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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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How do we know if there aren't a bunch of more undetected backdoors? (lemdro.id)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by mfat@lemdro.id to c/linux@lemmy.ml

90 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have been thinking about self-hosting my personal photos on my linux server. After the recent backdoor was detected I'm more hesitant to do so especially because i'm no security expert and don't have the time and knowledge to audit my server. All I've done so far is disabling password logins and changing the ssh port. I'm wondering if there are more backdoors and if new ones are made I can't respond in time. Appreciate your thoughts on this for an ordinary user.

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[–] huginn@feddit.it 28 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The main solace you can take is how quickly xz was caught: there is a lot of diverse scrutiny on it.

[–] Deebster@programming.dev 21 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Hmm, not really. It's only because it nerd-sniped someone who was trying to do something completely unrelated that this came to light. If that person has been less dedicated or less skilled we'd still probably be in the dark.

[–] N0x0n@lemmy.ml 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Call me names... But sometimes the story has far more branched backstories than they actually shed into light.

Trust nobody, not even yourself.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The thing is there are a few thousand of those people

[–] Deebster@programming.dev 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Maybe millions of potential eyes, but all of them are looking at other things! Heartbleed existed for two years before being noticed, and OpenSSL must have enormously more scrutiny than small projects like xz.

I am very pro open source and this investigation would've been virtually impossible on Windows or Mac, but the many-eyes argument always struck me as more theoretical/optimistic than realistic.

[–] SpaceCadet@feddit.nl 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Heartbleed existed for two years before being noticed

That's a different scenario. That was an inadvertently introduced bug, not a deliberately installed backdoor. So the bad guys didn't have two years to exploit it because they didn't know about it either.

It's also not new that very old bugs get discovered. Just a few years ago a 24 year old bug was discovered in the Linux kernel.

[–] Deebster@programming.dev 0 points 7 months ago

And are bugs harder to find than carefully hidden backdoors? No-one noticed the code being added and if it hadn't have had a performance penalty then it probably wouldn't have been discovered for a very long time, if ever.

The flip side to open-source is that bad actors could have reviewed the code, discovered Heartbleed and been quietly exploiting it without anyone knowing. Government agencies and criminal groups are known to horde zero-days.