Info World reports that the NSA has released its modifications to Linux and looks at the reaction of the Linux development community.

Dr. Dobb’s Journal has the transcript of a round table discussion on the topic of BSD and simplicity for security at last fall’s Usenix conference.

Linux Journal explains what, exactly, Carnivore is. Using analogies and detailed descriptions, the article explains why the FBI’s Carnivore email chewing system is such a threat.

Linux PR reports that VA Linux has released compiled kernel packages of kernel 2.4 in both RPM and DEB formats. (Full disclosure: VA Linux owns NewsForge.)

From SecurityFocus: “A problem has been reported in the handling of long file names with
ReiserFS version 3.5.28 on SuSE Linux distribution 7.0. It is possible to
create a directory with a long file name (the initial example displayed a
directory with 768 characters), then attempt to list the file system using
system binary ls or with built in shell function echo and create a Denial
of Service.”

“exrecover is a system binary included with Solaris, a variant of the
UNIX Operating System distributed by Sun Microsystems. A problem
in the binary could lead to a local attack.” Details at SecurityFocus.

Linux Devices interviews Davide Barbieri of Prosa and Etlinux, formerly of Linuxcare Italia. Barbieri talks about life after Linuxcare, the ressurection of Prosa, and his experiences with running an Open Source business.

From ZDNet: “PenguinRadio, Inc. has just announced that they have
commissioned JB Design of Petworth, United Kingdom,
the design team behind the highly successful empeg
car player, to develop the PenguinRadio for mass
production.”

When no means yes: Wired News follows up on an earlier story about the auction giant’s recent effort at changing privacy settings for some of its users. In this article, an eBay spokesman defends company actions, saying that “user focus groups and privacy organizations” were consulted before the campaign, and no objections were raised.

From SecurityFocus via The Register: “The challenge — peering inside the various compression and archival formats to discover the viruses hidden within — has become more difficult over time. This article will discuss the implications of utilizing various forms of file compression on virus protection.”