Adrian Mastronardi has released a book called Half a Second; it is a detailed look into the XZ backdoor attempt of 2024. The book is freely available under a (non-free) noncommercial, no-derivatives CC license.

Half a Second tells that story as one continuous narrative: the burned-out volunteer who maintained the code alone and was patiently, expertly manipulated into giving it up; the engineer whose half-second of curiosity caught the attack through a chain of luck and hard-won instinct; and the operator who built it, who has never been identified and, this book argues, may never be.

  • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    Nice to see a book on this; this story should not be forgotten, as it shows how fragile the entire system is — and with AI automation, it’s only becoming easier to pull such things off.