Is all free software vulnerable ... ?
I am a noob with only a limited understanding of free software.
I have Replicant installed on my phone and have used Trisquel, and have just invested in a Lenovo T400 to get back into Trisquel. I am thinking since the software is open for all to see, does this not mean a potential malicious hacker can see ways of hijacking my phone/computer easier? With proprietary software they can't know how it works and then find it harder to hack my phone/computer? Or what is the case here?
I would love to hear some answers to this!
I am a translator!
Read the brief article and follow the two links in there.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/06/open-source_sof.html
cheers
Excellent! Just what i needed to hear. Indeed free software means we have public scrutiny of whether the programs are secure.
While we're on the subject and for anyone who sees this, I'm reminded of what the Replicant developer Paul Kocialkowski said about most phones running proprietary software. Basically the modem is there waiting for instructions from the phone mast, and the mast tells the modem to tell the CPU to do this or that, and the CPU will go ahead and act as a slave to the phone mast and whoever might be behind that. It's even possible for someone to impersonate the mast. Instructions could be anything, surveillance, remote camera recording etc. While with Replicant this operation is removed, the CPU basically ignores these kinds of commands.
Heres the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIEXPLdM8rQ