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by unethical_ban 1 hour ago
Me. Who reads the source code of every program they run?

I've learned not to trust the AUR because the barrier to malice is lower, but I run system updates every other day.

2 comments

> Me. Who reads the source code of every program they run?

No one. Who codes their own operating systems before they launch a calculator on their own computer? No one as well. Why the irrelevant questions? They're all very different things.

You literally have to review one line, that points to a remote URL somewhere, that's it. If it's wrong/sus, don't install it, you don't even have to review more than that.

> Who reads the source code of every program they run?

Me. It's even easier now with AI.

So, you don't.
Have been reading source code for over 15 years now. I read the source code of a lot of software, just for curiosity's sake. I go out of my way to read the source code of random scripts I find laying about and that I want to run, and I do so before running them. PKGBUILDs are in that category, as are random scripts people throw on GitHub.

Only difference is now I ask AI models to read the source too. Chances of malware slipping by both myself and AI is lower than it slipping by either in isolation.