NSA collection and Linux
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Do not post support questions here. Before you post read the forum rules. Topics in this forum are automatically closed 6 months after creation.
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JackBW
NSA collection and Linux
With so many news articles on NSA's constant monitoring and data collection, does Linux offer any level of protection against such things as email address book collecting, or other capabilities The Man might be employing?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
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tdockery97
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Re: NSA collection and Linux
Nope. If you live in the good ol' USA, your secrets be theirs.
Mint Cinnamon 20.1
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nomko
Re: NSA collection and Linux
Not only USA....As it seems they even have access to almost every (online) mail provider, European telecom providers, etc....tdockery97 wrote:Nope. If you live in the good ol' USA, your secrets be theirs.
I think the topic starter is more aiming for some kind of build-in backdoor which can be used by security services. I wonder if Linux is as much vulnerable as other operating systems.....
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KirbySmith
Re: NSA collection and Linux
I think the best that this can be answered by anyone outside of the intellegence community is that back doors into closed operating systems and software may exist but will be hard to know about unless leaked or discovereed by security researchers, whereas doors into open code bases such as GNU/Linux have to get past the eyes of the many who review the code, at least some of whom might qualify as not being supporters of the NSA.
Most of us use PCs that have proprietary BIOS firmware, so a door there might be difficult to know about, no matter how open the OS. One would hope that such an opening would be eventually discovered, if only by accident.
kirby
Most of us use PCs that have proprietary BIOS firmware, so a door there might be difficult to know about, no matter how open the OS. One would hope that such an opening would be eventually discovered, if only by accident.
kirby
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elverion
Re: NSA collection and Linux
The NSA (mostly) collects their information from ISPs and online services; something you have no control over. That means your OS doesn't make much difference in whether or not they have access to it.
That being said, the NSA, FBI, and CIA (for sure, probably others but there's no evidence yet to prove it) have all been displaying a complete disregard for your rights and will not hold back from attacking you without a warrant. They have been involved in hacking consumer hardware or writing malware mostly targeting Windows users. To protect you against this, using Linux will help.
And yet on the other hand, the NSA was recently involved in an illegal attack on Google (MITM attack; even though Google already turns over all information anyways). If Google is susceptible, there's really not much you can do.
That being said, the NSA, FBI, and CIA (for sure, probably others but there's no evidence yet to prove it) have all been displaying a complete disregard for your rights and will not hold back from attacking you without a warrant. They have been involved in hacking consumer hardware or writing malware mostly targeting Windows users. To protect you against this, using Linux will help.
And yet on the other hand, the NSA was recently involved in an illegal attack on Google (MITM attack; even though Google already turns over all information anyways). If Google is susceptible, there's really not much you can do.