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Re: [Rival]NSA Had Access Built into Microsoft Windows

Linonut wrote:
> * Tim Smith peremptorily fired off this memo:
>> In article <VsRIj.14883$9O.13395@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Linonut 
>> <linonut@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>>> This is a good thing.  But how will we know there are no 
>>> back-doors?  We can't vet the code (without a non-disclosure 
>>> agreement).  And, when you read this:
>> 
>> Same way we do with open source--ask third parties who have 
>> reviewed the code.  The only difference is that with open source, 
>> we can do a review ourselves, if we are competent to do so, but 
>> most of us are not, so we have to rely on the third parties.
> 
> You apparently missed the part about the non-disclosure agreement(s).

I wonder how many of those third-parties, "privileged" enough to have
access to the Windows source, have access to those parts of it related
to cryptographic functions, rather than just those bits sanitised for
third-party review?

Well like the Windows source itself, most of us will never know for
sure. But that's proprietary software in a nutshell: A black hole filled
with dark secrets designed to protect others' interests ... against your
own.

No thanks.

In this instance, the interests of American national security take
precedence over my privacy ... at least as far as the NSA is concerned.
I have a rather different opinion, especially as I am neither American
nor in the least bit concerned with their hysterically paranoid
fortification against largely fictional bogeymen, especially when said
"fortification" is built on the premise of "security through obscurity".

Yeah, that'll work. Well it's worked so well for Windows thus far,
hasn't it?

Erm...

Ironically, and similarly to other misguided ideas such as DRM, the only
people who are adversely affected by such measures are the ordinary;
law-abiding citizens, whereas the /actual/ terrorist (or in the case of
DRM - copyright violators) are unlikely to feel particularly challenged.

Thankfully I don't have to worry about any of that, running Linux.
Universal and unrestricted access to the source, and the freedom of the
GPL, precludes the need for trust, which is probably just as well, given
the track records of those we are expected to endow with that trust.

As for this ridiculous notion that people should be denied access to the
source because they "wouldn't understand it anyway" ... well one might
easily say the same about libraries. Let's close 'em all - I mean most
people wouldn't understand the intricacies of renaissance literature;
quantum mechanics; psychoanalysis; law; medicine; etc. anyway, so why
allow them to read such material?

Knowledge is bad, ignorance is bliss ... so say those with something
insidious to hide.

-- 
K.
http://slated.org

.----
| 'When it comes to knowledge, "ownership" just doesn't make sense'
|     ~ Cory Doctorow, The Guardian.  http://tinyurl.com/22bgx8
`----

Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.23.8-63.fc8
 00:37:56 up 110 days, 21:13,  2 users,  load average: 0.22, 0.27, 0.33

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