Re: Why distrust M$, but trust Sun?

[Jeremy Fisher]

 plenty560@yahoo.com wrote:

> 
> It has been my observation that most of the Linux users
> that I have encountered tend to use OpenOffice, which is
> a Sun Microsystems product. It's a decent product, too.
> It works well and probably better than KOffice. But
> it occurred to me recently, what is to keep Sun from
> putting spyware in OpenOffice, for instance on behalf
> of the NSA? 
Stupid, its Open Source, I you uncle Tom Cobbley and all can go look at the
code, Oh look those nice people at Sun have put some code here from the
very Very nice people at the NSA. If it happened it would be picked up. It
would be more realist to use the methods currently deployed to keep tabs on
the general population. 

> Are they an especially ethical company? 
> (Is any?) Astute observers of corporate America have
> seen in recent times a series of tech companies that proved
> willing to assist with current administration's agenda
> or the RIAA/MPAA agenda. And what better way to
> infiltrate an otherwise hard to enter area such as
> Linux users' personal PCs than to sneak some code
> into an OpenOffice binary? Even if users encrypt their
> drives, the baddies would still get access. And, as everyone
> knows, the more bloated the software, the less likely
> people are to download the sources and compile it for
> themselves. (Not all distros come with OO.)
There are plenty of packages that would make better trojans than Open
Office. But the baddies you talk about, thats you by the way (We the
people..), have no problem hacking your system. I always find it sad that
people see the institute of government as the enemy, they are there to
represent you. In case you missed the sarcasm, its the corporate and
military than run America and certainly not the people.

Jem..