Posle zaista velikog broja tekstova na net-u koje sam pročitao na temu DNS propusta koji je uzdrmao celokupan Internet ( /. US-CERT VU#800113, ISC, BBC, Wall Street i mnogi drugi), našao sam originalni tekst na temu bug-a koji je otkrio Dan Kaminsky. U jednom delu svog blog-a on je napisao nešto što je meni privuklo pažnju, a tiče se DJB-a i njegovog software-a. Citat neću prevoditi, već ću ga ovde preneti u originalnoj formi:

“… It was an interesting discussion, with lots of disagreement, but ever-growing consensus. After evaluating several options, one approach was clear and, I must admit, somewhat embarassing to Paul (Vixie). DJB was right. All those years ago, Dan J. Bernstein was right: Source Port Randomization should be standard on every name server in production use. There is a fantastic quote that guides a lot of the work I do: Luck is the residue of design. Dan Bernstein is a notably lucky programmer, and that’s no accident. The professor lives and breathes systems engineering in a way that my hackish code aspires to one day experience. DJB got “lucky” here – he ended up defending himself against an attack he almost certainly never encountered. Such is the mark of excellent design. Excellent design protects you against things you don’t have any information about. And so we are deploying this excellent design to provide no information. …”

Eto, ako me neko ikad bude ponovo pitao zašto koristim qmail, ili neki drugi DJB-ov sofware, sada imam odličnu referencu gde da tu osobu uputim. Mislim da ovo može da “začepi usta” i onim najglasnim zagovornicima (gnu-brain-washed) koje sam godinama slušao kako pričaju notorne gluposti, najčešće iz apsolutnog neznanja.

Uglavnom sam sretao ljude koji su sendmail orijentisani, ali ima rethih koji su sendmail zamenili sa nekim ozbiljnijom MTA poput qmail-a, postfix-a ili nekog drugog smtp servera. Nebih da ulazim u diskusiju zbog čega je jedan ili drugi ili neki treći bolji od ovih prethodih. Koristim od 1999-te qmail i imam samo reči hvale za isti. S tim u vezi posle dugo vremena čuo sam vest koja me je itekako obradovala, a koja će samo malom broju ljudi koji koriste qmail biti interesantna. Evo šta kaže DJB na svom sajtu:

D. J. Bernstein
Information for distributors
I hereby place the qmail package (in particular, qmail-1.03.tar.gz,
with MD5 checksum 622f65f982e380dbe86e6574f3abcb7c) into the public domain.
You are free to modify the package, distribute modified versions, etc.

Sve se to dogodilo na panelu “The Future of Open Source Mathematical Software” gde je DJB držao predavanje. Kratak klip sa ovog predavanja i sam momenat kada DJB prepušta qmail možete pogledati ovde.