The Internet Was Weeks Away From Disaster and No One Knew

How a single hack infected the world’s most important operating system. Sponsored by NordVPN - Get exclusive NordVPN deal here: https://NordVPN.com/veritasium It’s risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee! If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ 0:00 The Free Software Foundation 5:03 Why is Linux so popular? 9:57 The XZ Weakness 12:07 End To End Encryption - SSH 18:40 How To Compress Data 23:47 How The .XZ Hack Worked 34:24 A Bug In Jia’s Code 38:27 Henry Hacks Derek 43:16 The Back Door Is Exposed 47:16 Who is Jia Tan? 50:33 Open Vs Closed Source ▀▀▀ A huge thank you to everyone who made this possible: Rich Jones for his openness throughout this project. Denzel Farmer for his incredible breakdown - https://youtu.be/Q6ovtLdSbEA?si=qlbcg6skR-BoS5z1 Karsten Nohl @hackingmatters, Yannis Hofmann, and Matthias Marx at SRLabs for their help throughout this project. Fabian Fäßler @LiveOverflow Alex Schlögl and the rest of the Cure53 team for their technical insights on the project. Tom Scott, and Computerphile for their excellent videos on compression. Josh at @breakfastserial for the filming inspiration. Planet Money for a podcast that helped inform our research and @fern-tv for inspiration. Thomas Roccia for his technical feedback on the video. And Ed at @LowLevelTV for helping out early on! ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/XZHackRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Charles Ian Norman Venn, Daniel Martins, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Hong Thai Le, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, Kelcey Steele, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Moebiusol - Cristian, Orlando Bassotto, Parsee Health, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writer, Director & Producer: Henry van Dyck Presenters: Derek Muller & Henry van Dyck Editor: Trenton Oliver Animators: Fabio Albertelli, Domonkos Józsa, Andrew Neet, Alex Drakoulis & Emma Wright Illustrators: Jakub Misiek & Nataly Zhuk Researchers: Aakash Singh Bagga & Sophia Rose Additional Editing: James Stuart & Peter Nelson Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley, Ben Powell & Henry van Dyck Production Team: Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic, Katy Southwood & Jess Bishop-Laggett Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound