  There is no denying the fact that with the widespread usage of computers and
the Internet in our daily lives, security of information and data has gained
increased attention. Information stored in electronic form is more susceptible
to being leaked to unauthorized individuals intentionally or without intent.
One of the major reasons for this breach of security has been attributed to
proprietary software whose source is available only to the company which made
it. Thus you have no surety that the proprietary and pre-compiled software has
no hole to help an individual break security of your computer or network.
Philosophy of free and open source software as against this provides everyone
an opportunity to view the source code for any possible vulnerabilities and
compile and change it according to ones need. This paper discusses this
philosophy in length with some examples and also some open source tools that
help maintain computer and Internet security.
