Contributed by jj on 2015-04-27 from the meta-govt-says-you-are-safe dept.

"[...] the use of open source computer operating systems and applications reduces the risk of privacy intrusion by mass surveillance. Open source software is not error free, or less prone to errors than proprietary software, the experts write. But proprietary software does not allow constant inspection and scrutiny by a large community of experts."

"It is recommended that users install security and privacy aware operating systems (OS) on their devices, in order to prevent malware to be installed and/or executed, prevent attackers from accessing the software running on the device, ease the creation of VPNs and tunnelling over untrusted connections and support a number of other security features. In the last years some robust implementations have appeared. Two of the most popular are:"

"OpenBSD is a free, open-source multi-platform 4.4 Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD)-based UNIX-like operating system. Proactive security and cryptography are two of the features highlighted in the product together with portability, standardisation and correctness. Its built-in cryptography and packet filter make OpenBSD suitable for use in the security industry, for example on firewalls, intrusion-detection systems and VPN gateways"

In this European Parliament study: �EU should finance key open source tools� pointed out to us by Paul Irofti (pirofti@), and especially at study 2, they come to the conclusion that:In the second part of the study, at 7.2.8, they say:and then goes on to list Qubes and OpenBSD where OpenBSD gets this description:Nice to see recognition from the trenches of bureaucracy.