

An attempt to backdoor the kernel (2003) - ThomPete
http://lwn.net/Articles/57135/

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dan1234
There's a bit more detail on the actual exploit here:
[http://lwn.net/Articles/57552/](http://lwn.net/Articles/57552/)

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gabriel34
History repeats itself. Interesting how this has been happening since back
then and we are still surprised by it. I don't have the numbers, but without
Android and Ubuntu it would seem much less appealing then nowadays. I wonder
if any of these actually are in place and working, and what is keeping anyone
from trying again. On a side note, is open source peer-reviewed software
really more secure than closed source? It is a choice between trusting a
single entity to make safe programs and not purposefully put backdoors on the
code and trusting lots of entities to make safe code, not purposefully
backdoor it and trusting the reviewer's abilities.

~~~
StavrosK
> It is a choice between trusting a single entity to make safe programs and
> not purposefully put backdoors on the code and trusting lots of entities to
> make safe code, not purposefully backdoor it and trusting the reviewer's
> abilities.

It is a choice between trusting the reviewer and having the code open to
scrutiny, or trusting the entity and not having the code open to scrutiny.

Same trust surface, much less opportunity for review.

~~~
gabriel34
What I meant is that there is a trade-off and the choice is highly subjective.
Opensource is not always better.

Having lots of entities involved lessens the trustworthiness of the program.
Being open source enhances it because of community scrutiny.

The trustworthiness of a software is function of the trustworthiness of every
entity involved in the making of said software or at least in the making of
the most vulnerable ones.

Surely the reviewers pull the trustworthiness up, but having many entities,
some unknown to you, involved can dissolve their effects. Being fruit of bad
reviewers or bad programmers, some mistake or malicious code may pass by
unnoticed.

Which one would you trust more: 1\. Open Source software writen by a single
trustworthy person and reviewed by many 2\. Open Source software writen by
many people and reviewed by many

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gnu8
That story takes me back. With today's increased paranoia, one wonders if the
Bitkeeper fiasco was just a smokescreen to obscure malicious additions to the
kernel.

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luckydude
I'm not sure what you are trying to say here (I'm lm, the BK guy).

It's not clear if you are suggesting that BK was helping add backdoors or if
all the fuss over the BK license was so they could move to something less
paranoid so it would be easier to add backdoors or $something_else.

~~~
gnu8
It recently became known that the forces that would do evil encourage and
exploit situations like the one that occurred with Bitkeeper. I don't suggest
that Bitkeeper was complicit with any such scheme though.

~~~
luckydude
Not sure what to say to this. First of all, BK had nothing to do with this
exploit other than to find it. The article was vague on the details if I
remember correctly. We found the problem because the code we wrote to export
the BK tree to the CVS tree validated the results. The code managed by BK was
fine, the code in the CVS tree had been hacked. It was the validation step
that caught it.

The statement "forces that would do evil encourage and exploit situations like
the one that occurred with Bitkeeper" just makes no sense (to me at least, if
someone else can parse it please share).

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dTal
Seems clear enough to me.

The forces that would do evil [if they had the chance] = NSA etc.

Thus, "The NSA encourage and exploit situations like the one that occurred
with Bitkeeper".

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luckydude
I am dismayed and disgusted with the NSA as much as the next guy, maybe more
than the next guy, but suggesting they had anything to do with stick a root
backdoor in the kernel is a stretch. I guess it is possible but seems pretty
unlikely.

Saying it had anything to do with BK just means you didn't read the original
article. BitKeeper _found_ the problem that was in the CVS tree. BitKeeper
itself was never compromised.

~~~
dTal
I was not defending the GP, merely clarifying its syntax.

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stinos
Maybe use _(2003)_ in the title. I just started reading the text, and went all
like erm, wait, what? CVS? BitKeeper? :]

~~~
ThomPete
You are right. Done.

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toddkaufmann
the comments on that page are not related to this attempt specifically.

who made the attempt?

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luckydude
It was a breakin on kernel.bkbits.net - I don't think we ever figured out who
did it.

[http://lwn.net/Articles/57137/](http://lwn.net/Articles/57137/)

