Friday, August 15, 2003
Linux Tainted?
Open Source supports have long shouted the praises of having many hands in the source code. Their claim is that with lots of eyes looking at the code, it will be better. Now comes news that Linux may be tainted. It appears that a hacker worked his way into the GNU Project servers this past March. The GNU Project is the central repository of Linux code. While there is no evidence that malicious code was inserted, that possiblity exists. This could be the first big test of the "many eyes looking at the code" theory to see if the code is good. Either way, checksum numbers have been posted to the GNU website so you can check any Linux code you may have downloaded since March.
Open Source supports have long shouted the praises of having many hands in the source code. Their claim is that with lots of eyes looking at the code, it will be better. Now comes news that Linux may be tainted. It appears that a hacker worked his way into the GNU Project servers this past March. The GNU Project is the central repository of Linux code. While there is no evidence that malicious code was inserted, that possiblity exists. This could be the first big test of the "many eyes looking at the code" theory to see if the code is good. Either way, checksum numbers have been posted to the GNU website so you can check any Linux code you may have downloaded since March.
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