> The difference is that in a free society Linus can go public and that makes it much more risky for a intelligence service to try it. How does Linus ability t

> The difference is that in a free society Linus can go public and that makes it much more risky for a intelligence service to try it. How does Linus ability to go public make it more dangerous for intelligence services? That implies intelligence services approaching him with such an offer would put themselves in danger of consequences just for asking, when that's evidently not true: There were no consequences for the NSA for asking Linus, there were no consequences for the NSA in the vast majority of cases it was caught doing something it shouldn't do. It's also not true that in the "free society" is some binary thing: In the US National Security Letters are a very real thing, outfits affected by them are legally not allowed to publicize it. By any definition of this "free society keeps intelligence services in check" logic that should not be a thing, but it is, just like many other legal tools to suppress the free and open reporting about "national security" issues.