On Thu, Nov 22, 2001 at 10:07:42PM +0100, Anthony Atkielski wrote: > Alas! This does not make me feel warm and fuzzy! It's a good thing I'm not > installing this at a bank.
If you're going to run software written by Joe Random Coder, there's always an element of risk. There's nothing about the FreeBSD ports collection which increases this risk, and in fact it makes the situation slightly safer since we check all "spontaneous" changes in the md5 checksum of a distfile where the distfile changes with no change in the software version (e.g. once a few years ago someone broke into the main ftp server for the tcp_wrappers package, and added backdoor code to it. The compromised software could not be installed from the FreeBSD port unless you manually issued an override of the checksum). We have also found several isolated instances where software authors had 'spyware' code which reports details back to the author; these ports were summarily removed from the ports collection, again making things safer for the end user. Thirdly, since you have the source code you are free to examine it for yourself and evaluate your level of risk according to whichever criteria you choose. Kris
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