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Sound architecture and open source are both necessary. A good design convinces you it’s intended to do the right thing. Open source allows you to verify that it
by jl6 8y ago
Sound architecture and open source are both necessary. A good design convinces you it’s intended to do the right thing. Open source allows you to verify that it’s doing the right thing.
True, code audits are rare. But open source software is at least in principle verifiable.
- saagarjha 8y agoOpen source only provides slightly more protection over closed source. The real issue is that if you're paranoid, there really is no way to verify that the device is doing what you want it to do: sure, maybe the OS is open source and you've verified that, but how do you know what you have on your device matches the source code (fun fact: the source code posted online for macOS and iOS differs from what's on the device, since Apple strips out references to unreleased products). Even if you're looking at the machine code itself pulled from the device, you have no guarantee that the processor is executing them faithfully.
- jl6 8y agoSure, so you also need open source hardware, reproducible builds, and a verifiable supply chain. You need openness and transparency end to end. Nobody’s achieved that to date, but that has got to be the goal.