Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on March 23, 2004 02:32 AM
Guess I should have added the smiley. Just the thought of replacing a bunch of shrink-wrapped packages in a store without being detected seemed ludicrous enough.
You are correct, of course, RPM has checksums, so any "counterfeit" ones would have to be rebuilt. Since our hypothetical counterfeiters/crackers would probably not have access to CD duplication equipment, the CDs would almost certainly be burned CDRs - which I suspect most people wouldn't be able to tell from the real ones if the CD labels looked right. As for the complexity of rebuilding a distribution, cracking seems to be an activity that is primarily pursued by people with too much time on their hands.
Of course, none of this is a concern if you just download the ISO images from the distributor's website<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;-)
Learn about Linux
Download Linux
Get Linux help
Re:Physical Security - Linux' Weak Link
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on March 23, 2004 02:32 AMYou are correct, of course, RPM has checksums, so any "counterfeit" ones would have to be rebuilt. Since our hypothetical counterfeiters/crackers would probably not have access to CD duplication equipment, the CDs would almost certainly be burned CDRs - which I suspect most people wouldn't be able to tell from the real ones if the CD labels looked right. As for the complexity of rebuilding a distribution, cracking seems to be an activity that is primarily pursued by people with too much time on their hands.
Of course, none of this is a concern if you just download the ISO images from the distributor's website<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;-)
#