Linus Torvalds Dodges Question About Requests for NSA Backdoor in Linux
LINUX is the most widely used operating system kernel and its annual event which we wrote about earlier today, both positively and critically, had one interesting nugget of information [1]. Torvalds responded with a joke and an ambiguity to a serious question about an important matter. Torvalds and his Linux Foundation colleagues who sign off kernels on an almost weekly basis [2] owe a more serious response to people who put Linux in governments and large enterprises (most of them outside the United States). Humour has its place, but when millions of people die due to imperialism that relies on global surveillance, then some seriousness is required. Having read some dubious text about the NSA’s SELinux and some real attempts to plant back doors in all sorts of operating systems and even a CMS like WordPress (some attempts were successful and catastrophic), I think that we deserve a serious, unambiguous answer.
As a token or a relevant reminder of what the NSA does and how it does it I am appending some of the latest news bits about the NSA and about privacy in general. It turns out that complicity from developers and corporations — not necessarily hacking or cracking — is what enables to NSA to access almost every bit of information around the world, even financial transactions outside the United States. Wikileaks (i.e. journalism with an edge) was almost silenced using illegal financial embargoes that got overturned only years later (after a court battle). Worth noting, as iophk put it, is the war on journalism which we saw here in the UK last month (David Miranda). It is a classic “war on journalism,” he explained, noting that “Slashdot is now part of that by providing a platform for those that want to require reporters to rat on sources. The part about the 5th amendment is just a distraction from steamrolling over protection of confidentiality of sources in journalism.”
“Note the strawman about raping,” he said.
— source techrights.org