Unhide - The opensource forensic tool

Unhide - The opensource forensic tool.

-- Tom

 

Works great and rkhunter uses it too

 

I've always worried that some "Rootkit Tools/Finders" are actually Rootkits themselves- How would you ever know?

 

lol they are open source?

 

It is possible to write very underhanded code, though, and some of it might get past even the most experienced eyes.

It gets worse than that though. What if the compiler used to compile your OS installed backdoors in the applications it compiled? If not, what if the compiler that compiled that compiler was tampered with to install a self-propagating backdoor? The minute you turn on your computer, whatever OS it is running, you are implicitly trusting a whole bunch of people.

You might as well trust them, unless your career and lifestyle are such that you can avoid ever using a computer. There's not much else you can do. That said, "computer security" is basically an oxymoron. It's not just impossible to know if you're secure in absolute terms, it's impossible to even come close to knowing if you're secure.

OTOH, there's no reason you couldn't be a disembodied brain in a tank somewhere, being fed false sensory data... But assuming that that is the case is not useful, so you might as well assume by default that you're a real human interacting with a real physical world. IMO the same applies to computer security. Skepticism is good; but after a certain point all you can do is assume that you're secure, at least for all practical purposes.

[/semi-wild tangent]

TLR: the source code being public indicates a much lower probability of shenanigans. It does not mitigate the possibility of shenanigans entirely. Don't worry, be happy (because tomorrow the world burns).

 

EDIT: Never Mind. That post was off topic, I don't want to ruin this thread over a rant. =)