Tootfinder

A big public thanks to @… for the Casual #emacs package (available on MELPA), which enables "casual" use of Emacs Calc.
In case you don't know, Emacs Calc is an advanced calculator and

Went looking for a @… post [1], and found this recent gem with MULTIPLE #KeyboardShortcut options to…
Open the character viewer 🔤
on #Mac 💻
to typ…

Dev Snippets & Keyboard Shortcuts
One person is typing.

My current take on the #xz situation, not having read the actual source backdoor commits yet (thanks a lot #Github for hiding the evidence at this point...) besides reading what others have written about it (cf. #rustlang for such central library dependencies would maybe (really big maybe) have made it a bit harder to push a backdoor like this because - if and only if the safety features are used idiomatically in an open source project - reasonably looking code is (a bit?) more limited in the sneaky behavior it could include. We should still very much use those languages over C/C for infrastructure code because the much larger class of unintentional bugs is significantly mitigated, but I believe (without data to back it up) that even such "bugdoor" type changes will be harder to execute. However, given the sophistication in this case, it may not have helped at all. The attacker(s) have shown to be clever enough.
6. Sandboxing library code may have helped - as the attacker(s) explicitly disabled e.g. landlock, that might already have had some impact. We should create better tooling to make it much easier to link to infrastructure libraries in a sandboxed way (although that will have performance implications in many cases).
7. Automatic reproducible builds verification would have mitigated this particular vector of backdoor distribution, and the Debian team seems to be using the reproducibility advances of the last decade to verify/rebuild the build servers. We should build library and infrastructure code in a fully reproducible manner *and* automatically verify it, e.g. with added transparency logs for both source and binary artefacts. In general, it does however not prevent this kind of supply chain attack that directly targets source code at the "leaf" projects in Git commits.
8. Verifying the real-life identity of contributors to open source projects is hard and a difficult trade-off. Something similar to the #Debian #OpenPGP #web-of-trust would potentially have mitigated this style of attack somewhat, but with a different trade-off. We might have to think much harder about trust in individual accounts, and for some projects requiring a link to a real-world country-issued ID document may be the right balance (for others it wouldn't work). That is neither an easy nor a quick path, though. Also note that sophisticated nation state attackers will probably not have a problem procuring "good" fake IDs. It might still raise the bar, though.
9. What happened here seems clearly criminal - at least under my IANAL naive understanding of EU criminal law. There was clear intent to cause harm, and that makes the specific method less important. The legal system should also be able to help in mitigating supply chain attacks; not in preventing them, but in making them more costly if attackers can be tracked down (this is difficult in itself, see point 8) and face risk of punishment after the fact.
H/T @… @… @… @… @…

This @… article points out that many would-be #Twitter alternatives have gone down, but the ones still standing all connect to the #fediverse. Hmm, I sense a pattern…

Twitter alternative Post News is shutting down
Post News, a Twitter alternative run by the former Waze CEO Noam Bardin, is shutting down. Bardin says the platform “is not growing fast enough.”

Last week #DieGuteFabrik decided to halt production due to lack of funding.
#Mutazione is my favorite game ever, and I’ve been looking forward to playing #SaltseaChronicles.
If you haven’t yet, I definitely recommend playing Mutazione and I’ve heard wonders about Saltsea too.
All my love to everyone at @…, I hope y’all can find good opportunities and I offer all of you my tightest virtual hugs
I deeply wish this halt is only temporary and that funding can be found again really soon. 🥺💖
Folks, please remember to support #indieGames and their devs. Indie games show the passion and love of everyone who works on them, so many precious pieces of art come out of those precious souls and yet indie devs often can’t find the needed funding to keep going.

Today's headlines: a #Gentoo developer @… last rites Windows, admitting it's "very old" and "failing to compile with modern GNU Emacs". Poor job, Microsoft.
https://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org/msg99368.html

My current take on the #xz situation, not having read the actual source backdoor commits yet (thanks a lot #Github for hiding the evidence at this point...) besides reading what others have written about it (cf. #rustlang for such central library dependencies would maybe (really big maybe) have made it a bit harder to push a backdoor like this because - if and only if the safety features are used idiomatically in an open source project - reasonably looking code is (a bit?) more limited in the sneaky behavior it could include. We should still very much use those languages over C/C for infrastructure code because the much larger class of unintentional bugs is significantly mitigated, but I believe (without data to back it up) that even such "bugdoor" type changes will be harder to execute. However, given the sophistication in this case, it may not have helped at all. The attacker(s) have shown to be clever enough.
6. Sandboxing library code may have helped - as the attacker(s) explicitly disabled e.g. landlock, that might already have had some impact. We should create better tooling to make it much easier to link to infrastructure libraries in a sandboxed way (although that will have performance implications in many cases).
7. Automatic reproducible builds verification would have mitigated this particular vector of backdoor distribution, and the Debian team seems to be using the reproducibility advances of the last decade to verify/rebuild the build servers. We should build library and infrastructure code in a fully reproducible manner *and* automatically verify it, e.g. with added transparency logs for both source and binary artefacts. In general, it does however not prevent this kind of supply chain attack that directly targets source code at the "leaf" projects in Git commits.
8. Verifying the real-life identity of contributors to open source projects is hard and a difficult trade-off. Something similar to the #Debian #OpenPGP #web-of-trust would potentially have mitigated this style of attack somewhat, but with a different trade-off. We might have to think much harder about trust in individual accounts, and for some projects requiring a link to a real-world country-issued ID document may be the right balance (for others it wouldn't work). That is neither an easy nor a quick path, though. Also note that sophisticated nation state attackers will probably not have a problem procuring "good" fake IDs. It might still raise the bar, though.
9. What happened here seems clearly criminal - at least under my IANAL naive understanding of EU criminal law. There was clear intent to cause harm, and that makes the specific method less important. The legal system should also be able to help in mitigating supply chain attacks; not in preventing them, but in making them more costly if attackers can be tracked down (this is difficult in itself, see point 8) and face risk of punishment after the fact.
H/T @… @… @… @… @…

This @… article points out that many would-be #Twitter alternatives have gone down, but the ones still standing all connect to the #fediverse. Hmm, I sense a pattern…

Twitter alternative Post News is shutting down
Post News, a Twitter alternative run by the former Waze CEO Noam Bardin, is shutting down. Bardin says the platform “is not growing fast enough.”