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The xz backdoor thing reminds me of a story

rigor-mortis.nmrc.org

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Re: The xz backdoor thing reminds me of a story

#31

Post by gumby »

curiousgal wrote: post #7

> None of his paychecks were ever cashed I don't understand this. People were paid by cheque in the early 2000s?

Pretty common in the US back then. Direct deposit is (still) only required to be provided at the company's bank, though I doubt anyone implements that minimum any more.

Back in the 90s when I worked for Atari (Back in the terrible Warner period) you could only get DD at the company's bank, which was a small bank with one branch, in Sunnyvale (surely the company had another bank or two as well?). I was told they did this so they could invest the float over the week end and early in the week.

Re: The xz backdoor thing reminds me of a story

#32

Post by xorcist »

kortilla wrote: post #30
magicalhippo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't have to give your employer a bank account number As a Norwegian that sounds so alien. They couldn't do anything but deposit money, so why wouldn't you?

Apart from the paper trail side of it, some people just really hate banks and don’t have an account.

I really hate banks, but I hate not being paid even more.

Re: The xz backdoor thing reminds me of a story

#33

Post by NelsonMinar »

curiousgal wrote: post #7

> None of his paychecks were ever cashed I don't understand this. People were paid by cheque in the early 2000s?

I don't understand this. You go through all this trouble to build a fake identity and then you don't do this one simple thing to make sure you look like a real employee?

Re: The xz backdoor thing reminds me of a story

#34

Post by zanderwohl »

magicalhippo wrote: post #24
astrange wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to give your employer a bank account number, but they still have to pay you. Quite unusual for a tech contractor though.

> You don't have to give your employer a bank account number As a Norwegian that sounds so alien. They couldn't do anything but deposit money, so why wouldn't you?

Sorry, what does being Norwegian have to do with it? Going to the physical bank with a physical check seems like too many steps no matter what country you're from.

Re: The xz backdoor thing reminds me of a story

#35

Post by palijer »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #33
curiousgal wrote: post #7

> None of his paychecks were ever cashed I don't understand this. People were paid by cheque in the early 2000s?

I don't understand this. You go through all this trouble to build a fake identity and then you don't do this one simple thing to make sure you look like a real employee?

Why go through the risk of trying to deposit a cheque when the plan worked perfectly fine as is?

Once you get banks involved, seems like more of a risk of something getting flagged there rather than someone in payroll noticing cheques weren't deposited within the time you were there.

Re: The xz backdoor thing reminds me of a story

#36

Post by datascienced »

jddj wrote: post #5

I remember a few months ago there was a discussion[1] here about how fossil, the VCS for sqlite, should bring in a dependency on mermaid charts already. Nothing against mermaid, but I guess supply chain attacks are hard to conceptualise until they happen. When we're shortsighted we risk our mitigations against vague but serious threat models losing out against convenience. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=388…

Could a plugin architecture accommodate this?

Re: The xz backdoor thing reminds me of a story

#37

Post by datascienced »

gumby wrote: post #31
curiousgal wrote: post #7

> None of his paychecks were ever cashed I don't understand this. People were paid by cheque in the early 2000s?

Pretty common in the US back then. Direct deposit is (still) only required to be provided at the company's bank, though I doubt anyone implements that minimum any more. Back in the 90s when I worked for Atari (Back in the terrible Warner period) you could only get DD at the company's bank, which was a small bank with one branch, in Sunnyvale (surely the company had another bank or two as well?). I was told they did t…

It must be bad if you are using your employees as a short term LOC. An inverse payday loan.

Re: The xz backdoor thing reminds me of a story

#38

Post by jerezzprime »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #33
curiousgal wrote: post #7

> None of his paychecks were ever cashed I don't understand this. People were paid by cheque in the early 2000s?

I don't understand this. You go through all this trouble to build a fake identity and then you don't do this one simple thing to make sure you look like a real employee?

Banks have a stricter KYC than companies that hire someone. The person would have needed to forge an identity that stood up to the scrutiny of the bank or risk linking it to their real identity or something. If they aren't doing it for the pay check seems like a bunch of extra work for not much gain.

Re: The xz backdoor thing reminds me of a story

#39

Post by noduerme »

astrange wrote: post #9
curiousgal wrote: post #7

> None of his paychecks were ever cashed I don't understand this. People were paid by cheque in the early 2000s?

You don't have to give your employer a bank account number, but they still have to pay you. Quite unusual for a tech contractor though.

I'm a tech contractor. I prefer payment by check from my clients. Most can't or don't want to set up direct deposit for a part time contractor. Amounts are too large for Zelle, and I don't want to pay the fees for paypal or credit card processing if I can avoid it.

My clients usually issue paper checks online. Their bank prints the check and mails it. My receiving address is my bank, which deposits checks for me when they arrive.

Re: The xz backdoor thing reminds me of a story

#40

Post by eddd-ddde »

noduerme wrote: post #39
astrange wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to give your employer a bank account number, but they still have to pay you. Quite unusual for a tech contractor though.

I'm a tech contractor. I prefer payment by check from my clients. Most can't or don't want to set up direct deposit for a part time contractor. Amounts are too large for Zelle, and I don't want to pay the fees for paypal or credit card processing if I can avoid it. My clients usually issue paper checks online. Their bank prints the check and mails it. My receiving address is my bank, which deposits checks for me when…

That is so weird. What is there to set-up about deposit? Can't they just input your account number and send you your money?
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