[glorgau]

Yeah! We need something provably solid and secure... like Windows.

[Seselj]

Windows is hardly secure. There are literally hundreds of trojan horses (such as Netbus or Back Orifice) which allow remote access. Then there are the thousands of viruses. Linux doesn't have these problems. The point is that any OS is only as secure as the programmers you hire to maintain it. And since Linux is open sourced, it would be 100% impossible for some Chinese guy to slip malicious code in there without anyone finding it before it made it to the next release. Not to mention that Chinese programmers don't contribute hardly anything to the open source effort, it appears to be mostly Americans, Europeans, and Russians.

Then there's the whole issue of stability... "I'm sorry Mr. President, but we can't shoot down the Topol-M, the computer froze and we're waiting for it to reboot."

Although I do agree that we need to put a stop to the out-sourcing of programming work, especially of software on which national security depends on.

[SteveH]

Linux security ping

[eno_]

It is harder to implant an exploit in Linux. Multiple governments, some hostile to one another, all would have to perform audits on Linux in order to use it. Any exploit would have to hide itself from multiple parties looking for it.

In contrast, we assumed Loral was trustworthy because they were "Americans."

[Snuffington]

O'Dowd laid out a scenario in which the open source development process — where thousands of programmers contribute code that's subject to public review before being folded into Linux — could be subverted via "Trojan Horses" illicitly slipped in the software.

This part makes no sense. Public review of code means it would be much harder to slip in a trojan horse. Not easier.

[Gerasimov]

O'Dowd's tough stance may attract attention because he is also taking an unusual public stab at a competitor — embedded Linux powerhouse MontaVista Software

Noooooooooooo ... O'Dowd's not biased at all!