Thread: Risks of open source
View Single Post
wmarone is offline wmarone
2009-11-19 , 02:20
Posts: 1,746 | Thanked: 2,100 times | Joined on Sep 2009
#16
Originally Posted by jjx View Post
Unlike a laptop or desktop, closed source smartphones are quite restrictive about what you can install. So you're not as likely to install malicious software on a closed source smartphone, compared with a Windows desktop, simply because you aren't allowed to: the only things you can install are "approved".
Well sure. You're limited inherently in what you can do, but that doesn't in any way make it a good thing. After all, you really only have a handful of options:

- Apple's method, where no apps run without Apple approval
- Symbian's method of tiered access
- Maemo's method, which gives the owner total control

Whereas on Maemo, you have freedom to install any old junk, and the temptation is surely there to install things you haven't compiled yourself...
Well yes, if you download and install things blindly like most windows users you will end up with one or more malicious bits of software in your system. That's the price of being irresponsible.

We rely on the community to check things, and for the most part, it does. We also rely on distributions, in this case Maemo and Maemo-extras, to check things and often to ensure the source matches the binary. Amd, when something is found out, if you are updating regularly, there's a good chance it will be fixed quickly.
Trust is very important. It's what open source and pretty much every distro is built upon.

The same applies to closed source: with their app-approval processes, that provides a similar kind of checking.
Do you know they perform that kind of checking? How do you know that app you just installed isn't subtly snooping on you? The few that have been accused of it were all caught by people -after- it had been on the store for a while.

But a major difference has to be on Maemo you can install anything, from anywhere, if you are stupid or if you are tricked into it. With closed source smartphones, that's harder.
"With great power comes great responsibility!"

It has been said that Linux is inherently more secure than Windows, by design.
It inherits from 30+ years of UNIX design philosophy. It can't solve the problem of PEBCAK nor should it try. The only way to do so is to strip the user of all power, which is quite nasty and why Stallman started the FSF.

But it's also been said that Windows has so many malicious programs because of user culture / knowledge / security practices, and simply because it's the more popular platform so it attracts malicious software writers, which combined with the ease of cracking it, tips the balance strongly in its favour.
Any software with a large, mostly ignorant user base is open to exploitation. This is why education in technology and modern forms of communication need to be a lot better. Computers are far too powerful to be left as a black box, and far too useful to be turned into a locked black box.

So if you feel that installing everything you see on the internet is a good idea, no matter how questionable the website or dubiously useful the utility, then by all means avoid the N900. If you're prepared to be a little responsible and practice safe computing (it really is a lot like what you're thinking, I know) then you can enjoy a far more powerful device than most without trouble.
Last edited by wmarone; 2009-11-19 at 02:23.