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Reproducible builds can't prevent hidden malware. They don't do much at all for security.
by zzzcpan 7y ago
Reproducible builds can't prevent hidden malware. They don't do much at all for security.
- est31 7y agoThey can't prevent it but they can help it become visible. Without reproducible builds, nobody has an easy way to verify that a specific binary corresponds to a specific deemed safe bit of source code. There can still be source code based attacks by upstream maintainers of course. In fact most attacks in the past were in source based languages like JavaScript but without reproducible builds the situation would be much worse.
- zzzcpan 7y ago> In fact most attacks in the past were in source based languages like JavaScript but without reproducible builds the situation would be much worse. This is incorrect. It wouldn't make a single difference.
- jakeogh 7y agoIt forces logging of the malware, globally. That's worse than maybe getting caught.
- ChrisCinelli 7y agoIf you assume that the build systems and the distribution are secure. If somebody had stolen the signing keys and could do a https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/security/glossary/bgp-hijacking/ https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/security/glossary/bgp-hi... there will be no trace.
- jakeogh 7y agoBugs in the build system are just bugs, quite possibly security bugs but still set in stone. Reproducible builds have no point if you distribution is broken and cant actually cant verify they are reproduced. You could have just asked "What if the reproduced build isn't?". It's not a reason to not be able to reproduce the image. We know how to publish the input and output hashes. It's one of the use cases for a global ledger. Using CF's trust root would be pointless.