On Friday, June 22, 2012 at 4:55 PM, Terry Reedy wrote:
Every time windows users download and install a binary, they are taking a chance. I try to use a bit more sense than some people, but I know it is not risk free. There *is* a third party site that builds installers, but should I trust it? I would prefer that (except perhaps for known and trusted authors) PyPI compile binaries, perhaps after running code through a security checker, followed by running it through one or more virus checkers.
I think you overestimate the abilities of "security checkers" and antivirus. Installing from PyPI is a risk, wether you use source or binaries. There is currently not a very good security story for installing python packages from PyPI (not all of this falls on PyPI), but even if we get to a point there is, PyPI can never be as safe as installing from RPM's or DEB and somewhat mores in the case of binaries. You _have_ to make a case by case choice if you trust the authors/maintainers of a particular package.