a fix or an extension. While there is a remote possibility of this occurring (this is conceded as "not terribly likely," even by the author), there is a far greater possibility of this occurring when patching closed source software. |
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Read Only Comments Return to News |
Displaying Comments 1 through 3 of 3 |
This is an archived static copy of ActiveWin.com. |
| #1 By 860 (207.111.170.131) at Friday, February 13, 2004 09:19:59 AM |
| This kind of thing has already happened - twice. Two times in recent memory, someone tried to put in some back doors to the Linux kernel itself. However, an argument could be made that open source allows much closer scrutiny of code and back doors would be caught much quicker. In those two cases I'm thinking of, both back doors were caught by peer coders before it made rounds on the net. |
| #2 By 3653 (63.162.177.143) at Friday, February 13, 2004 09:40:13 AM |
| linux code leak? linux back door? available at www.redhat.com |
| #3 By 19992 (68.69.127.19) at Friday, February 13, 2004 10:14:30 PM |
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Considering the holes in OSS, no one needs to put in an explicit backdoor. They just have to wait a week. One will show up.
The exact same holds true for closed source software. |
