[ale] Another Reason to use OSS in Government

[Jeff Hubbs]

I've wondered about this sort of thing. In fact, as long ago as 1993, I
encountered a situation professionally where a Government contractor was
in a position to keep tabs on their Federal overseers through software
they had written.  

Because of the closed-source, "black-box" nature of the software, part
of the nefariousness of the whole situation was the absence of a good
way to detect *if* something untoward were going on or exactly *who* was
responsible for it, and no good way to defend against it.

I realize that the use of Open Source does not *guarantee* the absence
of backdooring and other nastiness, but with closed-source, you just
never know.  This is why, in this day and age, I'd only recommend (wink
to Jim Kinney) Fully Auditable Code.

- Jeff

On Fri, 2002-12-06 at 12:35, cfowler wrote:
> If the source was open the code could be reviewed but now we can just
> wander what could be in that software.
> 
> 
> http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2002-12-06-company-raid_x.htm
> 
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