this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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With 1000+ Linux distros, it seems like there'd be one with backdoors clandestinely created and distributed by the NSA. (self.showerthoughts)
submitted 2 days ago by no_effing_merlot to c/showerthoughts
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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Why would they bother with the 1% of 4% of Linux users that use their single distro, they'd be better off targeting windows or mobile users.

[–] horse_battery_staple 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Cloud servers run Linux. Also the NSA made the defacto secured kernel for enterprise linux

https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/linux/what-is-selinux

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Sure, but its still not a lot of users to target a single distro, even if its the biggest one.

[–] horse_battery_staple 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

All your metadata is on cloud servers. Your smartphone calls back to cloud servers. Lemmy is hosted on linux. It's not desktop OS that any state actor would target.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I guess I'd be less skeptical if they didn't already have access to so much more data than any one distro would give them, even if it was running all the fucking servers you mentioned. You even pointed out that they have SELinux so why would they need to make any distros?

[–] horse_battery_staple -1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

You and I agree that there's no reason for the NSA to backdoor an OS. It's actually in their best interests to have a secured linux OS, and just buy/collect the metadata they want.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/26/tech/the-nsa-buys-americans-internet-data-newly-released-documents-show/index.html