What we know about the xz Utils backdoor that almost infected the world

Re:What we know about the xz Utils backdoor that almost infe... by thiht on Monday April 01, 2024 @10:52AM (#39894749)

What does it change? Assuming that either:

- Jia Tan was initially a trustworthy actor that subsequently became malicious (maybe they were paid or compromised somehow)

- Jia Tan was always malicious, but played the long game by starting with legitimate contributions/intent for 1-2 years

How would meeting them for real have any impact?

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Re:What we know about the xz Utils backdoor that almost infe... by saulpw on Monday April 01, 2024 @11:47AM (#39895443)

If you look at their early commit history, "Jia Tan" was always a devious actor.

It's easy to think that they would just have made a video call, but it is a lot harder to lie convincingly over sync videochat than over async text. And a lot harder still to lie in person, and esp over multiple meetings.

Not to say it's impossible, people get scammed in person all the time! But it raises the bar, for sure.

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