Moodle Security, Censorship, and Trust — An Observation
It’s no secret that Moodle, the open-source learning management system, has suffered from some very serious security problems recently. And those security problems aren’t limited to individuals who simply buy a cheap, $5 hosting account, install Moodle using Fantastico, and try to set up an online class when they really don’t know what they’re doing.
In fact, some of the biggest Moodle security problems have impacted customers of some of the largest professional Moodle hosting providers–Moodle Partners–commercial companies endorsed and certified by Moodle to provide professional, enterprise-level services.
One example of this is the Moodle porn spam issue that impacted millions of Moodle sites all over the world–and still impacts an untold number of sites today. This issue received world-wide attention when Primary School Moodle sites, provided by a certified Moodle Partner, were found to be infested with vile pornography.
Source: Primary schools hit by porn hackers
Source: Porn infecting ‘thousands’ of e-learning (Moodle) sites
Another example is the huge security hole first reported here just a couple months ago demonstrating how any teacher on any Moodle site in the world could download the entire user database table and have access to all user information–usernames, passwords, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, etc., for every user on the Moodle site. Professional Moodle partners all over the world got caught sleeping at the wheel…again.
Source–just one of many: Groot gat in open source e-learning cms Moodle
One would think that an open-source “community” with problems as serious as Moodle has had recently, would invite open and honest communication about its products and services, but you would be wrong.
I don’t know many things for sure, but one thing I do know is that Moodle has not seen the last of these types of problems. The closed, arrogant, intolerant, atmosphere that has been cultivated on moodle.org by the Moodle lead developer will continue to ensure that there is no shortage of people just waiting to expose the next big hole…it’s not a matter of “if” there is another big hole…it’s only a matter of “when” it will bite Moodle (ergo Moodle users) in the rear.
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