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I came to forum to ask about this. The site has been dead for 2 days now.
I've never used Mint myself, I know that it is very popular, but I've also heard some bad things about its security and general quality, of the same kind as what is discussed in this article
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leon30: So sad to hear this :( Linux MInt has one of the biggest LInux communities and afaik no commercial company support so this made them a perfect target and it feels scary to know that hackers are turning and eye on linux now :(
Linux is made by hackers.
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PookaMustard: I'd like to do the latter version without going firsthand into Mint itself... so is there any ext4 file explorer made for Windows that I can use to check this?
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Maighstir: How-To Geek: 3 Ways to Access Your Linux Partitions From Windows
Just checked my Mint with the first method mentioned in the aforementioned link, no man.cy (or whatever it was called, but I'm sure its not there). Whew.

Thank you for the link!
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PookaMustard: I'd like to do the latter version without going firsthand into Mint itself... so is there any ext4 file explorer made for Windows that I can use to check this?
You could also boot from a USB or DVD live version of an other unaffected distribution.
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leon30: Linux MInt has one of the biggest LInux communities and afaik no commercial company support
While this isn't a complaint and it pales in comparison to Ubuntu/Canonical, that's not entirely true...
http://www.fit-pc.com/web/products/mintbox/
[url=http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xOYiVvPoFUcJ:www.linuxmint.com/store_mintbox.php+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=ubuntu]http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xOYiVvPoFUcJ:www.linuxmint.com/store_mintbox.php+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=ubuntu[/url]
[url=http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9GlAIq_d2nYJ:www.linuxmint.com/partners.php+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us]http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9GlAIq_d2nYJ:www.linuxmint.com/partners.php+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us[/url]
[url=http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wIzFOqLh-bwJ:www.linuxmint.com/store.php+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=ubuntu]http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wIzFOqLh-bwJ:www.linuxmint.com/store.php+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=ubuntu[/url]
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PookaMustard: Just checked my Mint with the first method mentioned in the aforementioned link, no man.cy (or whatever it was called, but I'm sure its not there). Whew.

Thank you for the link!
Happy to help.
The only thing Mint offers that Ubuntu does not is massive security issues.
Welp, good thing i kept Linux Mint on my pendrive.
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EBToriginal: The only thing Mint offers that Ubuntu does not is massive security issues.
Security-wise it's the same as Ubuntu (it's based on Ubuntu and shares Ubuntu's repositories/packages), as long as you set the update manager to always show & trust security updates regardless of level. It's far more usable than Ubuntu though.
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Spy_Gentleman: Welp, good thing i kept Linux Mint on my pendrive.
The only thing that was compromised was Linux Mint's website, which had all the links to the real .isos replaced with a link to the fake one (which was hosted elsewhere) - as long as you didn't download the fake .iso while the links to it were up then there's no problem. If in doubt, check the MD5 or SHA-256 hashes with those from a trustworthy source such as those I linked to earlier.
Post edited February 23, 2016 by adamhm
Wordpress... Wordpress never changes
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adamhm: The only thing that was compromised was Linux Mint's website...
And the forum DB was ex-filtrated as it was on the same server.
Post edited February 23, 2016 by Gydion
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leon30: So sad to hear this :( Linux MInt has one of the biggest LInux communities and afaik no commercial company support so this made them a perfect target and it feels scary to know that hackers are turning and eye on linux now :(
There are hackers and crackers. The late are the scum.

So sad to see this. I'm a strong supportive of Mint distros and I hope they sort this ASAP. They do an amazing job with no commercial interest burried (all the ads and commercial support is made outside the distro to raise money for development, since the programmers, hackers and collaborators need to pay for servers and some of their delivered hours).
Hacker Interviewed.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/hacker-hundreds-were-tricked-into-installing-linux-mint-backdoor/

It is sickening to say at least.
Normally i am not evil, but i hope this s.o.b. at some point get a well aimed shot of rock salt right in the balls - and his face rearranged :p

Lets hope this incident will result in mints security getting hardened. I use this distro a lot and i really like it.
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EBToriginal: The only thing Mint offers that Ubuntu does not is massive security issues.
At least Mint doesn't feature shady Amazon sponsoring components: https://fixubuntu.com/
Still at Mint 17.2, so I guess I am fine.

I had an account on the Mint forum though, so I had to make sure that I don't use the same password on any other (important) site than what I used in the Mint forum.