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‘If Anything Happens to This Guy … Everyone Is Screwed'

‘If Anything Happens to This Guy … Everyone Is Screwed'

Tech The Atlantic
A single volunteer, Ondřej Surý, maintains the majority of the world's PHP distribution, highlighting the fragility of critical internet infrastructure.
What: Ondřej Surý is profiled as the primary individual responsible for automating and patching PHP, a language that powers a vast portion of the global web, while relying largely on voluntary donations.
Why it matters: The internet remains heavily reliant on small, underfunded groups of volunteers who maintain critical software components, creating significant security risks if these individuals burn out or are compromised.
Original article

Ondřej Surý is one of the volunteers who helps maintain and automate patches for PHP. He alone is responsible for most of the world's distribution of PHP. His work, along with just a handful of others, has allowed countless websites and organizations to fix the recently revealed PHP vulnerabilities quickly. He's become arguably the unsung hero of the entire internet, despite the fact that the only compensation he receives for his work is from donations. This article features an interview with Surý where he discusses the unfolding AI-cybersecurity crisis, how the internet's infrastructure is maintained by small crews of volunteers, and how it feels to save the web.

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