this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I'm talking about the end-user securely downloading packages from the repo, not how the package maintainer obtains the software upstream.
How a package maintainer obtains the software from the source is dynamic and depends on the package. Ideally those releases are signed by the developer. In any case, if the package is poisoned when grabbing the source, it's much easier for the community to detect than a targeted MITM attack on a client obtaining it from the repo.
I can say that I do maintain a software project that's in the repo, and we do sign it with our PGP release key. Our Debian package maintainer does verify its authenticity by checking the release's signature. So the authenticity is checked both at the source and when downloading the package.