After days of dealing with [1]1,500+ packages in the Arch Linux AUR containing malware , the latest headache in the Arch Linux User Repository is Russian spam and offensive messages.

Nicolas Boichat with his AI/LLM detection bot [2]detected some questionable messages appearing in AUR content. Russian messages were being added post-install to the bashrc / zshrc / Fish configuration, etc containing offensive messaging. Those commits happened on the 14th, after the recent malware fiasco.

[3]

And then over the past day reporting on dozens of AUR packages having similar Russian messages containing offensive language.

[4]

The latest [5]update on that thread indicates more than 70 AUR packages having this Russian spam / offensive messaging. Among those various Python packages, Ruby packages, Llama.cpp, and others.

At least the AI/LLM bots are proving helpful here in proactively picking up on some of the AUR abuses until the fundamental situation can be better handled.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Arch-Linux-AUR-More-Than-1500

[2] https://lists.archlinux.org/archives/list/aur-general@lists.archlinux.org/message/GJURAWWOV453HZDBESQT3L26J2572VDV/

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=2026&image=aur_spam_1_lrg

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=2026&image=aur_spam_2_lrg

[5] https://lists.archlinux.org/archives/list/aur-general@lists.archlinux.org/message/2YQSHTC27MOKDDKHZTH2BJGTEN2CYC7W/