| Torvalds on Linux Security, Masturbating Monkeys, Whores and Idiots |
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| by Davey Winder | |
| Friday, 15 August 2008 | |
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Page 1 of 2   
Maybe it is something in the water, or perhaps he has just got fed up with doing the diplomatic thing as the public face of the Linux project. Certainly his email rant exactly one month ago took many observers by surprise. Featured Whitepaper
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Of course, much of what Torvalds had to say was hard to argue with. His position being that the only place where it is appropriate to report security bugs should be within the Linux kernel changelogs is one which, to be frank, many developers will agree with. After all, disclosure when bugs have been fixed is a pretty standard security approach. Torvalds went on to comment that there was no way he could be personally convinced that it would be a "good idea to say 'Hey script kiddies, try this' unless it's already very public indeed." Torvalds referred to the security circus as being part of the problem, glorifying and encouraging the wrong behaviour. "I don't think some spectacular security hole should be glorified or cared about as being any more "special" than a random spectacular crash due to bad locking" he exclaimed. Then things started to get a little bit screwy. Claiming that security people are "often the black-and-white kind of people that I can't stand" Torvalds then turned his attention to the OpenBSD crowd which he called "a bunch of masturbating monkeys." He explained that he meant they focus on security to the point where nothing else matters. "To me, security is important" Torvalds insisted "But it's no less important than everything *else* that is also important!" OK, that's the masturbating monkeys taken care of, but where do the whores and idiots come in? Find out on page 2... CONTINUES |
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