Recently Node 16 LTS cycle started. One month and a few days before the carry-over, a super controversial package titled `coredeps` [0] was officially declared a core module and has been bundled with all official distributions since.

The NodeJS team refuses to discuss NPM because it's a separate 3rd party. And yet.... this NodeJS Core module comes pre-installed as a global NPM package.

We're just getting started.

This module installs or even reinstalls any supported package manager when you execute a script with a name that would match any that they'd recognise. Opt-in for only a short period, and intending to expand beyond package manager installations.

Amidst all that's been going on, NPM (Nonstop Published Moments) is working on a feature that silently hijacks user commands and installs foreign software. The code found in those compromised packages operated in a similar manner and was labeled a critical severity vulnerability.

The following might actually make you cry.

Of these third party remote distributions it's downloading, the number of checksum, keys, or even build configurations that are being verified is 0.

The game that Microsoft is playing with their recent acquisitions here is quite clear, but there's too much collateral damage.

[0] https://github.com/nodejs/corepack#readme