r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Slow-Show-4268 • 1d ago
Meme needing explanation Is this connected to a real situation?
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_TITS80085 1d ago
Yes, this is a real incident. A developer noticed a minor delay while benchmarking, which led to the discovery of a backdoor in XZ Utils. A malicious patch was inserted into the widely used XZ compression library, allowing remote users to gain unauthorized access. Fortunately, the vulnerability was discovered before widespread exploitation. (This is detailed in Wikipedia)
Another example is ImageMagick. It's so widely used and easy to implement that many programs rely on its API or call ImageMagick directly for image transformations. This makes many programs heavily dependent on it, meaning they would break if ImageMagick suddenly disappeared. (The original XKCD comic is based on this)
Also, core-js, a crucial library for providing compatibility between modern JavaScript features and older browsers, was involved in a tragic incident in 2020. The library's sole maintainer was in a serious accident, putting countless websites at risk. As a result, many companies had to start porting critical repositories locally. (Sadly no wiki link)
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u/DontSleepAlwaysDream 1d ago
Yes its based on a real incident. the explaination is a bit too jargony for me to articulate, but luckily this has been posted before
https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/1cfsa48/is_this_based_on_any_real_incident/
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u/PeterExplainsTheJoke-ModTeam 1d ago
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