Yourself and the code you read and understand. So as long as you don’t use a system where this is possible (say 9Front and the like) you trust nothing and nobody, do careful backups and don’t go on a installation spree.
Comment on Never-before-seen Linux malware is “far more advanced than typical”
ragas@lemmy.ml 3 weeks agoSo who can you trust?
RalfWausE@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I fear there is no such system where this applies. The tech stack on any old netbook is so advanced and complex that there is nobody on this planet who fully understands it.
Being theoretically able to read the code is certainly better than not being able to, but it’s not the same as having actually read and understood all the relevant code to the point where you can be somewhat confident that there’s no backdoor in it.
(And even if someone had the time and mental capacity to do that, at some point when going through the stack you always hit a proprietary layer. Be that drivers, the bootloader, component firmware or the hardware itself.)
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Depends on.
If you’re not using your PC for highly critical applications, go high-trust mode, and read news about those who become untrustworthy.
For critical applications, always check the usernames of the developers, use software trusted by others, etc.
ambitiousslab@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
You can trust the software in your distro’s repositories (if you run a distro with well-maintained repositories). This is because, generally only well-known software gets packaged, the packager should be familiar with both the project and the code, and everything is rebuilt on the distro’s own infrastructure, to ensure that a given binary actually corresponds to the source.
It might still be possible for things to slip through, but it’s certainly much safer than random programs from online.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
*insert obligatory xz utils reference*