The Xz Backdoor and the AI Peer-Review Crisis

This podcast episode explores the vulnerabilities and challenges within the open source software ecosystem, focusing on supply chain attacks and the potential impact of AI-generated peer reviews in academia. It discusses the discovery of the Xz Backdoor in XzUtils, emphasizing the importance of security in open source projects. The episode also examines the CC Cleaner hack as an example of a supply chain attack and highlights the indiscriminate nature of such attacks. It raises concerns about the transparency and accountability of peer review in the face of AI-generated responses, discussing the potential consequences of AI-generated peer reviews and the problems with the current state of scientific publishing.