1998-11-23 - Is Open Source safe? [Linux Weekly News]

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From: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>
To: users@einstein.ssz.com (SSZ User Mail List)
Message Hash: 231820ea6c66d8b6a18dc192386198051cfb02263581645ca8aac2c13f66875f
Message ID: <199811230327.VAA20072@einstein.ssz.com>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1998-11-23 03:57:42 UTC
Raw Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 11:57:42 +0800

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From: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 11:57:42 +0800
To: users@einstein.ssz.com (SSZ User Mail List)
Subject: Is Open Source safe? [Linux Weekly News]
Message-ID: <199811230327.VAA20072@einstein.ssz.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



Forwarded message:

> X-within-URL: http://lwn.net/1998/1119/Trojan.html

>                                THE TROJAN HORSE
>                                        
>                                        
>     Bruce Perens <bruce@hams.com>
>     
>    
>    There's a problem that could very badly effect the public perception
>    of Linux and Open Source. I want people to think about this, and
>    hopefully "head it off at the pass" before it happens.
>    
>    Perhaps it's already on your system today: a trojan-horse program. It
>    might be a game, or more likely a system utility. It's author uploaded
>    it to an FTP archive, where it was then picked up by your favorite
>    Linux distribution, who wrote it onto the CD-ROM that you bought. It
>    works just fine, but hidden away in the program is a special feature:
>    a secret back-door past your system's security.
>    
>    Perhaps the author of this attack is tired of hearing about what great
>    hackers we are, and wants to take us down a notch. He's patient - he
>    will wait until his program is distributed to tens of thousands of
>    Linux systems before he says a word. But say is what he'll do - he's
>    not really interested in breaking into your system. What he wants is
>    the publicity, bad publicity for us, and lots of it. We've left the
>    gates open for this trojan horse. Let's talk about how to close them,
>    and hope we have enough time to solve this problem before our
>    reputation is hurt.

[mnoga tekct oodalyaty]


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