News [LWN.net] "Half a Second" — a book on the XZ backdoor

[LinuxBot]

Adrian Mastronardi has released a book called Half a Second; it is a detailed look into the XZ backdoor attempt of 2024. The book is freely available under a (non-free) noncommercial, no-derivatives CC license. Half a Second tells that story as one continuous narrative: the burned-out volunteer who maintained the code alone and was patiently, expertly manipulated into giving it up; the engineer whose half-second of curiosity caught the attack through a chain of luck and hard-won instinct; and the operator who built it, who has never been identified and, this book argues, may never be.

Source: https://lwn.net/Articles/1083466/

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[ethanhawksley]

I've been writing a book called "500 Milliseconds" about the xz backdoor for the past month and a bit. I was very surprised when I found out somebody had beat me to it ️. It'll be available free on my site or as an ebook, and unlike this one it's entirely human written.