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Half a Second – a book about the XZ backdoor

half-second.com

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Re: Half a Second – a book about the XZ backdoor

#11

Post by progbits »

sevg wrote: post #8
this_user wrote: post #6

Well, the "About the Author" section should probably just be a link to claude.ai.

Yeah the (annoyingly) excessive use of colons feels like recent Claude models to me. Looks like author posted this themselves earlier, and even used Claude for the HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48958457

In last month or two I noticed semicolons getting used where previously it would be em-dash, in both cases excessively and often incorrectly.

I assumed some of my coworkers added "replace all em-dashes with semicolons" into their CLAUDE.md as a really crappy attempt at hiding their inability to write a single sentence without assistance.

Re: Half a Second – a book about the XZ backdoor

#12

Post by rwmj »

infinite_spin wrote: post #10
sevg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the (annoyingly) excessive use of colons feels like recent Claude models to me. Looks like author posted this themselves earlier, and even used Claude for the HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48958457

I've always used a lot of semi-colons in my writing, especially in my technical writing. So I did a search on this pdf for semi colons, and there are 260 in a 264 page document. I then repeated this for the last book I read, Candide by Voltaire, and there were 507 semi colons in a 189 page book. This seems like a witch hunt.

I read parts of it, being first hand involved in all this, and it seems like it was written by AI to me. If you used an AI to write it or help with it, why not just admit to it?

Re: Half a Second – a book about the XZ backdoor

#13

Post by eth0up »

sevg wrote: post #8
this_user wrote: post #6

Well, the "About the Author" section should probably just be a link to claude.ai.

Yeah the (annoyingly) excessive use of colons feels like recent Claude models to me. Looks like author posted this themselves earlier, and even used Claude for the HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48958457

"free book" "no paywall and nothing to buy."

Might this not actually be a reasonable purpose for AI? I can tolerate the quirky style and AI signatures for something honest and free.

Re: Half a Second – a book about the XZ backdoor

#14

Post by tux3 »

progbits wrote: post #11
sevg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the (annoyingly) excessive use of colons feels like recent Claude models to me. Looks like author posted this themselves earlier, and even used Claude for the HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48958457

In last month or two I noticed semicolons getting used where previously it would be em-dash, in both cases excessively and often incorrectly. I assumed some of my coworkers added "replace all em-dashes with semicolons" into their CLAUDE.md as a really crappy attempt at hiding their inability to write a single sentence without assistance.

Come on now, you can't also take away my semicolons. What am I supposed to do now; I barely have any punctuation left.

Re: Half a Second – a book about the XZ backdoor

#15

Post by lucasRW »

diogocp wrote: post #7
lucasRW wrote: post #4

It's only going to recycle old news. The missing piece is attribution. Had it been the usuals (DPRK, Russia, China), the attribution would have been made publicly. The fact that is has not points as a friendly - especially when Microsoft (who owns Github) had all that telemetry and very likely has the means to find out. Some serious OSINT (consistency of timezone across months if not years of commits) pointed to the…

Fun fact: the guy who reported it (Andres Freund) works for Microsoft. Another fun fact: Moscow is in the same time zone as the Middle East.

Other fun fact: Microsoft and Mandiant have never had any problem doxing Russian APTs when they caught them.

Re: Half a Second – a book about the XZ backdoor

#16

Post by infinite_spin »

rwmj wrote: post #12
infinite_spin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always used a lot of semi-colons in my writing, especially in my technical writing. So I did a search on this pdf for semi colons, and there are 260 in a 264 page document. I then repeated this for the last book I read, Candide by Voltaire, and there were 507 semi colons in a 189 page book. This seems like a witch hunt.

I read parts of it, being first hand involved in all this, and it seems like it was written by AI to me. If you used an AI to write it or help with it, why not just admit to it?

the argument was that use of semi-colons indicates AI usage..

what do you mean by "being first hand involved in all this"? what part did you take if you don't mind sharing, this was an incredibly interesting turn of events.

Re: Half a Second – a book about the XZ backdoor

#17

Post by anonreplier »

lucasRW wrote: post #4

It's only going to recycle old news. The missing piece is attribution. Had it been the usuals (DPRK, Russia, China), the attribution would have been made publicly. The fact that is has not points as a friendly - especially when Microsoft (who owns Github) had all that telemetry and very likely has the means to find out. Some serious OSINT (consistency of timezone across months if not years of commits) pointed to the…

"all that telemetry" doesn't count for much if it's behind a VPN

Re: Half a Second – a book about the XZ backdoor

#18

Post by kryogen1c »

diogocp wrote: post #7
lucasRW wrote: post #4

It's only going to recycle old news. The missing piece is attribution. Had it been the usuals (DPRK, Russia, China), the attribution would have been made publicly. The fact that is has not points as a friendly - especially when Microsoft (who owns Github) had all that telemetry and very likely has the means to find out. Some serious OSINT (consistency of timezone across months if not years of commits) pointed to the…

Fun fact: the guy who reported it (Andres Freund) works for Microsoft. Another fun fact: Moscow is in the same time zone as the Middle East.

The middle east is not one time zone

https://whichtimezone.com/me/middle-east-map/

Re: Half a Second – a book about the XZ backdoor

#19

Post by rwmj »

infinite_spin wrote: post #16
rwmj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read parts of it, being first hand involved in all this, and it seems like it was written by AI to me. If you used an AI to write it or help with it, why not just admit to it?

the argument was that use of semi-colons indicates AI usage.. what do you mean by "being first hand involved in all this"? what part did you take if you don't mind sharing, this was an incredibly interesting turn of events.

You'd know that if you'd done any research at all.

Compare this to Jeff Guo (NPR) or Henry van Dyck (Veritasium) or my contact at the WSJ. They all investigated this story, interviewed key people (more people were interviewed for the Veritasium video than appeared), and fact-checked everything with subject matter experts. The NPR story took about 3 months of work and the Veritasium video took 5 months. I was interviewed in total for over 6 hours across all of them.

These are real journalists who worked on these stories and they produced novel work and new findings. I have huge respect for them, especially after being involved with it and seeing what work it took to add something new to the story. At the same time they managed to tell that story to a lay audience which is another skill in itself.

Re: Half a Second – a book about the XZ backdoor

#20

Post by rwmj »

eth0up wrote: post #13
sevg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the (annoyingly) excessive use of colons feels like recent Claude models to me. Looks like author posted this themselves earlier, and even used Claude for the HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48958457

"free book" "no paywall and nothing to buy." Might this not actually be a reasonable purpose for AI? I can tolerate the quirky style and AI signatures for something honest and free.

But prompting an AI adds nothing. Journalism is about research, interviewing the people involved, finding new facts, and then presenting that to your audience in a way they can understand. Getting an AI to write about something is just diluting the signal for future researchers.
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