On Mon January 15 2007 8:03 am, Andrew Parker wrote: > I've spent a good 10-15 hours a week developing selinux for the last > year or so, and have quite a detailed understanding of the code > there. I can assure you now that I have never seen anything that > looks like a back door in any of the code. > > I also work for the NSA. > > That is how it could be hidden. A few developers saying this, but > without the previous paragraph. Andrew: My intent in posting that link was not to cast aspersions on you or Stephen Smalley or any of the other NSA personnel involved in the Selinux project. As I've already said, I don't even feel personally threatened. I try to keep Selinux running on my machines, and have posted a bug report or two. To Scott (oldman), I'm not a programmer - I graduated at the top of my programming class many years ago at the Control Data Institute but that was the end of my programming career. I took up Python a couple of years ago, and was writing little programs after a week or so, but, I found the effort tortuous and finally dropped it - it's a right-brain/left-brain issue or something to that effect. My 15 year old nephew can dance programming circles around me, and he relishes it. For me, programming exercises are more akin to a form of self imposed punishment for past transgressions. When a friend sent me that link last night, it triggered me to re-post it here, because of what I said - I have been using Linux for about 3.5 years now, and I began with Fedora, and while I've tried about 40 or so other distros, I've always returned to Fedora, and I've always been subscribed to this list. Yet, I've never seen this particular issue discussed on this list, and that's what I found curious. At the time I reposted the link, I hadn't really looked at it closely, and didn't catch the date it was written - that particular story has been circulating in various forms for years, and I have often wondered whether there was any truth to it. And, as I stated in my original post, given who my current administration is, I think it is a perfectly legitimate issue to raise. I think my government's penchant for monitoring its citizens has gone too far - eternal vigilance is a price that must be paid to secure freedom. There may be nothing but decent intent on the part of personnel involved in any given government program, but such programs have to be monitored - when government is granted intrusive power, someone will always find a way to abuse that power - that's a simple lesson of history. If I were a Brit, I would feel similar discomfort about the omnipresent cameras-on-the-public programs of that government... That's something I understand quite well, being a televesion producer. -- Claude Jones Brunswick, MD, USA
