The idea that Linux is more vulnerable than other systems, however, "is absolutely a misconception," said Terry Bollinger, principal information systems engineer for Mitre Corp., a think tank that performs federally funded research. "But because the genesis of Linux comes out of the hacker community - hacker in the good sense, where there's this international global effort to develop a source code that is fully open, fully visible to everyone-that immediately brings up all sorts of concerns and worries about what that means. Can people break in? Can people plan Trojan horses? It's almost a reflex action." Reflex or not, concerns about security have kept many agencies at bay, especially the Defense Department. Incidentally, the efforts of an agency famous for its suspicious nature may eventually help the rest of government put aside its fears. This spring, the National Security Agency released a prototype of a security- enhanced Linux system and released it to the public.
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