In #2795 there are some discuss about the BLOBs in Ventoy. For a long time, I devoted my limited spare time to adding new features and fixing bugs and didn't get around to considering this. It shou...
The guy is trying to address the issue and he is building this in his free time. Give him some credit at least, I am sure this is consuming a lot of his free time.
Fam, you’ve chosen to trust them for reasons that are unclear to me. Honestly, I don’t see anything (yet) that would clear their name. For all we know, they could have ties to some intelligence agency; which the infamous Jia Tan has (retroactively) been accused of as well.
I personally find this Ventoy an amazing piece of software
That’s not the issue. I’ve also made plenty use of it in the past. But at what point do you start to second guess the intent behind the maintainer?
he also seems to be willing to address the issue and be more transparent in the future which is also commendable.
Again, arguably too little too late. They literally ghosted the issue for over a year. Then, within 24 hours of possible proof of malicious code, they appear and (perhaps) “pose the image” of putting in a gargantuan effort to resolve the issue. But, like, where were they for a year? Furthermore, the hints of justifications for their actions are simply not up too par.
Don’t get me wrong. As I clearly hinted at it in my previous comment, if they pull through and provide/produce (bit-by-bit) reproducible builds of Ventoy[1], then I obviously have no qualms against them or their software. Why would I? But until then, I will steer clear.
What should have happened for you to be more concerned?
Another spoiler-alert: They admitted that it would be hard. Which is fine, but could be interpreted as the first action for an eventual cop out. Only time will tell… ↩︎
My problem is that a lot of people are giving a lot of shit to open source developers, who are creating great software in their free time.
Instead of enjoying their free time, they give a lot of it to the community, and then they get accused of wrong doings if the quality of their code isn’t at enterprise level. The problem is that people are being toxic to them and this makes them less likely to continue doing that. I am trying to give credit as I know how hard it is to build and support some software and I want the open source community to thrive and not turn into a toxic cesspool.
Jia Tan was a big warning for everyone, I admit, but if you look at the big picture he was a single person in a sea of open source projects and honestly speaking if we are talking of state sponsored attacks, I would say that big corporations like Cisco, Fortinet, etc. would be more of a target than small open source projects. I just wish we could give the guy some credit for all his work and at least let him prove that those blobs are harmless.
I also think a big part of your qualms is the fact that he is Chinese and you are less likely to trust because of your bias.
I’ll try to keep it brief/concise/short. Apologies if this makes me come across as abrasive in the process.
If I’d attempt to distill the point(s) in your reply, I’d come to:
You want to uphold the respect and good will (F(L))OSS developers absolutely deserve for doing the thankless work and effort they put. I’m with you on this. The only difference could be that I’m actively trying to uphold a standard[1] for this and applying that (subjective) standard here. That’s also why I asked you questions[2] to understand your standard in hopes of coming to a mutual understanding or at least a better understanding of each other.
Insinuating that I might have some anti-Chinese bias (or something). Honestly, I didn’t want to go over this as I deliberately skipped a lot of other points (like implying that enterprise level code is somehow better, ignoring the fact that binary blobs go completely against the spirit of (F(L))OSS, ignoring that Ventoy -however small of a project you may view it- has a unique position for malicious use or somehow implying that big corpo software is more interesting to be targeted) that I didn’t deem worth discussing here. I hope you understand why I couldn’t ignore this (possible) ‘allegation’. I’ll keep it brief, though: No, it being supposedly by a person that knows Chinese doesn’t even remotely affect my judgement and/or evaluation. I find it distasteful/appalling that that’s even considered. But I thank you for laying your cards in this respect as this will help to move on to the actual meat of the conversation.
You absolutely don’t have to respect my standard or anyone else’s. I just make the observation that everyone has ‘a’ standard for adopting (F(L)OSS. ↩︎
Those questions being: “But at what point do you start to second guess the intent behind the maintainer?” and “What should have happened for you to be more concerned?”. Please don’t feel necessarily pressed to answer them. However, I’m positive that it’ll be instrumental to bridge our stances. On the note of questions, allow me to introduce a third one that might be beneficial in getting my point across, don’t you think the handling of this issue (i.e. literal radio silence for over a year while it has arguably been the biggest issue in its history) leaves a lot to be desired?↩︎
Fair point, and I am happy that we can engage in a civilized conversation without turning toxic. So kudos for that and for your openness.
Regarding the issue of the radio silence. It might seem odd to you, but you should also understand that sometimes when you are a solo developer you need to prioritise tasks and define what is more important. Whether it is the continued development of the project and bringing new features to the table or answering the security concerns of a handful of people. He said that addressing this problem is rather complicated and time consuming and perhaps he was procrastinating on that just because he didn’t want to deal or spend time on this issue.
My point is that it is better late than never and let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Because I would rather believe in the inherent good nature of people than suspect everyone of ill intentions.
To me, what matters is what guarantees they offer and/or plan to offer, not some subjective and fleeting idea of people online having expectation of at what speed things need to be done.
Can someone do it faster? then do it (and do it in the open, so anyway Ventoy can benefit too and essentially you’ll be contributing!)… but if you jump and start using a fork that has not done already the work and given the guarantees Ventoy is planning to give, then you are placing your trust in a much much worse and shaky ground. I’m sure a lot of people would use your malware if you presented it as a WIP Ventoy fork marketed as safer when it really isn’t.
To me, what matters is what guarantees they offer and/or plan to offer,
Let’s indeed hope that they back it up with action. Better late than never. Though, I wonder what “guarantee” you’re referring to.
FWIW, slightly over a month ago, someone started working on a solution. The conspiracy theorist inside of me would like to think this is related to the return of Ventoy’s maintainer. But I digress…
Let’s indeed hope that they back it up with action. Better late than never. Though, I wonder what “guarantee” you’re referring to.
Any “action” that does not result in guarantees isn’t helpful to solve this. So again, what I care about is guarantees.
For example, one way to “guarantee” that there’s no code that’s unaccounted for would be to achieve reproducible builds that can be rebuilt and obtain always the same binary bit-by-bit. So if the binary blob resulting from compiling from clean source matches the one offered then that’s proof that the distributed binary was built cleanly and there was no malware being slipped through.
The issue is that this wouldn’t just be a Ventoy problem, but also an upstream problem, since all projects Ventoy depends on would need to be, themselves, reproducible. So this wouldn’t be an easy task, or even a task that Ventoy should do on their own, imho.
FWIW, slightly over a month ago, someone started working on a solution.
I definitely wouldn’t trust that either until there’s guarantees. Again, I only care about what guarantees are offered. It’s not about who is the one managing the github account and/or what subjective reputation that random anonymous person might have.
The problem isn’t the existence of precompiled binary blobs either, so removing the binaries is not solving the issue. The problem is in the traceability and what guarantees we have that the final collection of compiled binary blobs that ultimately is offered for download (and we do need binary blobs for download ultimately) is actually corresponding to libre/open source releases without potentially malicious code.
The conspiracy theorist inside of me would like to think this is related to the return of Ventoy’s maintainer. But I digress…
I don’t think the maintainer went away. I’ve seen successfully maintained projects with much slower pace than this, specially projects for which stability is important. Last Bash commit was in 2024 and I wouldn’t say it’s unmaintained. Ventoy had a release 3 months ago.
Also, would it be bad if that was what triggered the interest to work on it? I mean, the post straight away mentions the github issue where that fork was advertised, and it implies that it’s in that issue where they noticed that people have started to care about the blobs. So it could well be that they saw there’s people who care enough to spend their time working for it (ie. they even made a fork), so why not open the doors for them? It does not have to always be drama.
Assuming you’re finally done with your edits[1] (the transition from 0 -> 1 likes is the only thing I’m going off of), I think your comment is overall just a work of art; attempting to add anything on/to it feels like tarnishing it. Though, a major correction is due: The “the return of Ventoy’s maintainer”-remark was meant to convey their return to the issue. I didn’t want to imply that they left the project and returned. Though I totally understand the confusion; my apologies*. Furthermore, my striped remark was actually somewhat meant as a joke - I hoped that blatantly stating “The conspiracy theorist inside of me would like to think” was enough of a hint for that - but I totally get where the misunderstanding is coming from.
Anyhow, if anything, I hope that we’ll be met with a solution that’s compliant with your suggested solution (or better if possible). Nonetheless, I would like to voice my appreciation for this lovely interaction! Thank you!
Btw, I absolutely loved to witness the diligence you put into your craft. Thank you for the effort! It also reminds me of the times I do something similar. Though, fam, don’t forget to think about yourself; you’re important to us 💙! ↩︎
There shouldn’t be the need to clear a name, because you shouldn’t be smearing someone’s name who’s giving away their work. It’s fine to distrust it, but then just don’t use the software.
Fam, you’ve chosen to trust them for reasons that are unclear to me. Honestly, I don’t see anything (yet) that would clear their name. For all we know, they could have ties to some intelligence agency; which the infamous Jia Tan has (retroactively) been accused of as well.
That’s not the issue. I’ve also made plenty use of it in the past. But at what point do you start to second guess the intent behind the maintainer?
Again, arguably too little too late. They literally ghosted the issue for over a year. Then, within 24 hours of possible proof of malicious code, they appear and (perhaps) “pose the image” of putting in a gargantuan effort to resolve the issue. But, like, where were they for a year? Furthermore, the hints of justifications for their actions are simply not up too par.
Don’t get me wrong. As I clearly hinted at it in my previous comment, if they pull through and provide/produce (bit-by-bit) reproducible builds of Ventoy[1], then I obviously have no qualms against them or their software. Why would I? But until then, I will steer clear.
What should have happened for you to be more concerned?
Another spoiler-alert: They admitted that it would be hard. Which is fine, but could be interpreted as the first action for an eventual cop out. Only time will tell… ↩︎
My problem is that a lot of people are giving a lot of shit to open source developers, who are creating great software in their free time.
Instead of enjoying their free time, they give a lot of it to the community, and then they get accused of wrong doings if the quality of their code isn’t at enterprise level. The problem is that people are being toxic to them and this makes them less likely to continue doing that. I am trying to give credit as I know how hard it is to build and support some software and I want the open source community to thrive and not turn into a toxic cesspool.
Jia Tan was a big warning for everyone, I admit, but if you look at the big picture he was a single person in a sea of open source projects and honestly speaking if we are talking of state sponsored attacks, I would say that big corporations like Cisco, Fortinet, etc. would be more of a target than small open source projects. I just wish we could give the guy some credit for all his work and at least let him prove that those blobs are harmless.
I also think a big part of your qualms is the fact that he is Chinese and you are less likely to trust because of your bias.
I’ll try to keep it brief/concise/short. Apologies if this makes me come across as abrasive in the process.
If I’d attempt to distill the point(s) in your reply, I’d come to:
Insinuating that I might have some anti-Chinese bias (or something). Honestly, I didn’t want to go over this as I deliberately skipped a lot of other points (like implying that enterprise level code is somehow better, ignoring the fact that binary blobs go completely against the spirit of (F(L))OSS, ignoring that Ventoy -however small of a project you may view it- has a unique position for malicious use or somehow implying that big corpo software is more interesting to be targeted) that I didn’t deem worth discussing here. I hope you understand why I couldn’t ignore this (possible) ‘allegation’. I’ll keep it brief, though: No, it being supposedly by a person that knows Chinese doesn’t even remotely affect my judgement and/or evaluation. I find it distasteful/appalling that that’s even considered. But I thank you for laying your cards in this respect as this will help to move on to the actual meat of the conversation.You absolutely don’t have to respect my standard or anyone else’s. I just make the observation that everyone has ‘a’ standard for adopting (F(L)OSS. ↩︎
Those questions being: “But at what point do you start to second guess the intent behind the maintainer?” and “What should have happened for you to be more concerned?”. Please don’t feel necessarily pressed to answer them. However, I’m positive that it’ll be instrumental to bridge our stances. On the note of questions, allow me to introduce a third one that might be beneficial in getting my point across, don’t you think the handling of this issue (i.e. literal radio silence for over a year while it has arguably been the biggest issue in its history) leaves a lot to be desired? ↩︎
Fair point, and I am happy that we can engage in a civilized conversation without turning toxic. So kudos for that and for your openness.
Regarding the issue of the radio silence. It might seem odd to you, but you should also understand that sometimes when you are a solo developer you need to prioritise tasks and define what is more important. Whether it is the continued development of the project and bringing new features to the table or answering the security concerns of a handful of people. He said that addressing this problem is rather complicated and time consuming and perhaps he was procrastinating on that just because he didn’t want to deal or spend time on this issue.
My point is that it is better late than never and let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Because I would rather believe in the inherent good nature of people than suspect everyone of ill intentions.
To me, what matters is what guarantees they offer and/or plan to offer, not some subjective and fleeting idea of people online having expectation of at what speed things need to be done.
Can someone do it faster? then do it (and do it in the open, so anyway Ventoy can benefit too and essentially you’ll be contributing!)… but if you jump and start using a fork that has not done already the work and given the guarantees Ventoy is planning to give, then you are placing your trust in a much much worse and shaky ground. I’m sure a lot of people would use your malware if you presented it as a WIP Ventoy fork marketed as safer when it really isn’t.
Let’s indeed hope that they back it up with action. Better late than never. Though, I wonder what “guarantee” you’re referring to.
FWIW, slightly over a month ago, someone started working on a solution.
The conspiracy theorist inside of me would like to think this is related to the return of Ventoy’s maintainer. But I digress…Any “action” that does not result in guarantees isn’t helpful to solve this. So again, what I care about is guarantees.
For example, one way to “guarantee” that there’s no code that’s unaccounted for would be to achieve reproducible builds that can be rebuilt and obtain always the same binary bit-by-bit. So if the binary blob resulting from compiling from clean source matches the one offered then that’s proof that the distributed binary was built cleanly and there was no malware being slipped through.
The issue is that this wouldn’t just be a Ventoy problem, but also an upstream problem, since all projects Ventoy depends on would need to be, themselves, reproducible. So this wouldn’t be an easy task, or even a task that Ventoy should do on their own, imho.
I definitely wouldn’t trust that either until there’s guarantees. Again, I only care about what guarantees are offered. It’s not about who is the one managing the github account and/or what subjective reputation that random anonymous person might have.
The problem isn’t the existence of precompiled binary blobs either, so removing the binaries is not solving the issue. The problem is in the traceability and what guarantees we have that the final collection of compiled binary blobs that ultimately is offered for download (and we do need binary blobs for download ultimately) is actually corresponding to libre/open source releases without potentially malicious code.
I don’t think the maintainer went away. I’ve seen successfully maintained projects with much slower pace than this, specially projects for which stability is important. Last Bash commit was in 2024 and I wouldn’t say it’s unmaintained. Ventoy had a release 3 months ago.
Also, would it be bad if that was what triggered the interest to work on it? I mean, the post straight away mentions the github issue where that fork was advertised, and it implies that it’s in that issue where they noticed that people have started to care about the blobs. So it could well be that they saw there’s people who care enough to spend their time working for it (ie. they even made a fork), so why not open the doors for them? It does not have to always be drama.
Assuming you’re finally done with your edits[1] (the transition from 0 -> 1 likes is the only thing I’m going off of), I think your comment is overall just a work of art; attempting to add anything on/to it feels like tarnishing it. Though, a major correction is due: The “the return of Ventoy’s maintainer”-remark was meant to convey their return to the issue. I didn’t want to imply that they left the project and returned. Though I totally understand the confusion; my apologies*. Furthermore, my striped remark was actually somewhat meant as a joke - I hoped that blatantly stating “The conspiracy theorist inside of me would like to think” was enough of a hint for that - but I totally get where the misunderstanding is coming from.
Anyhow, if anything, I hope that we’ll be met with a solution that’s compliant with your suggested solution (or better if possible). Nonetheless, I would like to voice my appreciation for this lovely interaction! Thank you!
Btw, I absolutely loved to witness the diligence you put into your craft. Thank you for the effort! It also reminds me of the times I do something similar. Though, fam, don’t forget to think about yourself; you’re important to us 💙! ↩︎
There shouldn’t be the need to clear a name, because you shouldn’t be smearing someone’s name who’s giving away their work. It’s fine to distrust it, but then just don’t use the software.