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I think if you went back in time, you'd find people saying that openssl was developed by a consortium of open source contributors. It's painfully obvious nowad

I think if you went back in time, you'd find people saying that openssl was developed by a consortium of open source contributors. It's painfully obvious nowadays that openssl was written by the NSA (or equivalent state level entity) via intermediaries deliberately adding subtle but significant vulnerabilities. Let me propose this metaphor: you buy a front door to your house. For some reason I (the door vendor) include a complete lockset. I tell you that the lockset is totally secure. I offer you volumes of academic research and attestations that this is true. But there is no practical means by which you can establish the security of that lockset. Do you believe that no one else can open your front door?

brookst 4y ago
> It's painfully obvious nowadays that openssl was written by the NSA The problem is that your lack of context and perspective on this fairly simple, easily-falsified theory calls all of your opinions into question. A more nuanced conspiracy theorist would say "if you look at PR's to openssl that contributed later-discovered security issues, 70% were from first-time contributors who never went on to submit any other PR's". And I'd be like "wow, that's suggestive of a coordinated action", and we could dig into it. But "the NSA wrote openssl" is as factually, demonstrably wrong as saying "the NSA builds every door lock that's for sale at Home Depot". It's too big of a conspiracy, to inefficient for the supposed state goals, and too easy to falsify by just looking at a couple of examples.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  Or we could look at what history tells us and find out we don't need some convoluted theory of evidence with a bunch of 1st time contributors. You might for example, just outright buy out the cryptography solution providers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG Money is a relatively simply mechanism to achieve an end goal. Much safer than for example, torturing someone or beating them with a wrench.

brookst 4y ago

> It's painfully obvious nowadays that openssl was written by the NSA The problem is that your lack of context and perspective on this fairly simple, easily-falsified theory calls all of your opinions into question. A more nuanced conspiracy theorist would say "if you look at PR's to openssl that contributed later-discovered security issues, 70% were from first-time contributors who never went on to submit any other PR's". And I'd be like "wow, that's suggestive of a coordinated action", and we could dig into it. But "the NSA wrote openssl" is as factually, demonstrably wrong as saying "the NSA builds every door lock that's for sale at Home Depot". It's too big of a conspiracy, to inefficient for the supposed state goals, and too easy to falsify by just looking at a couple of examples.

sidewndr46 4y ago
Or we could look at what history tells us and find out we don't need some convoluted theory of evidence with a bunch of 1st time contributors. You might for example, just outright buy out the cryptography solution providers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG Money is a relatively simply mechanism to achieve an end goal. Much safer than for example, torturing someone or beating them with a wrench.