Does that not apply to anything in life? How difficult is it to get code into any open-source software package or distribution really? I work in high-security environments, and I'm always wondering how you can really guarantee that any Debian, Ubuntu or Arch developer is honest and not compromised themselves, any software package installed is 100% clean, and any software library module and container image is fully checked. And that's not getting into tin foil hat assumptions about a shady government agency having access to the major app stores, Github, common distributions or email hosters.

There simply is no way anymore to check the several million lines of code even a minimal setup requires somewhere in the stack. Even an in-depth code review of a medium sized web application – with deps – has already become a gargantuan task most companies simply can't afford.

> Or maybe not?

This.

It is just slightly more difficult and longer to target it in a large company because you usually have to actually be hired by that company and do not necessarily have the choice of the team/products you will be working on.

But adding backdoors and vuln, yes totally possible on random products that person would be affected to. There is review fatigue the same way there is fatigue in a lot of processes.

I would tend to trust Apple more as they define attack vectors and mitigations in their platform security guide. Also they have a holistic approach to this from hardware through to software, not just an app tacked crudely onto whatever APIs were lying around.

I would NOT trust Microsoft though. I've had enough problems with Authenticator and so have other users in our org that I refuse to put data near it. Not concerned so much about other people getting access to it but me losing my data.

> Let’s say they are exceptionally honest, and won’t take money. How about threats to their lives or families?

The more I think about it, the better I understand TrueCrypt's sudden demise.

yes, it's my biggest worry too.

At least with keepassDX on android there is no internet access permission needed by default, but if a compromised update suddenly required it I don't know if Android would prompt about it since all apps have internet access granted without prompting :(

I also wish it was possible to block automatic updates of specific apps on the play store... So at least we could be in control over updating critical apps such as these without having to micromanage updates for all apps.

> add a back door?

What's your threat model here? Some kind of mass hacking attempt? It would be easier to attack the service providers, rather than steal legitimate logins.

A targeted attack on a specific person? It would be easier to, as the famous XKCD suggests, drug and/or hit them with a wrench until they voluntarily hand over whatever information you want.

It's difficult to conceive of a situation where hacking password managers is the path of least resistance.

I'm really confused. How do you think that would work with an opensource password manager like pass / password-store.org

- The data is stored in Git at a location of your choosing and security level

- The data encryption is provided by GnuPG using your personal key

This is why I use it, there's no potential for anyone to add a back door, except me.

BitWarden, LastPass, etc etc... you have a point, and I would not trust these companies one iota.

Apple, Google etc...uhm... not in a million years.

A lot of FOSS projects are started by young people, often students. At some point, life hits, with spouses and children and real jobs demanding lots of time. Slowly people burn out, and most of the time, other people want to scratch their own itch and don't necessarily continue what already exists.

I guess password managers are relatively simple at the core but have to fulfil very different requirements so there isn't one obvious piece of software that everybody can focus on. See also bike-shedding vs building a nuclear reactor.

A better philosophy on how to herd cats would be useful in the FOSS world, though. It's a formidable force, but terribly scattered.

It happens also to proprietary apps maintained by individual developpers / small teams. At least in this case an open source project is easier to fork even if original dev becomes unresponsive/unreachable.

In actually SSH into my desktop PC and use pass there to access my secrets.

Luckily, I only need to do this occasionally, so the inconvenience is bearable. Still waiting on the day where I randomly get logged out of an important app while not having internet access, or the power going out in my apartment right after I leave for two weeks (happened once, luckily didn't need my passwords then).

The point of `pass` is to offload the security aspect to gpg, so unless something goes wrong with that, I don't believe continued use, even if unmaintained, is very insecure.

I think termux has some limitations here (due to missing libraries), namely gpg decryption via hardware keys.

Consumer softwares in the current environment can probably only live a few years at most (if you count security in, probably months) without maintenance. The author's decision to pull it from play store is very sensible and should be appreciated.

There is always need for maintenance on Android.

It's discontinued, period (https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-android/issues/2064#i...). The fork seems to be fine currently though.

For iOS, Keepassium can use WebDAV as well.

Tbh the same struggle affect proprietary software.

It is more about individual developpers/small teams versus large companies.

Why? The app can still be built / installed / source forked etc.

That is the FOSS dream.

it's not FOSS or not. Basically, who owns it or who pays for it. People have interest and people need earnings to live. Business is business.