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Re: Why distrust M$, but trust Sun?


From: mike3
Subject: Re: Why distrust M$, but trust Sun?
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 19:45:51 -0700
User-agent: G2/1.0

On Jul 25, 4:39 pm, plenty...@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? 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.)

Open source means that everyone can see it so if you
compromise something everyone can see it. Open source
software is MORE secure, not less, than closed source.
Security through obscurity is a dangerous myth. Open
source allows people to see it and with more eyes looking
at it more bugs and flaws can be found, and hence
corrected, making the security even greater.



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