01.26.22
Gemini version available ♊︎Don’t Fall for Microsoft’s Spin That Says Everything is Not Secure and Cannot be Secured
Video download link | md5sum a65470ffecd44d127e6ee8d7b95f2448
Security Defeatism
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: Microsoft keeps promoting the utterly false concept that everything is not secure and there’s nothing that can be done about it (hence, might as well stay with Windows, whose insecurity is even intentional)
EARLIER this month we published “2022 Commences With Microsoft-Themed (and Microsoft-Connected) FUD Against GNU/Linux“ and “White House Asking Proprietary Software Companies That Add NSA Back Doors About Their Views on ‘Open Source’ Security“. The general theme in the media is, piggybacking the Apache bug from last month, Free software isn’t secure and there’s nothing to do about this because it’s all about money. This past week we saw some newer FUD, capitalising on a bug report concerning some Web-based panel and systemd. Those are not “Linux” issues per se, but Microsoft-friendly media calls everything “Linux” when it suits the negative image. Examples from the past week can be found here and here (we don’t want to link to them directly, giving liars traffic they do not deserve).
“Building perfectly secure systems is perfectly possible, but that typically involves stripping things down, going back to basics, just like in Gemini.”In the video above I explain what a recent conversation with Richard Stallman was like, after he had basically read this claim: “Do not be fooled into accepting false claims about “security updates”. It is perfectly possible to write software that is secure from the get-go. However, it is expensive to do that. It cuts into profit. Secure software can also protect its owner from the vendor. There is an unspoken conflict of interests in all discussions around cyber-security. Big companies ship insecure software not because they are stupid, but because they intend to. They are lazy, tight and dishonest.”
Building perfectly secure systems is perfectly possible, but that typically involves stripping things down, going back to basics, just like in Gemini. Sadly, projects such as GCC and Linux have become so unbelievably bloated (even LibreOffice would be shy) that no wonder they’re full of defects/bugs, some of which impacting security directly and indirectly.
“Exploit codes of the NSA sometimes leak out, causing chaos and shutting down whole hospitals which rely on Windows.”Can we do better than that? We can. In the video above I show some GNU programs (not “Linux commands” as pundits like to call them) and some of them from Stallman himself. These barely pose any security risks, until or unless they’re plugged into bloated Linux with a network stack and loads of firmware blobs, including some that are necessary for networking to work. Much can be done about this sordid mess and there are operating systems that pour money into studying the paths of execution almost exhaustively, compacting, refactoring, optimising and perfecting code instead of just throwing more and more code into a Git repository.
This ludicrous idea that everything in computers/computing isn’t secure and security is an impossibility (defeatism) overlooks the real issue, such as deliberate back doors in Microsoft’s product. Exploit codes of the NSA sometimes leak out, causing chaos and shutting down whole hospitals which rely on Windows. This is the sort of debate the White House should be focusing on, but it shies away from debating its astonishingly stupid demands for back doors. Rigged or stacked panels distract from facts and flawed, shoddy products have become the norm. █
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