Can Open Source check out Steve Gibson?

[Rookie]

Someone has got to ask this (at the risk of being accused of being
Kazinsky...)
Currently, Steve Gibson is the "darling" of the "in the know" computer tech
help gurus...

Is there any Open Source way to check up on Gibson and his company?
Lots of people are downloading ipagent, and lots of people are going to
shieldsup and trusting that Gibson wont somehow missuse what ever data he can
gleen off of your machine.

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

Next possible scenario?
Gibson checks out as a good guy....then the security hawk powers that be get
some dirt on him...
they make him an offer he can't refuse- (e.g. he wakes up with a bloody horse
head in his bed...)
The nsa can then get whatever they deem necessary to do whatever
a) legitimate antiterrorist checking they may need to do
or b) what ever fascist friend of Bill and his multinational cartel deems in
thier best ecconomic interest to do....

Third possible scenario?
How did Metallica get all those ip addresses? Napster's security or lack of
let Metallica record all its traffic or something?
Did Metalica use a portscanner and write down the ip addresses the way the FBI
writes down all of the tag numbers of cars that visit know mafioso or some
such miscreants?

What is to stop the nsa from redirecting or otherwise harvesting the HUGE
volume of data that is getting sent to GRC in "good faith"?

Is there such a thing as trusting Gibson too much?

Am I off base here?
I dunno how metalica got those ip numbers, how do we know they aren't falsly accusing some?
any international ideas on this?

[SoopaStar]

Getting the IP address is really easy. When you are downloading from someone on Napster, you actually have a direct link to that persons computer. All you would have to do is, start a download, then goto a dos prompt and type netstat -a before and after you start the download, figure out which IP was not there before you started it.
Or, go thru a proxy server and setup the proxy to record all the IP's for which traffic has gone thru it. peice of cake. Then, do a nslookup or a /whois or something and you got their information. Or, if they have netbeui turned on, you can get their PC information much like what Steve Gibson does.

Paul