MorphOS and backdoors/unauthorized remote access
  • Just looking around
    Jason
    Posts: 14 from 2009/11/6
    Does MorphOS contain any backdoors or other means for governments or the morphos team to gain unauthorized access/keylogging/spying?

    Since the whole NSA debacle I've become quite concerned over closed source software.

    Can the developers make any comments about this?
  • »31.08.13 - 21:51
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  • Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    bash64
    Posts: 934 from 2010/10/29
    From: USA
    Yes,

    There are little green men installed along with a few gremlins with every copy of MOS.
    :-D
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  • »31.08.13 - 23:32
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  • Jim
  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Jim
    Posts: 4977 from 2009/1/28
    From: Delaware, USA
    Quote:

    Jason wrote:
    Does MorphOS contain any backdoors or other means for governments or the morphos team to gain unauthorized access/keylogging/spying?

    Since the whole NSA debacle I've become quite concerned over closed source software.

    Can the developers make any comments about this?



    Seems highly unlikely.
    I doubt the development team would stoop to that.
    "Never attribute to malice what can more readily explained by incompetence"
  • »31.08.13 - 23:51
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  • Paladin of the Pegasos
    Paladin of the Pegasos
    Intuition
    Posts: 1110 from 2013/5/24
    From: Nederland
    http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html
    1.67GHz 15" PowerBook G4, 1GB RAM, 128MB Radeon 9700M Pro, 64GB SSD, MorphOS 3.15

    2.7GHz DP G5, 4GB RAM, 512MB Radeon X1950 Pro, 500GB SSHD, MorphOS 3.9
  • »01.09.13 - 00:13
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  • MorphOS Developer
    Piru
    Posts: 576 from 2003/2/24
    From: finland, the l...
    There are no backdoors or other means that I know of.

    That being said, the MorphOS source code is rather huge when you count all the 3rd party components, too. It would be extremely difficult and expensive to audit all of it.

    Also, it is possible that some of the MorphOS components may contain bugs that would allow remote attacker to cause crashes, and possibly execute code by means of a drive-by attack and/or specially crafted files. MorphOS is a very small platform however, and it can be said with high certainty that exploit writers are targeting some larger platforms.

    If you're worried about privacy and NSA snooping the most likely way you get snooped is use of internet services hosted in the US or provided by US companies (Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc). Also, most other countries snoop all network traffic crossing their borders (for example Sweden does this).

    Use of encryption for confidential and/or sensitive data is highly recommended. When sending email or browsing the web always consider the fact that someone might see everything you read and/or write. Use of TLS/SSL protected sites itself doesn't necessarily improve the situation as some service providers and companies themselves provide the keys to intelligence services per request.
  • »01.09.13 - 00:20
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  • MorphOS Developer
    jacadcaps
    Posts: 2976 from 2003/3/5
    From: Canada
    Quote:

    Jason wrote:
    Can the developers make any comments about this?



    Oh, I have to deal with this shit at work (data retention, wire-tapping for the government agencies) so I'd prefer not to have to do such stuff after work as well ;) Nope, MorphOS does not do anything like that, it does not even call home on its own.
  • »01.09.13 - 17:16
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