FBI: The Federal Bureau of Installation
If WikiLeaks taught us anything, it's that our government (heck, pretty much all governments) does a lot of things behind our backs. Some of this is necessary and justified, and some seems just stupid and sometimes evil.
Now an ex-consultant for the FBI says a decade ago the bureau modified OpenBSD (you can do that since it is open source). It didn't improve security or performance. Nah, the feds installed a backdoor so it could spy on U.S. attorneys who used the OS.
The charges, made by Greg Perry, were denounced by an OpenBSD developer as poppycock.
This is a bit different from WikiLeaks as Perry claims his charges were meant to be private and to serve as notice to get the OpenBSD code fully audited.
It will, I think, take an audit, to get the bottom of this fiasco.
Do you trust our key pieces of software or suspect manipulation? Send your opinions to [email protected]. We only publish first names so you needn't fear retribution.
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/16/2010 at 1:18 PM