Not sure what to expect…? Whonix recommending on
Host Operating System Selection - Whonix “use Windows
as a host operating system for Whonix because it is more secure than
Linux”? I guess if that happened and wasn’t result of a wiki edit that
slipped through, if that was a serious, non-joke, hardened position, I
guess that would result in a lot ridicule and criticism.
madaidan via Whonix Forum:
This page should also be changed.
Needs something specific about what’s wrong with that page.
Free software isn’t any more secure than proprietary software.
It’s self evident that libre software results in outcomes that are more
aligned with the goals of the user. If there’s any security advantage in
proprietary software it’s still not worthy of attention, support, money,
etc.
Quote Is It Ever a Good Thing to Use a Nonfree Program? - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
If you run a nonfree program on your computer, it denies your freedom;
the immediate wrong is directed at you.(*)
If you recommend that others run the nonfree program, or lead them to
do so, you’re leading them to give up their freedom. Thus, we have a
responsibility not to lead or encourage others to run nonfree software.
The GNU,FSF and other websites produced tons of materials making the
case for that.
I’ve already given clear examples of this. There is a big difference between “security” and “freedom”.
It’s not clear to me what your definition of security is and if that
thing is worth going for. Sure, innovations by proprietary software can
be interesting to look at on a conceptual basis and then perhaps
re-implement in libre software but that’s about it.
“Backdoors” keep being brought up too but that’s also no different in free/proprietary software. Backdoors are trivially hidden in open source software. There’s hundreds of vulnerabilities being found in the Linux kernel each month. How do you know any of these aren’t backdoors? You don’t. Backdoors aren’t going to be:
// steal user data backdoor();They’re going to be obscure, intentional bugs that are easy to miss.
But libre software usually does not use “telemetry, log keystroke, send
to server”. They have to be obscure and there’s at least a higher chance
to find and fix these. Proprietary source code can contain “telemetry,
log keystroke, send to server more” easily. Have trust the word of the
vendor and/or reverse engineering (waste of energy). Therefore prefer
libre software.
When libre software goes into an evil direction there is a chance of
forking it. Therefore attention and time is better spend on libre software.
I hear many people saying Windows XP was good enough. Low system
requirements, fast, good stability and feature complete. Then Microsoft
went for Vista with tons of changes which worsened achievements getting
worse with any subsequent release. The community of “nostalgic” was big
enough but they couldn’t fork and maintain Windows XP. Those who
previously invested into Windows XP and then switched to Linux had to
take losses for previous efforts (learning, source code, time).
Therefore better to not take chances and use libre software as much as
possible.
Linux could be full of intentional backdoors and you wouldn’t know. Backdoors are even easier in projects like Linux that are written in memory unsafe languages because memory corruption vulnerabilities are very common.
Could be but at least everybody has the same chance searching and fixing
for these backdoors in the source code. While proprietary kernels source
code is only to those who are powerful / insider enough.
Also see:
I am aware of it.
Spender only made a single tweet
Therefore one potential expert can be struck from list “experts
criticize Whonix”. Also probably wasn’t related to
but Daniel talked more about it on Matrix/IRC. He talked about it pushing the lie that open source software (Debian in particular) is more private/secure.
I guess feedback on Debian has a good chance to be also related to
Whonix. But I don’t count that as specifically “feedback on Whonix”,
“experts already criticized Whonix”.
I can’t really give a link but if you create a Matrix account and join the room, you can search for it.
Kinda mysterious. If there’s nothing public, easily accessible for
everyone, then there’s nothing that can be discussed in public.
Some public quotes here…
Listening to criticism is necessary for improvements.
But careful. There’s also a known method of continuous criticism for
purpose of destruction and subversion. Either intentionally or
non-intentionally. “critical theory”