[ale] China chooses FreeBSD as basis for secure OS

Wed Oct 13 16:17:18 EDT 2010

I thought it was in the wild for years before Thompson told the world about
it?

ie. I thought early generation unix systems all had the backdoor that
allowed Thompson in.

I'm curious if I have that right, or if he just described a potential
backdoor / trojan.

Greg

On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 2:30 PM, Charles Shapiro <hooterpincher at gmail.com>wrote:

> Wow, that's so khewl!
>
> I was given to understand that Ken Thompson's idea has not been seen
> in the wild.  But then again, that doesn't mean it hasn't happened.
>
> -- CHS
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 2:18 PM, Lightner, Jeff <jlightner at water.com>
> wrote:
> > HP once did a sort of strange loop to one of my former employers
> accidentally.   They put out a HP-UX patch that changed the way the kernel
> got recompiled after applying kernel patches.   The patch that did the
> change installed fine but any subsequent kernel patch would bomb due to
> errors in the earlier patch that did the change.   In HP-UX one typically
> applies patch bundles with dozens if not hundreds of patches so determining
> what broke everything was rather difficult.   You'd see the kernel patch
> blowup and assume that was the problem but then when you'd remove it and
> install the rest of the bundle it would blow up on the next kernel patch.
> >
> > What made all this worse, was the person who initially applied the patch
> bundle rendered the system she was working on unbootable.   Rather than
> stopping to troubleshoot she then went ahead and applied the same bundle to
> the next server and was surprised when it broke too.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
> Charles Shapiro
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 1:58 PM
> > To: rfaulkner at 34thprs.org; Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run
> Linux!
> > Subject: Re: [ale] China chooses FreeBSD as basis for secure OS
> >
> > Sure. All you need is source to the compiler they're using, and you
> > only need that once.  Ken Thompson described it first.
> > (
> http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/04/strange_loops_dennis_ritchie_a.php).
> >
> > -- CHS
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 1:34 PM, Richard Faulkner <rfaulkner at 34thprs.org>
> wrote:
> >> Okay...this then brings up an interesting proposition.  Is it possible
> to
> >> build a tenable backdoor in a distro that would go unnoticed at source
> code
> >> level?  For security purposes would it be better to develop (as a state)
> >> your own updates rather than take distro updates from source?  Could
> this
> >> mark a threat to security as we see it?
> >>
> >> Please keep in mind that I'm new to Linux and NOT a programmer...more of
> a
> >> designer.
> >>
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: wolf at wolfhalton.info <wolf at wolfhalton.info>
> >> Reply-to: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux! <ale at ale.org>
> >> To: mhw at wittsend.com, Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!
> >> <ale at ale.org>
> >> Subject: Re: [ale] China chooses FreeBSD as basis for secure OS
> >> Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:35:02 -0400
> >>
> >> It would at least be a little more of a challenge than Window$
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Michael H. Warfield <mhw at wittsend.com>
> >> Reply-to: mhw at wittsend.com, Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run
> Linux!
> >> <ale at ale.org>
> >> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux! <ale at ale.org>
> >> Cc: mhw at wittsend.com
> >> Subject: Re: [ale] China chooses FreeBSD as basis for secure OS
> >> Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 17:26:40 -0400
> >>
> >> On Tue, 2010-10-12 at 15:58 -0400, Chuck Payne wrote:
> >>> On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 3:13 PM, George Allen <glallen01 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>> > Apparently China is moving their entire Dept of Defense to a hardened
> >>> > version of FreeBSD.
> >>> > http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=1682
> >>> > _______________________________________________
> >>> > Ale mailing list
> >>> > Ale at ale.org
> >>> > http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
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> >>> >
> >>
> >>> Good Choose.
> >>
> >> I presume you meant choice and I concur.  Give that some reports are
> >> putting the level of Stuxnet infections at over 1 million machines in
> >> Iran and more than 6 million machines in China, anything, other that
> >> Windows, would be a smooth move.  Nobody really knows who is behind the
> >> Stuxnet but I would put it at 99% probability that it's "state
> >> sponsored" and the leading contenders are Israel, the US, and Russia.
> >> Unfortunately, any of those players are more than capable of building
> >> something nasty for FreeBSD or Linux, or even OpenBSD if they really set
> >> their minds to it.
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Mike
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Ale mailing list
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> >>
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