I've some questions about Ghidra released by NSA on Github. And research about it then saw a ycombinator thread for it. That answer was clever and funny.

As title marked, you really okay for just "open source" to trust it?

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[–] 7 points 9 hours ago (8 children)

Ghidra is used by the best and brightest malware inspectors. If it was backdoored, it would have been discovered almost immediately.

The NSA has two conflicting missions, one is to hack everyone, and the other is to protect American networks and interests. Ghidra is from the later, its goal was to make malware analysis cheap and accessible so that more people can investigate and defeat malware.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

    Ghidra is used by the best and brightest malware inspectors.

    Can you prove your claim?

    If it was backdoored, it would have been discovered almost immediately.

    That's the hope. Reality is, these things still happen. Remember that even the extremely secure Linux Kernel was almost, if it was not discovered accidentally and looked into it, hit bey huge backdoor. What makes you so sure that Ghidra developers and inspectors is on the same level?

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  • [–] 4 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 child)

    Go to any cyber security conference. Check out the CTF teams, Ghidra is used everywhere.

    Can you prove that there is a backdoor? Remember that it is freely available, and if China, Russia, NK or any other nation state could find a backdoor, they would be shouting it from the rooftops to shame the US.

    I dont doubt that the NSA could have seeded a backdoor in an open source project, but I very much doubt they would sign their name to it...

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  • [–] 0 points 3 hours ago

    Can you prove that there is a backdoor?

    I didn't say there is, I only ask for proofing your point. Remember: Not able to find anything is not the proof of absence. You can only proof something you can find. All I am saying is, if even Linux Kernel ALMOST got hid by a backdoor that was extremely sophisticated, it could happen to Ghidra as well. I'm not saying Ghidra is unsecure or anything like that.

    if China, Russia, NK or any other nation state could find a backdoor

    Then they would most likely use it to their advantage without telling anyone. Shaming a nation is not as lucrative like abusing a backdoor.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 9 hours ago (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 9 hours ago

    I dont know what you mean by that. Do you mean that the NSA would leave a bug in accidentally? Or intentionally?

    Accidentally is definitely plausible, they are only human after all.

    Intentionally would be incredibly stupid. The offensive side of the NSA spends billions developing malware that can't be easily found and attributed to them. Inserting one of those malwares into a piece of software they have publically claimed ownership off completely defeats the point. If they wanted to backdoor an open source software, why wouldn't they do it anonymously...

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  • [–] -1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (2 children)

    The NSA has two conflicting complementary missions, one is to hack everyone attack humans, and the other is to protect American networks and interests. defend capital.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 hours ago (1 child)

    Even if we take your definitions, they are still conflicting.

    Attacking humans means developing malware.

    Defending capital means protecting that capital from others malware.

    If either of them do their job too well, the other will be failed. That is by definition conflicting.

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