Ideally, Open And Closed Source Programs Are Equally As Secure

from the in-theory...-you-can-say-anything-you-want dept

Well, it sounds slightly more scientific than the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution study saying that closed source software was more secure, but there are still many questions about Ross Anderson's new study saying that open and closed source programs are equally secure. Anderson is quite well known for the various studies and writings on security issues. However, this study compares a very theoretical world, and makes a number of assumptions. It uses "ideal" open source programs for the study, for instance. In the end, though, he says there's no evidence that one approach is any better than the other in terms of security. I doubt this will slow down the debate any - and, in fact, is likely to just toss some more fuel on the fire.
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  1. identicon
    Sleigel, 21 Jun 2002 @ 11:37am

    Yeah, theory

    In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. So yeah, open source and closed can be equally secure, but that's a long way from saying IIS is as secure as Apache.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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