Linux is Communism!

[Basil Chupin]

On 29/12/2010 02:46, Samuel Thurston wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 8:28 AM, Douglas Pollard<dougpol1 at verizon.net>  wrote:
>> On 12/28/2010 07:23 AM, David Gerard wrote:
>>> Sorry, forgot Russia's capitalist now:
>>>
>>> http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2010/12/putin-orders-russian-move-to-gnulinux.html
>>>
>>>
>>> - d.
>>>
>> I heard that he might do that. I hate to see that happen. I don't think
>> it's a good thing for OSS. Â A better thing is for OSS to be better where
>> people would rather use it and go to the powers that be and say we want
>> to use Linux because it is more efficient or in some way better. A
>> decree by a dictator does not help Linux. Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Doug
> For a long time there have been concerns by foreign governments that
> MS has permitted "backdoors" for the various US intelligence agencies.
>   While I do not believe there is any legitimate evidence to
> corroborate this theory, it is nonetheless a concern-- and
> unfortunately there's no way to be sure in a sealed system like
> windows.

Back on 16 December I posted an article, quote:

Backdoor code was allegedly added to the IPsec stack 10 years ago,
giving the FBI secret ways to snoop on encrypted traffic

A former government contractor says that the U.S. Federal Bureau of
Investigation installed a number of back doors into the encryption
<http://www.infoworld.com/t/encryption>   software used by the OpenBSD
operating system.

The allegations were made public Tuesday by Theo de Raadt, the lead
developer in the OpenBSD project. DeRaadt posted an email sent by the
former contractor, Gregory Perry
<http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=129236621626462&w=2>, so that the
matter could be publicly scrutinized.


http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/former-contractor-says-fbi-put-back-door-in-openbsd-423


If OpenBSD has/had one then you bet your family jewels that MS has one or two or three.....which is why China doesn't use it in government organisations (and is now writing (?or written) its own version of a Linux distro.


>    Oftentimes governments require that MS pony up at least part
> of their source as part of their licensing agreements.

The only "ponying up" that I have been aware of is that the US 
government requires that someone like MS gets their code vetted by the 
NSA, I believe, . Why? the question has to be asked. I have heard 
rumours about the "why" but we are already talking about backdoors, 
aren't we? :-) - not to mention the fact that there are laws which 
require you to provide to law enforcement agency(ies) your encryption 
password so that they can examine the encrypted data on your hard drive 
if they have a suspicion that you have some "naughty-type" data on it.

BC

>   With Linux
> however, systemwide audits are possible and therefore in this sense it
> is in fact "better than the competition" and that is more or less the
> reason for decrees like this.

Which is why it made me think a bit when I read the article I referred 
to above, after-all isn't OpenBSD open source, or is it?

[pruned]

BC

-- 
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and
won't change the subject.
                          Sir Winston Churchill