snowcrash911

Glenn, as you may have heard, Linux development leader Linus Torvalds has already been requested (salon.com) to build backdoors into the Linux kernel. Do you have any information pertaining to NSA's open source project SELinux, which contributes to the Linux kernel? Has the NSA tried to subvert Linux kernel security?

Edit: First, many thanks to Glenn for replying. I await your future publications with interest. Good luck. To avoid misunderstandings: (Thanks to AnkhMorporkian for the heads up) Linus Torvalds has clarified to mashable.com that he was joking. Unfortunately, the joke wasn't immediately clear to The Register, Slashdot, Techdirt, Hackernews and Salon, so although it's good to hear it was a joke, some measure of bafflement and confusion about it in the current climate is entirely understandable.

Moreover, that doesn't settle the question of whether or not NSA contributions to Linux (SELinux or other) are worth continuing considering that the NSA's intent is to destroy privacy around the world.

none of these companies care about you.

Hi. IT pro here who also worked with big data. Looks like you (a) think you can speak for every other company and (b) think you get to decide for consumers whether or not they should be upset based on how much you speculate privacy violators "care". This is offensive in the extreme.

I don't give a shit whether you think they "care". I give a shit that behaviour that would be considered criminal malware 15 years go is now the fucking norm.

It has already existed.

HavenCo, on Sealand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HavenCo

Nope, doesn't exist any more. And Sealand has its own page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand#Legal_status

It's a hilarious, quirky thing to exist, really. It'sbeing tolerated by the United Kingdom, but would have to yield when the U.K. so desires, because it has no recognition under international law and resides, since '87, in its territorial waters.

When I left this discussion last night I think I was in the negatives. Now I come back and I'm 100+. Feels good to see pro-privacy arguments winning. Guys like him try to belittle people and their concerns. Really can't stomach the arrogance. But thanks for the pat on the back.