Apologies in advance for the swear words, but this deserves swear words.
WHO FUCKING GRANDSTANDS ENDLESSLY ABOUT CYBERTHREATS AND THE NEED FOR BETTER SECURITY?
WHO FUCKING SITS ON BILLIONS IF NOT TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN FUNDING?
That would be the FUCKING GOVERNMENTS OF THE FIRST WORLD. Whose modern economies increasingly rest on open source to a degree they possibly don't understand.
Yes I understand part of this comes from funding from another part of these governments. Oh well, cat and mouse. Once we wrung our hands over these governments having power over these. Well, these days we are facing far more totalitarian state threats and totalitarian wannabes in the private sector.
Government save me, as the less totalitarian option!
Linux and BSD the operating systems should UNQUESTIONABLY be funded to the degree of multiple billions per year by, I'll just put it, "NATO". Here's the true value of open source in this model: it is the perfect public record, unlike untold other aspects of government output.
You must produce public vetted code in Linux/BSD.
This person should not have been "a person". This should have been 5 people, funded likely at least 10-50k/year for their roles.
The described "hit" by the intel services of course is frighteningly easy. But what is most horrid is that this poor person is being subject to very common abuse that comes from non-state-actor manipulation. The article says it:
"this is where our software comes from" -- this poor dude that is trying to help and being abused by state actors on one hand, and ridden thanklessly and for no monetary or fame benefit by massively deep pocketed corporations, governments, and billionaires.
For all of Linus's famous swearing abilities, he hasn't used it to address this publicly. He should be dressing down all corporations and governments at this point that need Linux. There isn't a "going back" from Linux at this point to some closed source option.
Linus and Linux have massive sway here. They could threaten to stop work on the kernels.
I guess fundamentally, this makes me angry because this is basically bullying the nerd in high school to get his homework/answers. The nerds need to realize their power here.
Other vulnerabilities snuck through the commit chain? I get that, usual spy stuff. They actually kind of messed up here. Usually it is within the "cordiality" of things, just quietly ride the overworked unpaid nerd to benefit. Here they inadvertently exposed the real truth of everything: the hidden contempt we treat these people with as a society.