[105830] in Cypherpunks
Is Open Source safe? [Linux Weekly News]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jim Choate)
Sun Nov 22 22:40:02 1998
From: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>
To: users@einstein.ssz.com (SSZ User Mail List)
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 21:27:13 -0600 (CST)
Cc: friends@einstein.ssz.com (Ravage's Friends),
cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer),
apm@einstein.ssz.com (Austin Perl Mongers), stugreen@realtime.net,
wwalker@tivoli.com
Reply-To: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>
Forwarded message:
> X-within-URL: http://lwn.net/1998/1119/Trojan.html
> THE TROJAN HORSE
>
>
> Bruce Perens <bruce@hams.com>
>
>
> There's a problem that could very badly effect the public perception
> of Linux and Open Source. I want people to think about this, and
> hopefully "head it off at the pass" before it happens.
>
> Perhaps it's already on your system today: a trojan-horse program. It
> might be a game, or more likely a system utility. It's author uploaded
> it to an FTP archive, where it was then picked up by your favorite
> Linux distribution, who wrote it onto the CD-ROM that you bought. It
> works just fine, but hidden away in the program is a special feature:
> a secret back-door past your system's security.
>
> Perhaps the author of this attack is tired of hearing about what great
> hackers we are, and wants to take us down a notch. He's patient - he
> will wait until his program is distributed to tens of thousands of
> Linux systems before he says a word. But say is what he'll do - he's
> not really interested in breaking into your system. What he wants is
> the publicity, bad publicity for us, and lots of it. We've left the
> gates open for this trojan horse. Let's talk about how to close them,
> and hope we have enough time to solve this problem before our
> reputation is hurt.
[mnoga tekct oodalyaty]
____________________________________________________________________
Technology cannot make us other than what we are.
James P. Hogan
The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate
Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com
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