Re: Fedora Core 2 Test 2 - delayed

[Alan Cox <alan redhat com>]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 01:54:06PM +0100, Leonard den Ottolander wrote:
> How well scrutinized is this NSA code actually? Everybody can see they

Very 8)

> won't slip in an obvious backdoor, but how about nasty little overflows,
> tucked away deep inside the code, for which they already have exploits
> in their drawer?

Occams razor suggests they just pop down to the local x86 chip manufacturers
and ask them for a magic MTRR register. Several governments policy of not
using US x86 processors for really critical systems lends credence.

The NSA code has actually demonstrated one thing about open source very 
nicely - every large foreign government considering using it will have
reviewed the code carefully. Without that openness nobody would trust
it except the NSA