Linux is just as compromised as OSx or Windows. It’s foolish to consider it secure.
Compromised how? Please provide any substantiation of this claim if possible.
Every major security organization, every Black Hatter, every Certified Ethical Hacker, every non-Windows, non-retail-branded operating system on everything from firewalls to mail gateways to secure laptop uses some flavor of Linux or at least large portions of the core kernel. The Linux community is the world’s largest group of programmers coding to a single source in history.
While there have been revelations that portions of secure channel sub-components were compromised with NSA salts, I would challenge you to find a compromised component in the core Nix kernel. It doesn’t exist. Linux isn’t a multinational conglomerate or a big business. Linux is an idea fostered by a worldwide community, and as such, the community ensures that the systems are as secure as they can be. That’s the reason why legitimately signed and hashed versions of Linux are guaranteed by the community to be more secure out of the box than Windows or OSX.
I’ve been to several black hat conferences and can tell you that you would be incredibly hard pressed to find a legitimate hacker, coder, or security expert using a Windows machine, and for good reasons. Linux, like any OS, is as secure as what you install on it. If you go to compromised websites and install dubious software, you’re compromising yourself. That doesn’t mean the core isn’t secure, it means that the human element has the ability to screw up anything.
And as a codicil to this, read the article. It explains pretty definitively that the NSA is only using the same tricks as scammers to compromise your machine. If you know how to avoid the bad stuff, you’re as anonymous as you can be outside of actually being snooped on due to a warranted tracking operation.