Software Introspection for Signaling Social-Cyber Operations

Open-source software (OSS) is a critical element in the design and operation of complex cyber-physical systems. Contributions to OSS projects are typically the result of voluntary work and time allocation by researchers, software developers, hackers, and even opportunistic programmers. These communities often operate on a “trust” basis, and although they strive to evaluate the technical correctness and merits of contributed code, the processes they use are usually loosely supervised. Social rules, trust, reputation, and even arcane processes often govern these communities. While these components have undoubtedly contributed to the growth and expansion of OSS, they could also lead to opportunities for subversion [3], hindering the reliability of an OSS project. This, in turn, could not only compromise the integrity of cyber-physical systems depending on OSS but also affect their performance.