this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2024
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Also they are counting the hits and ignoring the misses. They are forgetting that sneaking a backdoor into an open source project is extremely difficult because people are reviewing the code and such a thing will be recognized. So people don't typically try to sneak back doors in. Also, backdoors have been discovered in an amazing amount of closed source projects where no one was even able to review the code.
Everyone assumes what you have stated, but how often does it actually happen?
How many people, and how often, and how rigorous, are code reviews actually done? Especially with large volume projects?
Depends on the project, but for a lot of projects code review is mandatory before merging. For XZ the sole maintainer can do whatever they want.
I've done plenty of code reviews in my time, and I know one thing, the more busy you are, the faster you go through code reviews, and the more chance things can be missed.
I would hope that for the real serious shit (like security) the code reviews are always thorough and complete, but I know my fellow coding brethren, and we all know that's not always the case. Time is a precious resource, and managers don't always give you the time you need to do the job right.
Personally I use a distro backed indirectly by a corporation and hope that each release gets the thorough review that it needs, but human nature is always a factor in these things as well, and honestly, there are times when everyone thinks everyone else is doing a certain task, and the task falls between the cracks.
Reviewing the code was irrelevant in this case because the back door only existed in the binaries.