Two years after its hopeful launch, a U.S.-backed research project aimed at drawing skilled eyeballs to the thankless task of open-source security auditing is prepared to throw in the towel.

Initially funded by a research grant from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Sardonix project aspired to replace the loosely-structured Linux security review process with a public website that meticulously tracks which code has been audited for security holes, and by whom.

As conceived by Oregon-based computer scientist Crispin Cowan, Sardonix was to attract volunteer auditors by automatically ranking them according to the amount of code they've examined, and the number of security holes they've found. Auditors would lose points if a subsequent audit by someone else turned up bugs they missed.

By Kevin Poulsen at SecurityFocus.

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