this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2024
465 points (97.4% liked)
Open Source
29776 readers
234 users here now
All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!
Useful Links
- Open Source Initiative
- Free Software Foundation
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Software Freedom Conservancy
- It's FOSS
- Android FOSS Apps Megathread
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to the open source ideology
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
- !libre_culture@lemmy.ml
- !libre_software@lemmy.ml
- !libre_hardware@lemmy.ml
- !linux@lemmy.ml
- !technology@lemmy.ml
Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
if the client is e2ee and you can control that, then why is the server relevant?
Because non-obvious backdoors can be added to the client that break or circumvent encryption (looking at you, xz), stealing all of your passwords, and no one will be able to raise the alarm just by looking at the server code.
Open-source backend allows to generally avoid this situation, while also potentially rendering you able to self-host if you're paranoid.
Sorry, I meant "assuming one has complete control over the client source" where the remote cannot just change it on you.
I mean they can make a sneaky update to the client that introduces such changes.
Sure, if you won't update your client, this won't affect you, but would potentially open you up to other security vulnerabilities.
This was a real concern with MEGA back in the day (after Kim said you should no longer trust them) and a big reason why I prefer to use standalone client apps that I can control the source of.