[GTALUG] interesting new approach to forking

Russell Reiter rreiter91 at gmail.com
Wed Feb 11 23:56:17 UTC 2015


On 2/11/15, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh at mimosa.com> wrote:
> | From: Russell Reiter <rreiter91 at gmail.com>
>
> | This looks like a false flag operation to me. Skull vs. Bones.
>
> Not sure what you mean.  Are you saying that Cyanogen Inc. might be
> simply a spoiling attack from Microsoft on Google/Android under the
> Cyanogen Inc. flag?

I think that pretty much sum's up the situation. Abuse of dominance
seems to be an MS stock in trade, however it's not exclusively theirs.
I think CM is hedging bets, if not jumping ship. There is profit in
confusion whether accidental or deliberate.

<SNIP>
> | From: Lennart Sorensen <lsorense at csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
>
> | So of course at this point any sane person would know that Cyanogen is
> | not to be trusted at all.  Don't make any deal with them, because they
> | don't care about you at all.

I somewhat agree with this although I'm not sure how sanity checking
in a person is achieved. I struggle with this concept myself at times.

> I always thought that Cyanogen Mod was a real plus for the Android
> community and hence probably useful for Google.  For one thing, it was
> a way of keeping the device manufacturers a little in line (if the
> device manufacturers went too far, their customers would jump ship to
> CM).  For another, it meant Android had some hacker cred.

I had thought so too and now I'm not so sure. Modularity and
scalability are seen as plus's by hackers but they are in fact the
wild wild west of the technology business. Do you trade features for
security or do you trade security for features. I'd like to think you
can have both but that doesn't seem very likely in the near future.

Look at how stuxnet escaped containment. The real question is who
embedded it in the PLC's in the first place. Note the reports said it
was spread from the isolated networks not to them.

>
> I am now (with insufficient research) thinking that I might want to
> avoid CM so as to stay out of the clutches of CI.

As a blunt force hacker I'm always in somebody's clutches. Isn't the
devil you know better than the devil you don't know? Trust is
extensible and extendible. Security is non-existent, that's a
Microsoft illusion created to pacify small business while the big
business crawl in their back door when they find the front door is
closed.


More information about the talk mailing list