Ubuntu trojan horse or virus?

[Mr. C clark]

Randall,
Thank you
Chris.

> Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:21:07 -0700
> From: randall at executiv.es
> To: ubuntu-ca at lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Ubuntu trojan horse or virus?
> 
> Bad news. Ubuntu has Mono!
> 
> Wikipedia defines mono as follows:
> 1. "an infectious, very widespread viral disease caused by the
> Epstein-Barr virus which well over 90% of all adults are exposed to at
> some point in their life".. hmm, probably not an Ubuntu worry :)
> 2. "an open source implementation of Microsoft's Common Language
> Infrastructure"
> 
> And Wikipedia defines a Trojan Horse as follows:
> a) "A computer program that appears harmless but is harmful."
> 
> The Free Software Foundation has issued this warning about Mono:
> i) "We need to take precautions now to protect ourselves from this
> future danger."
> and
> ii) "Using patents to divide and conquer the free software community is
> a fundamental part of [Microsoft's] corporate strategy. Because of that,
> C# represents a unique threat to us. The language was developed inside
> Microsoft, so it's likely they have many patents to cover different
> aspects of its implementation. That would make free software
> implementations of C#, like Mono, an easy target for attack."
> (See http://www.fsf.org/news/dont-depend-on-mono and
> http://www.fsf.org/news/2009-07-mscp-mono)
> 
> Mono is "needed" on your Ubuntu system if you need any of the following
> applications. Note that by need, I mean actually use on a regular basis
> and for which no substitutes exists. (Note that substitutes do exist for
> all of the following Mono Intrusion Vectors):
> MonoDevelop, Muine, Banshee, Monsoon, Unity, Tomboy, libsecondlife,
> KeePass2, iFolder 3, F-Spot, Gnome-do, Diva, Blam, Beagle, Galaxium,
> Smuxi, Synapse
> 
> To protect your Ubuntu system, two packages can be removed by using the
> Synaptic Package Manager. This will solve the problem (i.e. remove the
> trojan horse and the Mono Intrusion Vectors listed above). Remove:
>    mono-common
>    libmono0
> ** Note that you will be warned of the removal of mono-dependent
> applications.
> 
> To prevent recurrence of the problem, a package called
> "mononono_1.0_all.deb" can be installed using the debian installer (Save
> the .deb to your desktop and double-click it). Once installed, this will
> warn you whenever a future mono-dependent installation task is about to
> occur. The mononono package can be found here:
> http://tim.thechases.com/mononono/
> 
> Please have a great, and trojan-free day!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
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> ubuntu-ca at lists.ubuntu.com
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