Unless I’m missing something, here we will disagree. Secure or not, FOSS principle-respecting or not, if I’m choosing to install software by X then I’m going to get it straight from X and not involve third-party Y too.

Source code is like a recipe. Getting your food from the chef who made the recipe is fine, but getting it from another chef who… followed the same exact recipe is no different.

This is how the linux software distribution model works, distro maintainers are a CHECK on upstream.

I’m and end user

Yeah, we all are. What’s your point?

End users are also developers. All computer users are developers. You are developing.

user working for end users

By making a script that lets me get backdoors and shitty packages with ease? The linux package distribution system is a nightmare, Debian is the least bad approach. There is basically always a better option to using a .deb file. If you come across something that isn’t packaged, I recommend Flatpak, building from source (and installing unprivileged), or using the developers vendored tarball (installing unprivileged).

https://wiki.debian.org/SecureApt

By using local .debs you lose the benefit of:

Reproducible builds GPG checksums Stable release model debian security team

Why does Debian-Ubuntu not provide a simple command for this?

You aren’t supposed to add repos. Ever. https://wiki.debian.org/UntrustedDebs

Apt is not built with security in mind, at all. The partial sandboxing it does do is trivial to bypass. Adding a repo is basically a RAT Trojan on your computer.

An example is signal-desktop

Yeah don’t use signal. They restrict freedom 3 by making distribution difficult. Thats why they trick you into using their RAT repo.

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=842943

The least bad option is the unofficial flatpak.

Personally I need the desktop client because I mod it with plugins that are so useful that I can’t do without these anymore.

Discord client modifications are against the Terms of Service. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

If you are getting your code straight from the author,

Which is not what you are doing at all with a .deb file. A .deb file is a binary with a bunch of scripts to “properly” install your package. Building from source is what you SHOULD be doing. Debian has an entire policy handbook on how packages are supposed to be packaged. Progrmatically you can review the quality of a package with ‘lintian’. .debs made by developers following a wiki tutorial can’t even come close. remember, apt installs happen as root and can execute arbitrary code.

Also, debian packagers can be project maintainers, so they can be “the author.”

Well, I’m just automating what people currently have to do manually : visit GitHub and download DEB and install DEB.

Yeah. You should never do that. Like ever. Build from source; or use a vendored tarball. https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian

.deb is a terribly insecure nightmare thats held up by the excellent debian packagers, gpg , and checksums, and stable release model. don’t use .deb files.

https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/contributors.html

BSD is on its death bed

https://www.openbsd.org/75.html

https://netbsd.org/releases/formal-10/NetBSD-10.0.html

Considering OpenBSD and NetBSD have had two new releases just this year, and how well funded the BSDs are by major corpos who like ripping source code, I think their so called “Deaths” have been majorly overstated.

Give a BSD a try, it’s a lot less like shoving systemd/apache2/red hat together and reading 300000 line long config files with documentation that clearly was never intended to be read and more like using an actual operating system designed to be cohesive.

Ban security through obscurity. As well proprietary security software.

The government likes proprietary software. They are never going to ban it.

Windows normalized running third party software as kernel level code.

Also: don’t trust your employees to boot into safe mode. Trust a 3rd party to freely install system level files at any time.

Exactly. This is exactly the problem, and unless people wisen up the software security problem is only going to get worse. Companies and Governments need to rethink how they approach security entirely. This is a preview of what is to come, its only going to get worse and more damaging from here, and none of the vendors care.

I’m pretty sure Windows is plenty secure.

Haha sure. Windows NT MIGHT be considered ‘secure’ from an architectural standpoint but literally of this falls apart when you tape all the Microsoft Dark Patterns on it that ruin the security. Its a joke, and that’s the entire problem.

Think: Microsoft Accounts, now the “secure” Windows NT Local User Authentication is effectively backdoored by MS and makes you vulnerable to phishing attacks. Windows Update: Constantly pushing dark patterns and ‘features’ that it discourages people from updating so then guess what, people don’t update! The fact that Windows so easily allows Crowdstrike to make system level changes like this without trying a whiny fit is also apart of it. Think about the fact how easily Microsoft allows stuff like Valorant anti-cheat and Crowdstrike, which are effectively rootkits, to be installed with one UAC prompt. In reality this issue is not really Microsoft’s fault directly, but in a bunch of indirect ways they encourage this and allow it to happen, and we have seen time and time again, Microsoft DOES NOT CARE ABOUT SECURITY.

If anything this “Crowdstrike” software showcases the endemic problem in software security and how our system is failing and continuing to fail us. Its an anti-virus, but we already HAVE Windows Defender. These corporations should not be using some random 3rd party Antivirus, I doubt it even does much good, its just cargo-culting “oh, this is industry standard, so we have to use it.” This is the kind of thinking/approach that Microsoft encourages.

Yes, but the originally free/libre licensed source code is still out there.

makes improvements and put’s those under a proprietary license

You could also make improvements and release them under a GPL license.

If nuclear waste DID pollute water, it would still help combat climate change, specifically the warming of the earth. It doesn’t pollute water, and nuclear waste can be stored deep underground or reused. But we are out of time to find a “perfect solution” nuclear power is the ONLY option to provide renewable and carbon neutral base load power that other forms of “green electricity” will NEVER be able to compete with.

It’s coal or nukes. You better figure out which one you want fast.