How a single hack infected the world’s most important operating system.
Urgh this guy’s videos are soo long and overdramatic.
This is the Wikipedia article he read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XZ_Utils_backdoor?wprov=sfla1
Much obliged for the link. Personally, I can’t stand the guy. Not only does he lean into sensationalism too much for my liking, but at least one of his videos - the one with Waymo - is just flat out advertising.
He’s also aggressively liberal. Watching him discuss politics (which he loves to shoehorn into math/physics videos) as someone significantly left of liberalism is infuriating.
I think you’re being pretty reductive here.
I agree his videos are usually mediocre, but as a cyber security professional I actually think this one did a good job of simplifying and explaining computer security fundamentals at a level that most can understand.
You and I have a ton of extra context that the average person does not, so that Wikipedia article might suffice, but the video covers far more than that Wikipedia article.
They clearly did more research than just reading that article, and they went to the trouble of reproducing some of the steps in the attack to demonstrate the danger it posed. This isn’t just a brainless regurgitation of the Wikipedia article as you’re implying.
Veritasium partnered up with a private equity firm around the time his videos became far more sensationalist and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. His videos have become far more misleading and willing to stretch the truth for views in the past few years, so I simply stopped watching his stuff and don’t trust his content.
https://www.electrify.video/news/electrify-completes-majority-investment-in-veritasium
That’s fair enough. If you lead with this I wouldn’t have commented. I agree his recent videos have been more sensationalist, I just thought this one was pretty good, especially for the non-technical crowd.
I’ve found his videos pretty on point in the topics that I’m familiar with.
I’d need more evidence of misleading information than ‘A popular content creator receives an investment’. That’s not proof.
It’s not even implied by the evidence presented outside of an implied conspiracy not built on anything other than a press release.
There may be evidence of foul play somewhere, but it was not presented here.
There was no conspiracy theorizing here. Enshittafication driven by money is simply how our world works now.
The conspiracy is that the investment in this specific case requires or invites enshittification.
It’s a non sequitor, it does not follow.
Someone can come up with a story (a conspiracy) where it COULD be true and that story could fit the popular memes about capitalism… but that is not evidence. It’s just a story, fanfiction, words on the Internet unsupported by reality.
