Why I Built Open Source Civil Defense — A Safe Space for Attacked Maintainers
Most of the world's software depends on independent developers. When they get attacked, they're alone. That changes today.
The Problem
In 2024, a backdoor was inserted into the xz compression library — a piece of software used by virtually every Linux system on the planet. The attacker spent over two years building trust in the community before striking. It was discovered by accident, days before it would have been included in major distributions.
This is not an isolated incident.
