Bonum Certa Men Certa

Lots of Coverage About FOSS Bugs, No Coverage About Intentional 'Bugs' (Back Doors) in Proprietary Software

Bugs inside blobs are also serious bugs, and sometimes there by design

Bug



Summary: The increased media coverage of bugs in security-sensitive FOSS projects reveals lack of desire to cover much bigger threats, including back doors in proprietary software such as Windows

OpenSSL has been somewhat of a whipping boy of the technology press. One reason is, OpenSSL is widely used, but another is that it's known what the issues are (transparency) and the corporate media sure has agenda. We already gave the example of Dan Goodin, to whom security bugs are only news is they affect FOSS (here is his latest go at it) and now that GnuTLS bugs become public knowledge (after a public release with full source code) there is some more coverage that resembles what we found amid "Heartbleed" hype [1, 2, 3] (in both cases a firm with Microsoft connections claimed credit for other people's discoveries and trumpeted FUD in the press). One can expect the same from Microsoft-funded 'news' networks like IDG and ZDNet, which merely covers an already fixed bug. To quote the summary:



The security team behind the Debian distro are urging users to upgrade their Linux packages after patching a newly-found flaw in the Linux kernel.


This is not an unusual thing. Why it this suddenly front page news?

Notice the pattern. In all cases the bugs are already fixed (users just need to apply updates, unless they have already been applied automatically). This shows a strength of FOSS, not a weakness. The latest OpenSSL patches that we covered a couple of days ago (in daily links) don't relate to or amount to huge risk [1] and these are already patched [2]. The same goes for kernel bugs [3].

What we found highly disturbing here is that despite discoveries that companies like Apple and Microsoft facilitate the NSA with back doors (in secret code) we see an improportionate focus on every small bugfix in projects such as GnuTLS, OpenSSL, and Linux. Someone might be trying very hard to make the point that FOSS is the issue, not back doors which are very much included by design (and hidden in blobs). Reporters who cover bugs in FOSS but are never covering back doors in proprietary software ought to be challenged. Their bias (by omission) should be pointed out to them.

Related/contextual items from the news:


  1. New OpenSSL breech is no Heartbleed, but needs to be taken seriously


  2. OpenSSL Security Update now available for Fedora


  3. Canonical Closes Linux Kernel Vulnerabilities in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS


Recent Techrights' Posts

SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries