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● 10.30.22

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●● The Next OpenSSL Bug Will Likely Disappoint Those Who Believe the Linux-Hostile Media

Posted in Free/Libre Software, FUD, GNU/Linux, Security at 6:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Video download link | md5sum 4b7ddbb46fa6769b563d42abfd3763b2Trusting the FUD Blindly Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

=> ↺ Video download link

http://techrights.org/videos/openssl-fud-again.webm

Summary: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) campaigns have begun based on a lack of information rather than actual substance; Dramatisation of this kind merits a debate as the boy keeps crying “wolf!” in vain (because he sees a dog)

OVER the past 5 or so days we’ve included in Daily Links many articles about an upcoming patch for OpenSSL, not “imminently” as this was disclosed almost a week in advance, which is rather unusual (that long a timespan).

We’ve patiently been wanting to do a a response, waiting for insiders who can tell what the bug was or how severe it really was; we scolded some media for calling it "zero day" because as far as we can tell the term is misapplied, maybe even on purpose.

=> calling it "zero day"

“A lot of the media reports, not privy to any details, trust the panic makers despite having no details. Where’s the fact-checking?”

So many speculative, uninformed and uninformative articles have mentioned the magic “FUDword”, Heartbleed, still failing to recognise that it was a bug first discovered by Google and then hyped up by Microsofters to stigmatise Free software (we wrote a lot about this at the time). This was almost a decade ago; after that we saw many logos and sites (for pertinent bugs, not pieces of software) and even the occasional pranks after that, trying to reproduce that hype’s success [sic] because FUD travels fast and some firms wanted to “make a name” for themselves.

People with access to information or special privileges already caution us that the advanced notice is more about hype than substance. A lot of the media reports, not privy to any details, trust the panic makers despite having no details. Where’s the fact-checking?

=> ↺ caution us

Seeing how “Heartbleed” FUD was used by Microsoft for years (and "log4j" a year later, even by the anti-Linux Foundation), it seems likely that this is a campaign of drama, not a real security crisis. How many breaches will be caused by this? Time will tell, but probably not many (same as “Heartbleed”, where reality didn’t match the propaganda). █

=> and "log4j" a year later | Linux Foundation

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