That means I can clarify why my much hated factual correction was appropriate. Here was the original statement:
> If the CIA were to hand you a improved-mediawiki binary, sure Let's briefly suppose that there are binaries for mediawiki (which is false - but suppose they only gave you byte code for mediawiki) and that the CIA had "improved" mediawiki and given you one. There is a crucial difference between the CIA giving you that binary and giving you source code - you can see the diffs in the source code and you can see the diffs in the binaries, but you cannot understand the diffs in the binaries. How the poster I replied to does not consider this distinction relevant is beyond me. On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 5:44 PM, Dan Rosenthal <swatjes...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Jan 24, 2009, at 2:41 PM, Alex wrote: > > > I'm criticizing the switch from "Wikia leasing office space to WMF" to > > "Is the CIA evil?" I just responded to the most recent email in my > > inbox; I thought that would be more appropriate than responding to all > > 17 CIA/NSA-related emails. I was not criticizing you in particular. > > > > The topic of this thread is "Wikia leasing office space to WMF," that > > should be rather clear from the subject. And the topic of the list is > > "Wikimedia related issues." Its almost on topic for the list > > (MediaWiki > > is at least mentioned occasionally), its certainly not at all > > related to > > the topic of the thread. > > > > Brian wrote: > >> It was a clear factual error which I corrected. If you aren't going > >> to > >> criticize the original comment you have no basis for criticizing the > >> correction. > >> At any rate, what exactly is the topic of this thread, in your > >> opinion? > >> > >> > >> On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 10:42 AM, Alex <mrzmanw...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> > >>> Brian wrote: > >>>>> If the CIA were to hand you a improved-mediawiki binary, sure > >>>> PHP is an interpreted language. Surely you wouldn't use someone > >>>> elses > >>> byte > >>>> code. > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 8:32 AM, Platonides <platoni...@gmail.com> > >>> wrote: > >>>>> Nikola Smolenski wrote: > >>>>>> Given that we know that NSA conducts massive illegal spying > >>>>>> operations, > >>>>> there > >>>>>> is possibility that selinux is altered in a fashion that will > >>>>>> make it > >>>>> easier > >>>>>> for NSA to spy on selinux' users. I don't know what are CIA's > >>>>> contributions > >>>>>> to MediaWiki, but unless it is trivial to review them, I would > >>>>>> not > >>> accept > >>>>>> them. > >>>>> If the CIA were to hand you a improved-mediawiki binary, sure. > >>>>> You could > >>>>> very well be suspicious about it. But we're talking about open > >>>>> source. > >>>>> They would be providing the changes, which are to be reviewed, > >>>>> like any > >>>>> other code, or perhaps even more, due to coming from the CIA. > >>>>> > >>>>> Take into account that CIA and NSA need good software, too. So > >>>>> if they > >>>>> add a backdoor, they would need to add it *and* at the same time > >>>>> make it > >>>>> easy to protect from it, as they wouldn't want their own systems > >>>>> spied > >>>>> by their own rootkit (and someone will end up forgetting to > >>>>> apply it). > >>>>> > >>>>> Instead, contributing good fixes, make everything easier. > >>>>> > >>>>> OTOH I encourage you to review selinux. That would make a great > >>>>> heading > >>>>> 'Nikola Smolenski discovers NSA backdoor on Linux code' > >>>>> > >>> This is getting rather off-topic, especially for this thread, and > >>> possibly for the list as well. > >>> > >>> -- > >>> Alex (wikipedia:en:User:Mr.Z-man) > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> foundation-l mailing list > >>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > >>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > >>> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> foundation-l mailing list > >> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ > >> foundation-l > >> > > > > > > -- > > Alex (wikipedia:en:User:Mr.Z-man) > > Yeah, agreed. While on-topic for the list, it's off-topic for this > thread. U.S. intelligence agency involvement in the development of > open source products, especially media wiki, however *IS* a topic I am > very much interested in seeing further discussion about; to that end I > would much rather fork this thread into a different title than see it > be killed totally. > > -dan > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
