Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 15:39:59 +0200 (CEST) From: Marc van Woerkom <marc.vanwoerkom@science-factory.com> To: christian@jacken.net Cc: questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: How safe is FreeBSD? Message-ID: <20000814133959.DB1AC2002@nil.science-factory.com> In-Reply-To: <NDBBJMNNEPKCHPDOJAEBAEJJEEAA.christian@jacken.net> References: <NDBBJMNNEPKCHPDOJAEBAEJJEEAA.christian@jacken.net>
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> and "you say that Microsoft
> or NSI possibly have a backdoor to Windows2000, but how can we be sure that
> there is no backdoor in Red Hat or FreeBSD"?
Hmm.. if it is just about backdoors then it is clear that
it is still possible to have hidden vulnerabilities in an open
source code, but it is obviously much, much harder to hide such before
all eyes than with closed code.
There are a couple of security gurus who say that the strongness
of a security system should not rely on hidden information about
its workings. Look for "security by obscurity".
A nice page is this one (by renowned expert Bruce Schneier)
http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram.html
Especially Microsoft was accused to have a backdoor, this is
Schneier's opinion on the incident (who thinks it was a bad
choice in naming)
http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-9909.html#NSAKeyinMicrosoftCryptoAPI
Regards,
Marc
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