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Confidence Shaken In Open Source Security Idealism
iONiUM writes: According to a few news articles, the general public has taken notice of all the recent security breaches in open source software. From the article: "Hackers have shaken the free-software movement that once symbolized the Web's idealism. Several high-profile attacks in recent months exploited security flaws found in the "open-source" software created by volunteers collaborating online, building off each other's work."
While it's true that open source means you can review the actual code to ensure there's no data-theft, loggers, or glaring security holes, that idealism doesn't really help out most people who simply don't have time, or the knowledge, to do it. As such, the trust is left to the open source community, and is that really so different than leaving it to a corporation with closed source?"
While it's true that open source means you can review the actual code to ensure there's no data-theft, loggers, or glaring security holes, that idealism doesn't really help out most people who simply don't have time, or the knowledge, to do it. As such, the trust is left to the open source community, and is that really so different than leaving it to a corporation with closed source?"
Am I supposed to believe that the general public is aware of open-source software at all? They're hardly aware of the concept of "openness" in the first place.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
All of this presupposes a pre-existing awareness of Open Source and Free Software among the general public. Due due the typically communal nature of Free Software, this awareness really doesn't exist to begin with. It's absurd to talk about the "general public" and how their confidence is "shaken" when they are blissfully unaware to begin with.
This is just the usual professional troll click bait that we've come to expect from the news media lately. They need to feed the 24 hour news cycle and will do so by any means necessary.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
amazing this article is posted on the same day as 3 0days for MS products.
one of which has been known for over a month, and will soon have a logo.
THL phish sticks
The schematics for cars are available, just review them to make sure there's no structural or design flaws.
The chemical formulas for prescription drugs are available, just review them to make sure they're not poisonous.
The texts of the laws are available, just review them to make sure there's no conflicts with constitutional rights and other laws.
The point is, get off your high horse, not everyone knows how to code. And even if you do know how to code, with the dozens of programming languages out there, and the almost infinite coding styles of programmers, you shouldn't expect even other coders to be able to review your code.
Yes, it really is so different.
With both the recent openssl and bash bugs, in addition to fixing the bug, careful investigation was done by the respective communities and additional problems were/are being addressed. I submit that this would likely not have been the case with closed source software.
Yes. Yes it is. Because with open source, you have the possibility of dedicated community members examining, testing, and fixing the code even before a major breach happens. You even have the option of doing it yourself.
With closed source you have companies that will spend the minimal amount they can on security, and sweep issues under the rug as long as no one is complaining with arguments like, "oh, the odds of someone exploiting THAT are astronomical". Which means that the first people who discover the problem are usually the black hats.
Meanwhile my Windows 8.1 is downloading 16 fixes in 97MiB, of which one was used for military and industrial espionage if the security firm that found it in the wild SIX WEEKS AGO is to be believed.
There is no magic alternative that is better than open.
As such, the trust is left to the open source community, and is that really so different than leaving it to a corporation with closed source?
Yes, it really is so different. Open Source provides an additional avenue for security auditing. With closed source software, any auditing body must be authorized to view the source code by the owner of the software. With Open Source, anyone can audit it. That does not mean that anyone has audited it, but being able to do so without having to contact the software distributor and get their permission is a substantial difference.
If you want highly secure software, you have to verify that one or more trusted third parties have audited the code. You can't skip that step with either kind of software, it's just easier to get it done with Open Source.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
No, bash was NOT working as expected.
The expectation was that a bash shell function could be defined by starting an environment variable value with "() {". The purpose of the code was to do exactly that, no more and no less. Yes it did assume the string came from a trusted source and the idea is questionable, but that was not the hole.
The fact that the code could cause arbitrary commands in the value to be executed at startup was certainly not intended.
I think it is interesting that this bug was visible in source code for 20 years and until now nobody found it. This includes the black-hats. Not sure what this means...
yes, sir, sure would hate to be vendor-bound at work or home with insecure systems, or using a network full of spies and lies, to access online sales where I and my financial records might actually be the product. Yep, you can trust brand-name software and systems totally.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?