Comment on Comitis Capital announces the acquisition of Threema
PierceTheBubble@lemmy.ml 2 weeks agoStill, if the service is supposed to be security and privacy-oriented, how about you make the source-code available, so users can verify this for themselves?
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
Well, again, taking an unpopular but valid point of view - how good it really is to have the source code for finding vulnerabilities? Is it really harder to hide an intentional backdoor in the source code in plain sight than it is in something that’s only distributed in binaries? I have no relevant experience, but I’ve listened to a lecture by someone from Kaspersky lab saying that.
Having commonly available source code is good for development and learning of functionality of something, but security flaws have that subgroup of backdoors.
PierceTheBubble@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
If open-source, a lot more eyes could be on it, and therefore the chances of intentionally implemented vulnerabilities, by Threema itself, would have a higher chance of being noticed before able to be exploited, by both hackers and Threema (partners).
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
On the source code. Absolutely the same amount of eyes on the binary.
Anyway, there’s a joke (by Linus Torvalds, I think, but maybe I am wrong) that most of the eyes that could look at the code are attached to hands typing the thing about “more eyes”.
Source code being available is obviously beneficial for learning how a program works as a whole, or participating in its development, obviously, but for finding things hidden I’m not sure.
PierceTheBubble@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Ah sorry, it seems I read over that part. Unless programmers have the exceptional skills and time required, to effectively reverse engineer these complex algorithms, nobody will bother to do so; especially when required after each update. On the contrary, if source code was available, the bar of entry is significantly lower and requires way less specialized skills. So save to say, most programmers won’t even bother inspecting a binary, unless there’s absolutely no other way around or have time to burn. Where as, if you’d open up the source, there would be a lot more, let’s say C programmers, able to inspect the algorithm. Really, have a look at what it requires to write binary code, let alone reverse engineering complicated code, that somebody else wrote.
I agree with Linus’ statement though: I rarely inspect source-code myself, but I find it more comforting knowing, package-maintainers for instance, could theoretically check the source before distribution. I stand by my opinion that it’s a bad look for a privacy- and security-oriented piece of software, to restrict non-“experts” from inspecting that, which should ensure that.