Re: Malicious commits to Linux kernel as part of university study

[Thomas Ward <teward () thomas-ward net>]

Clarification is from 2020.  That clarification doesn't address the fact that this is still technically research 
misconduct regardless of the clarifications.  The Linux Kernel has banned commits from University of Michigan because 
of a large volume of noise and useless patch requests among other things.  So it still requires a misconduct evaluation.

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-------- Original Message --------
From: Silas <silas.cutler () blacklistthisdomain com>
Sent: Fri Apr 23 23:32:27 EDT 2021
To: oss-security () lists openwall com
Subject: Re: [oss-security] Malicious commits to Linux kernel as part of university study

Hello,

They issued a clarification as well:
https://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~kjlu/papers/clarifications-hc.pdf

- S



On 4/22/21 12:25 PM, Marcus Meissner wrote:
> Hi,
>
> to follow the "give complete content" requirement, here their statement on their website:
>
> https://cse.umn.edu/cs/statement-cse-linux-kernel-research-april-21-2021
>
> "
> Statement from CS&E on Linux Kernel research - April 21, 2021
>
> Leadership in the University of Minnesota Department of Computer Science & Engineering learned today about the 
> details of research being conducted by one of its faculty members and graduate students into the security of the 
> Linux Kernel. The research method used raised serious concerns in the Linux Kernel community and, as of today, this 
> has resulted in the University being banned from contributing to the Linux Kernel.
>
> We take this situation extremely seriously. We have immediately suspended this line of research. We will investigate 
> the research method and the process by which this research method was approved, determine appropriate remedial 
> action, and safeguard against future issues, if needed. We will report our findings back to the community as soon as 
> practical.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Mats Heimdahl, Department Head
> Loren Terveen, Associate Department Head
> "
>
> Ciao, Marcus
>
> On Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 05:11:42PM +0200, Marcus Meissner wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > https://twitter.com/UMNComputerSci/status/1384948683821694976
> >
> > Ciao, Marcus
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 02:55:03PM +0000, David H wrote:
> > > Has anyone reported this to https://research.umn.edu/ethics-compliance/reporting-research-misconduct ?
> > >
> > >
> > > On 4/22/21, 3:00 AM, "Peter Bex" <peter () more-magic net> wrote:
> > >
> > >     Hi all,
> > >
> > >     Probably a lot of you know this already but I consider it serious enough
> > >     to point out to the OSS security community at large.
> > >
> > >     The university of Minnesota has been banned from making any commits to
> > >     the Linux kernel after it was found out they'd been submitting bogus
> > >     patches to the LKML to knowingly introduce security issues:
> > >     https://lore.kernel.org/linux-nfs/YH%2FfM%2FTsbmcZzwnX () kroah com/
> > >
> > >     They also published a paper:
> > >     https://raw.githubusercontent.com/QiushiWu/qiushiwu.github.io/main/papers/OpenSourceInsecurity.pdf
> > >
> > >     I don't know the scope of this research, but it could involve other OSS
> > >     projects, now or in the future, as well.  Hence this e-mail.  If you feel
> > >     it's spam or needless drama, feel free to ignore.
> > >
> > >     Cheers,
> > >     Peter