daniel:// stenberg://Feb 26

I found this Veratasium documentary on the xz Jia Tan backdoor adventure quite good and surprisingly detailed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoag03mSuXQ

The Internet Was Weeks Away From Disaster and No One Knew

YouTube
Show threadDenzelFeb 26

@bagder I actually spent some time talking the writers of that video through the technical details of the backdoor, since they came across a lecture I gave about it just after it was discovered (if anyone wants more depth / less polish: https://youtu.be/Q6ovtLdSbEA).

I think their video is definitely a bit dramatic and geared towards a less technical (or at least less cyber-focused) audience, but was impressed with how much they cared about getting the minutiae right.

Realistically, most of their viewers won’t care about ifunc or dynamic linker audit hooks, but it does keep things interesting for the cyber folks watching.

Deep Dive into XZ Utils Backdoor - Columbia Engineering, Advanced Systems Programming Guest Lecture

YouTube
Show threaddaniel:// stenberg://Feb 26
@FarmerDenzel yeah, I would probably even argue that they made it a little *too* detailed at the risk of getting people bored for a show geared towards "common people"
Show threadDenzel

@bagder Yeah, I do sometimes have that complaint especially when I watch their videos on things I don’t know as much about (eg physics).

Sometimes feels like detail for the sake of demonstrating that the problem is complex rather than detail for the sake of teaching the viewer.

Feb 26 at 9:17amWeb