The Internet Was Weeks Away From Disaster and No One Knew

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 21:02:07 +0000

How a single hack infected the world’s most important operating system. Sponsored by NordVPN - Get exclusive NordVPN deal here: https://NordVPN.com/veritasium It’s risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!

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0:00 The Free Software Foundation
5:03 Why is Linux so popular?
9:57 The XZ Weakness
12:07 End To End Encryption - SSH
18:40 How To Compress Data
23:47 How The .XZ Hack Worked
34:24 A Bug In Jia’s Code
38:27 Henry Hacks Derek
43:16 The Back Door Is Exposed
47:16 Who is Jia Tan?
50:33 Open Vs Closed Source

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A huge thank you to everyone who made this possible:

Rich Jones for his openness throughout this project.

Denzel Farmer for his incredible breakdown - https://youtu.be/Q6ovtLdSbEA?si=qlbcg6skR-BoS5z1

Karsten Nohl @hackingmatters, Yannis Hofmann, and Matthias Marx at SRLabs for their help throughout this project.

Fabian Fäßler @LiveOverflow Alex Schlögl and the rest of the Cure53 team for their technical insights on the project.

Tom Scott, and Computerphile for their excellent videos on compression.

Josh at @breakfastserial for the filming inspiration.

Planet Money for a podcast that helped inform our research and @fern-tv for inspiration.

Thomas Roccia for his technical feedback on the video. And Ed at @LowLevelTV for helping out early on!

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References: https://ve42.co/XZHackRefs

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Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Charles Ian Norman Venn, Daniel Martins, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Hong Thai Le, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, Kelcey Steele, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Moebiusol - Cristian, Orlando Bassotto, Parsee Health, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, wolfee

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Writer, Director & Producer: Henry van Dyck
Presenters: Derek Muller & Henry van Dyck
Editor: Trenton Oliver
Animators: Fabio Albertelli, Domonkos Józsa, Andrew Neet, Alex Drakoulis & Emma Wright
Illustrators: Jakub Misiek & Nataly Zhuk
Researchers: Aakash Singh Bagga & Sophia Rose
Additional Editing: James Stuart & Peter Nelson
Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley, Ben Powell & Henry van Dyck
Production Team: Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic, Katy Southwood & Jess Bishop-Laggett
Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius

Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Storyblocks
Music from Epidemic Sound