Somebody is spamming kernel mailing lists under the name Marian Corcodel with a 26 MByte message multiple times per day containing a collection of nonsensical patches. Looks AI-generated, perhaps with the intention to poison LLMs. This has been going on for a few days now.

https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAGg4U=GNtCObd_Nbm_1Rr5FEvPb69Yz...

Actual context: Linux 7.1-rc4 release, Linus remarked on a specific documentation change.

The Register somehow turned this into an "article" that says a lot less with roughly the same number of words, and provides "context" by linking to a number of unrelated articles.

Does it? Both points can be true at the same time.

That said, I get why this would rankle a lot of the folks involved.

It probably doesn't really change that much in this scenario but with a forum or any other topics-based platform you can at least just close and ignore these things without it affecting everyone else.

Imagine the current state being for the most part a collection of local maxima in security. To push the system in a more optimal state, you either need skilled people and time to overcome the barrier to a new local maximum or you throw AI at it and evaluate whether you land in a more optimal state.

I think after some time of turbulent exploit/patch cycles we will reach a stable state again, where the code converges against a new local minimum that even with AI requires significant effort (time and tokens) to overcome. Or ideally a global maximum.

With time, the LLMs improve, so the diffs/gradients get better and we will be able to reach optimal points for any software faster.

My problem with the idea is that apparently it is assumed that OSS contributors and especially maintainers will generously donate their time to get this machinery into a state that makes the optimization loop work well - just for the AI labs to turn around and sell access to the optimized models for increasingly larger amounts of money.

AI generated code can be great. Hand rolled code can be bad. The rules are the same in both cases. Make sure your code changes are focused (no random changes just because you happen to be in the file/dir or notice something) and make sure you don't break anything else along the way.

The problem is people trying to get individual credit for merely running a script that spams a mailing list. Many of those people are likely not even C programmers or programmers at all.

Without the immense personal reward and recognition and job offers as a motivation, the problem will disappear.

The problem will also disappear with time as the people lauding and celebrating and hiring security researchers of the past will quickly abandon LLM generated spam as a positive signal; running a prompt that sends spam is, if anything, a strong negative indicator of infosec ability and skill.

LLMs are a tool. Like all tools, most people can't or won't use them responsibly or profitably although they are useful in the correct hands.

Thats kinda a misrepresentation. They are talking about two different things. Linus is trying to point out incorrect use of a tool while GKH is praising a correct use. This sentence felt weird at the end of the article, kind like rage bait. And I took it :P.

It will almost likely find issues that require fundamental design changes to even fix some of these

Dangerous waters ahead for data security and vital infrastructure

It's a catch 22. Why not make a separate list for AI generated reports that can be subscribed to instead? If the claim is that these are not private anyhow, no reason not to, and then a reasonable expectation could be held against submitters to check against existing reports.

That is unless it is still absolutely sensitive, in which case the only way forward that I see is to start using AI for triaging and duplicate detection as well.

On the other hand ... IF the bug report is real, and let's assume that AI slop reports at the least a few bugs that are indeed real, then I really think it should not make a difference WHO or WHAT reports these bugs. I would not disagree on fake bugs or bogus bug reports wasting time of humans, but this is a quality difference then. Surely people can tweak AI models to be better at finding bugs too. Besides, they should auto-fix that. Is AI still too stupid to fully replace humans? Other than killing them with spam, as it does right now.

Over the last year there have been way too many stories and Twitter posts like these.

Yes, maintainers are overloaded, but that's only because we haven't yet built the tools to support them.

Other than such statements, I would, as a builder like to hear the sorts of tools and requirements maintainers are looking for which would make their work easier!

We need to move fast without breaking things.