picoscope

maintainer mti · 13 votes · scanned 2026-08-03 00:08:14.047287

MEDIUM

Why flagged The PKGBUILD downloads a prebuilt Debian binary package (.deb) from labs.picotech.com, which is the official PicoTech Linux software repository (the vendor's own apt repository for their oscilloscope software). This is a legitimate vendor host, not a random personal or unofficial mirror. However, the package installs a prebuilt binary blob (a .deb containing a Mono/.NET GUI application plus native libraries) directly into the system, and the integrity check uses only MD5 (weak, though present). The core concern is that this is executed/installed binary code from a vendor-controlled but externally-hosted binary repository — if labs.picotech.com were compromised or the file substituted, the MD5 check provides minimal protection. This is a standard pattern for proprietary hardware vendor software in the AUR (similar to many other hardware driver/GUI packages), but the combination of prebuilt binary + weak checksum + external host keeps it at medium rather than clean. There is no obfuscation, no piracy, and the package appears functional.

Triggered rules

MEDIUM source=() URL on a non-standard host source_untrusted_domain

One or more source=() URLs point to a host outside the trusted allowlist (github.com, gitlab.com, codeberg.org, pypi.org, …).

PKGBUILD:29 "http://labs.picotech.com/debian/pool/main/p/${pkgname}/${pkgname}_${pkgver//_/-}_all.deb"

MEDIUM AI review llm_review

An AI model (anthropic/claude-4.6-sonnet-20260217) reviewed this and agrees it is MEDIUM (confidence 72%): The PKGBUILD downloads a prebuilt Debian binary package (.deb) from labs.picotech.com, which is the official PicoTech Linux software repository (the vendor's own apt repository for their oscilloscope software). This is a legitimate vendor host, not a random personal or unofficial mirror. However, the package installs a prebuilt binary blob (a .deb containing a Mono/.NET GUI application plus native libraries) directly into the system, and the integrity check uses only MD5 (weak, though present). The core concern is that this is executed/installed binary code from a vendor-controlled but externally-hosted binary repository — if labs.picotech.com were compromised or the file substituted, the MD5 check provides minimal protection. This is a standard pattern for proprietary hardware vendor software in the AUR (similar to many other hardware driver/GUI packages), but the combination of prebuilt binary + weak checksum + external host keeps it at medium rather than clean. There is no obfuscation, no piracy, and the package appears functional.

PKGBUILD

1 offending line(s) highlighted

      1# Maintainer: Mikael Tillenius <mti at tillenius dot com>
    
      2# Thanks to aAXEe <axel at brasshack dot de> and Alexandre Bique (abique)
    
      3# for earlier work.
    
      4pkgname=picoscope
    
      5pkgver=6.14.36_4r5676
    
      6pkgrel=1
    
      7pkgdesc="gui for picotech oscilloscope"
    
      8arch=('x86_64')
    
      9url="http://www.picotech.com/linux.html"
    
      10license=('custom')
    
      11groups=()
    
      12depends=(gtk-sharp-2 libpicoipp desktop-file-utils)
    
      13optdepends=('libps2000: support for picoscope 2000 series'
    
      14		'libps2000a: support for picoscope 2000 series'
    
      15        'libps3000: support for picoscope 3000 series'
    
      16        'libps5000: support for picoscope 4000 series'
    
      17        'libps5000: support for picoscope 5000 series'
    
      18        'libps5000a: support for picoscope 5000a series'
    
      19        'libps6000: support for picoscope 6000 series'
    
      20        )
    
      21provides=()
    
      22conflicts=()
    
      23replaces=()
    
      24backup=()
    
      25options=(!strip)
    
      26install=picoscope.install
    
      27changelog=
    
      28source=(
    
      29  "http://labs.picotech.com/debian/pool/main/p/${pkgname}/${pkgname}_${pkgver//_/-}_all.deb"
    
      30  "picoscope.install"
    
      31  "95-pico.rules")
    
      32md5sums=('71323416628f5d5e06200cb4e44e1d37'
    
      33         '503df69f2e6001e3e9269970a552af13'
    
      34         'afedfca88c003ead013c18f26f789fd4')
    
      35
    
      36package() {
    
      37  tar -xf data.tar.xz -C "${pkgdir}"
    
      38  mkdir -p $pkgdir/etc/udev/rules.d/
    
      39  install -m644 95-pico.rules $pkgdir/etc/udev/rules.d/
    
      40  chmod -R go-w $pkgdir
    
      41  chown -R root:root $pkgdir
    
      42
    
      43  mkdir -p $pkgdir/usr/bin
    
      44  ln -s /opt/picoscope/bin/picoscope $pkgdir/usr/bin/picoscope
    
      45}
    
      46

Scan history

Scanned at (UTC)	Severity	Rules
2026-08-03 00:08:14	MEDIUM	2
2026-08-02 00:16:08	MEDIUM	2
2026-08-01 00:11:18	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-31 00:14:10	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-30 00:17:23	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-29 00:25:53	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-28 00:07:28	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-27 00:24:32	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-26 00:07:32	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-25 00:13:44	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-24 00:02:28	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-23 00:14:47	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-22 00:29:32	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-21 00:24:15	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-20 00:19:49	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-19 00:17:08	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-18 00:14:48	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-17 00:06:16	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-16 00:05:41	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-15 00:09:25	MEDIUM	2