[tahoe-dev] Live Distribution with compiled Tahoe-Lafs

[Olivier Schwander]

Le 08 Dec 2011 12:47, Zooko O'Whielacronx a écrit:
> One concern I have about Live CDs, and indeed about *all* packages of
> Tahoe-LAFS, is if the end user would be able to verify exactly what
> software they were running and if there was a backdoor or security
> flaw in it.

You _need_ to trust the provider of the package, either binary or
source. Even if repositories or archives are hosted by the project
itself (I mean, on tahoe-lafs.org), each user need to trust the
sysadmin, all people with write access on the server, the patch review
process, etc.

Since I need already need to trust Debian (put here your distribution of
choice) for providing me a secure kernel, a secure python interpreter
and nearly everything on my computer, it seems to be ok to trust it for
the tahoe package.

Moreover, I already have to trust my OS for all the private data I would
want to put on the tahoe grid, so...

Sure, a pirate may compromise the repository but signed packages are
designed to overcome this risk: I do not see any signature on the tahoe
download page (actually, it is quite frightening, but maybe I am wrong).

Best,

Olivier