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

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From: Martin Minow <minow@pobox.com>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Message Hash: 398e027dbe47e449fc5cb94c095b3e07f7415816e0e88ae1036d10d6b7310181
Message ID: <v03102800b27f4dc25a93@[17.202.40.158]>
Reply To: <Pine.SOL.3.96.981122232742.12779A-100000@sparkle>
UTC Datetime: 1998-11-23 18:39:43 UTC
Raw Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 02:39:43 +0800

Raw message

From: Martin Minow <minow@pobox.com>
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 02:39:43 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Is Open Source safe? [Linux Weekly News]
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.96.981122232742.12779A-100000@sparkle>
Message-ID: <v03102800b27f4dc25a93@[17.202.40.158]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Frank O'Dwyer <fod@brd.ie> opines:
>
>Yes it does, but not quite in the same way. For example, I believe that
>in days of yore some attackers managed to insert a back door into some
>DEC OS by breaking into the coding environment (I don't recall the
>details, does anyone else?).

<http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/> describes how the inventors
of Unix inserted a backdoor into the Unix login program. It's well
worth reading. However, there is no indication that this trojan
horse ever shipped to customers.

>So in other words, not only _could_ this
>happen with non-OSS, it _has_ happened, and no doubt it happens
>reasonably often.

I doubt it.

Martin Minow
minow@pobox.com

Thread