commercial or open source ?

can commercial encryption and privacy software be trusted or is open source a better option ?. in the case of commercial encryption software can they be trusted not to have a backdoor or way to snoop ?.

Gazzer

 

Open source = more peer review = open code = better imho. But that doesn't say much, commercial software can be just as good as open source

Backdoors? Who can say, even with semi open source stuff like truecrypt there is always the possibility of a backdoor.

 

Open source software can be commercial software as well .
I assume you mean closed source software, not commercial.

Closed source products can be trusted.

With both closed source and open source products guarantees can be written into contracts and agreements.

Both closed source and open source products can imply some level of trust from public reputation.

With open source you also have the option to audit the source code.

It depends on the individual requirements of the user/customer as which open or closed is the better option, if you don't have the technical capability to audit code then things get very even and will be down to which product has the better reputation, can offer you the strong guarantees for the maximum cost your willing to pay.

Cheers, Nick