Privacy

While source code is critical for user autonomy, it isn’t required to evaluate software security or understand run-time behavior. One of the biggest parts of the Free and Open Source Software definitions is the freedom to study a program and modify it; in other words, access to editable source code. I agree that such access is essential; however, far too many people support source availability for the wrong reasons. One such reason is that source code is necessary to have any degree of transparency into how a piece of software operates, and is therefore necessary to determine if it is at all secure or trustworthy....

The first task a person should do when taking steps to protect their privacy and security is to make a threat model. Defining a threat To make a threat model, we must first define a threat. A common mistake made by people who are just getting into the privacy space is to define the threat as “big-tech companies.” There is a fundamental problem with this definition: Why are we not trusting “big-tech companies,” but then shift our trust to “small-tech companies”?...