Free open-source software, by its nature, is unlikely to feature secret back doors that lead directly to Langley, Va.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It's more than unsettling to realize there are large companies out there developing backdoors, exploits and trojans.
Requiring companies to weaken devices with 'back doors' means we open up innocent Americans to the bad actors who would love easier access to our citizens' personal information.
It's simply unrealistic to depend on secrecy for security in computer software. You may be able to keep the exact workings of the program out of general circulation, but can you prevent the code from being reverse-engineered by serious opponents? Probably not. The secret to strong security: less reliance on secrets.
It is a fairly open secret that almost all systems can be hacked, somehow. It is a less spoken of secret that such hacking has actually gone quite mainstream.
Making things open-source brings the cost down.
Defect-free software does not exist.
The secret is not to make a film that causes something like Virginia Tech to happen. The secret is to make a film that stops it happening.
Do we want a back door in an iPhone where the government can go in to track movements if they have probable cause? I know the director of the FBI and local law enforcement want that capability.
Your company is probably going to get hacked. The velocity and complexity of hacking attempts has skyrocketed, with companies routinely facing millions of knocks on the vault door.
The director of the FBI has been visiting Silicon Valley companies asking them to build back doors so that it can spy on what is being said online. The Department of Commerce is going after piracy. At home, the American government wants anything but Internet freedom.