Roger Blake wrote:
> In article <0d20143f-558b-4e80-8191-2804cd0b5b81@e23g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, plenty900@yahoo.com wrote:
>> I've learned that there are bits of NSA's SELinux in various
>> places in kernel 2.6. How can I be sure that Big Brother isn't
>> using back doors or bugs to break into my computer?
>
> I have heard that if one wears a tin-foil hat of the correct type in
> conjuction with a microwave oven plus a radio and antenna tuned to the
> proper frequency, this will block the bits that the NSA uses to spy
> on your computer, which they can otherwise do even if it is turned off.
>
> Or, you could just examine the kernel source code, and once satisfied
> that it is clean, build it from source. (But then again, perhaps the NSA
> has compromised the compiler. Oh dear...)
Right, and even if you check the source of the compiler and then compile it
from scratch, you will be in trouble because the compiler you compile it
with could be compromised.
But even if you had a compiler written in assembler, and you assembled it
from scratch, you would not be safe because if they wanted to, perhaps the
NSA could have prevailed on Intel and the other processor manufacturers to
automatically insert trojans in object code.
>
>> Especially with all the illegal spying done these days...
>> How much safer would it be to just switch back to 2.4 or 2.5?
>
> From what I understand a typewriter is safer yet.
>
Perhaps, but only if you do not have a ribbon in the typewriter. If you type
something and mail it, you are surely at risk. I cannot believe that the
government has stopped steaming open letters of people they wish to examine.
I have heard from someone, now deceased, that he wrote that he hoped the
military censors would pass a particular letter. The letter had written on
it "Nonsense: we do not censor mail." I am not sure how true the story is,
but he is someone who really had his telephone tapped (by the FBI, not the NSA).
--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
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