{"id":217792,"date":"2026-02-26T15:24:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T20:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/26\/linux-explores-new-way-of-authenticating-developers-and-their-code-heres-how-it-works\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T15:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T20:55:08","slug":"linux-explores-new-way-of-authenticating-developers-and-their-code-heres-how-it-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/26\/linux-explores-new-way-of-authenticating-developers-and-their-code-heres-how-it-works\/","title":{"rendered":"Linux explores new way of authenticating developers and their code &#8211; here&#8217;s how it works"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/linux-kernel-maintainers-new-way-of-authenticating-developers-and-code\/\">Linux explores new way of authenticating developers and their code &#8211; here&#8217;s how it works<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/linux-kernel-maintainers-new-way-of-authenticating-developers-and-code\/\">https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/linux-kernel-maintainers-new-way-of-authenticating-developers-and-code\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-26 15:24:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.zdnet.com\">www.zdnet.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>    <span class=\"c-shortcodeImage_credit g-outer-spacing-top-xsmall u-block\">Yuichiro Chino\/Moment via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Follow ZDNET: <span class=\"c-commerceLink\"><span>Add us as a preferred source<\/span><\/span> on Google.<\/p>\n<h3>ZDNET&#8217;s key takeaways<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>The Linux kernel is moving toward a better way of identifying developers and their code.<\/li>\n<li>This new approach can be used by other open-source projects.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s not being rolled out yet, but I expect it to be deployed by this time next year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>NAPA, Calif. &#8212; In the immortal words of song developer Pete Townshend, &#8220;Well, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?) I really wanna know!&#8221; Linux kernel maintainers have the same question: Who are their programmers, and how can the kernel community be sure the code they submit is really theirs?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For decades, Linux kernel developers used Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) to identify developers and their release artifacts. Git&#8217;s PGP integration enabled signed tags to verify code repository integrity and signed commits to prevent hackers from impersonating legitimate developers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Also: The latest Linux kernel release closes out the 6.x era &#8211; and it&#8217;s a gift to cloud admins<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In 2011, hackers successfully cracked the main Linux development site, kernel.org. Afterward, to make sure this didn&#8217;t happen again, the kernel&#8217;s PGP web of trust was explicitly &#8220;bootstrapped&#8221; at a face-to-face key\u2011signing session during the 2011 Kernel Summit.<\/p>\n<p>More recently, the xz utility was compromised by a malicious developer, almost leading to malware infecting Linux.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>A painful process<\/h2>\n<p>Today, kernel maintainers who want a kernel.org account must find someone already in the PGP web of trust, meet them face\u2011to\u2011face, show government ID, and get their key signed. The process is like a manual, global scavenger hunt. Linux kernel maintainer   Greg Kroah-Hartman, speaking at the Linux Foundation Members Summit, described it as a &#8220;pain to do and manage.&#8221; That&#8217;s because it&#8217;s tracked by manual scripts, the keys drift out of date, and the public &#8220;who lives where&#8221; map creates privacy and social\u2011engineering risk.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, the kernel maintainers are&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/linux-kernel-maintainers-new-way-of-authenticating-developers-and-code\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Linux explores new way of authenticating developers and their code &#8211; here&#8217;s how it works&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":217793,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/a\/img\/resize\/70162c099e0ece4e992bf31bb0ebd3b271f14323\/2026\/02\/26\/af942f15-bf84-44c4-9255-e72aaa7c9fe6\/akeydiggettyimages-1446187273.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&height=675&width=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[71,32],"class_list":["post-217792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux","tag-linux","tag-malware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217792"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217794,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217792\/revisions\/217794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}