Brian wrote: > 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.
I answered you privately on your reply to not feed the thread, but as you're continusly repeating it, I'm going to clarify it here. The ability to provide a mediawiki binary wasn't relevant to the point. And yes, it can be done (Zend Guard, giving a PHP extension...). My reply to Nikola was: You're right [in not trust it] if they handed you a "improved" binary, but they would provide *the source diff*, so there's no need to start being paranoic about the CIA "altering MediaWiki in a fashion that will make it easier to spy its users" _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
