• hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    2751·
    11 months ago

    The story does not tell us how Linus Torvalds responded to the NSA, but I’m guessing he told them he wouldn’t be able to inject backdoors even if he wanted to, since the source code is open, and all changes to it are reviewed by many independent people.

    Yeah I’m guessing the answer would be more colorful based on the historical data we have

    • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
      44·
      11 months ago

      Also experience shows that it’s possible to backdoor software in very subtle ways that could go years without anyone spotting them. So if he had decided to he probably could have done it, despite Linux being open source.

    • Sylvartas@lemmy.world
      19·
      11 months ago

      I would pay money to see daddy Linus flip off some big shot intelligence official

    • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
      16·
      11 months ago

      Oh man would die to see his reply. It would probably start with something like

      “The fact that I have to explain this to a person who works in a national security agency makes me really worried…”