In a roundabout way, this researcher has achieved their goal, and I hope they publish their results. Certainly more meaningful than most of the drivel in the academic paper mill.
This will lead in effect to that even valuable contributions from universities will be seen with more suspicion and will be very damaging in the long run.
What review process catches 100% garbage? It's a mechanism to catch 99% of garbage -- otherwise Linux kernel would have no bugs.
Runs counter to how open source is ideally written, but for such a core project, perhaps stronger checks are needed.
I've heard it many times that they're thoroughly reviewed and back doors are very unlikely. So yes, some people were under the impression.
Does that add anything new to what we know since the creation of the "obfuscated C contest" in 1984?
It shows nothing of the sort. No review process is 100% foolproof, and opensource means that everything can be audited if it is important to you.
The other option is closed source everything and I can guarentee that review processes let stuff through, even if its only "to meet deadlines" and you will unlikely be able to audit it.
did these "researchers" in any way demonstrate that they were going to come clean about what they had done before their "research" made to anywhere close to release/GA?
Try to introduce yourself in the White House and when you get caught tell them "I was just testing your security procedures".