The XZ Utils backdoor, discovered last week, and the Heartbleed security vulnerability ten years ago, share the same ultimate root cause. Both of them, and in fact all critical infrastructure open source projects, should be fixed with the same solution: ensure baseline funding for proper open source maintenance.
Hear me out. What if instead we just included a respected developers open-source project into our multi billion dollar product, paid them nothing, and gave them the pressure of ensuring it’s working for millions of users at the threat of their reputation until their mental health is in shambles? 🤔
I wouldn’t say quite the same root cause — the xz back door was clearly intentional, but I don’t recall the Heartbleed bug having been intentional, and developer responsible has denied allegations to that effect. There can be no doubt in the xz case of malicious intent.
No, they do not have the same root cause. Heartbleed was an apparent typo from a known figure missed in a code review. xz was a sustained effort of external pressure to get an anonymous person access to add obfuscated code that would probably not be reviewed, and even if reviewed would probably pass.
Fuck me, ten years already?