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Firefox buffer overflow and full disclosureFirefox buffer overflow and full disclosurePosted Sep 15, 2005 15:43 UTC (Thu) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435)Parent article: Firefox buffer overflow and full disclosure
What people that complain about "irresponsible" full-disclosure seem to
(And, FTR, I'm a software developer myself... I've been writing Unix/C
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Firefox buffer overflowand full disclosure Posted Sep 15, 2005 19:49 UTC (Thu) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] Very well stated.If I find a security issue, that info is mine. If I'm a blackhat, I can exploit it myself, or sell it to someone else to exploit. It would only be due to my /not/ being a blackhat, only due to my sense of ethics, that I have any reason at all to make the information known, either publicly or to the author directly, rather than by a zero-day in-the-wild exploit. In such a situation, the author and users should be /thanking/ the discoverer for making such problems known, /however/ they chose to do so, rather than taking illicit gain from the problem, making it known only with a reverse engineering of the already deployed exploit. We (the authors and users) are already in their debt, that they considered our welfare above the possible illicit gains. Additionally, as is commonly pointed out, there's nothing saying someone else isn't already taking illicit advantage of the same security flaw. Thus, it makes no sense for us to be condemning them for /how/ they made the problem public, when we really /ought/ to be /thanking/ them for the disclosure in the first place. As you stated, it's not full disclosure that's the problem, but rather, the lack thereof. Sure, I probably would have given the devs a bit more notice, say, a week or two, before going public. I'd have likely stated the date I intended to go public on the original bug filing: "I will be making this public a week from today." or the like. That's just the way I am. However, what I'd do in no way obligates others to do likewise, and it's just as true that the discoverer is doing the author and the public a favor by turning it in rather than putting it to illicit use, regardless of /how/ long he gives the authors to fix it, even if that's /zero/ time. The timing is entirely up to the discoverer and nothing can change the fact that by going public with the discovery, he's doing the public a BIG favor. Duncan
Firefox buffer overflow and full disclosure Posted Sep 16, 2005 15:22 UTC (Fri) by gerv (subscriber, #3376) [Link] They are under absolutely NO obligation to treat the developers with any level of deference, or to cut them any slack in getting a patch together before going public, or even to notify them personally ahead of time at all!Perhaps not; but they are under a moral obligation to the users of the product not to expose them to unnecessary risk. And that means responsible disclosure.
Firefox buffer overflow and full disclosure Posted Sep 16, 2005 16:46 UTC (Fri) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link] No, they most certainly are NOT under any obligation to the users of thesoftware, any more than to the developers of it... Moral, or otherwise...
Besides which, publically releasing the details of the flaw they discovered
Firefox buffer overflow and full disclosure Posted Sep 16, 2005 21:20 UTC (Fri) by gerv (subscriber, #3376) [Link] publically releasing the details of the flaw they discovered is benefiting and protecting the users, NOT exposing them to any kind of risk...That's clearly not true. The more black hats know about the flaw, the more at risk users are. Claiming that releasing details while there's no patch available does not expose users to any extra risk at all is a ridiculous position, not even generally held by advocates of immediate disclosure (who normally say: "Yes, there's an extra risk, but it's worth it to kick the vendor into action"). In a few types of flaw, users can take action to protect themselves, but normally they are at the mercy of the vendor to provide a patch. So revealing the information to the user does not benefit them at all, because they are in exactly the same position as previously - waiting for their vendor. Except now there are more people who know how to attack them. You seem to be laboring under the delusion that the security hole doesn't exist until it has been publically disclosed...I don't think my comments say that at all. I am merely making the point that the risk associated with a hole is equal to the severity of the problem multiplied by the number of people with evil intent who know about it. There are probably 100 holes in [pick-a-product-name] right now which are zero risk, because 0 people know about them - they haven't been discovered by anyone yet. Again, in a limited number of cases, a hole has to be revealed when there's no patch because either the vendor is uncooperative or has made it clear they aren't going to produce a fix. But neither of those things was true in this case.
Firefox buffer overflow and full disclosure Posted Sep 16, 2005 22:05 UTC (Fri) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link] > The more black hats know about the flaw, the more at risk users are.
Only if the users remain ignorant of it, as well... Using analogies for
> In a few types of flaw, users can take action to protect themselves, but
That's just not true... Users can ALWAYS take some action to protect
To use another unworkable analogy: if Consumer Reports learned of a flaw
> There are probably 100 holes in [pick-a-product-name] right now which are
Yeah, sure, if literally NO ONE has discovered them, then yes there is zero
Not to mention the fact that you never KNOW whether or not anyone else
Firefox buffer overflow and full disclosure Posted Sep 16, 2005 22:29 UTC (Fri) by gerv (subscriber, #3376) [Link] To use another unworkable analogy: if Consumer Reports learned of a flaw in all Ford cars, whereby someone could easily unlock the doors by tapping them in just the right spot (or something similar), would you rather they quietly just tell Ford about it and wait for them to take months/years to do anything about it, or would you rather know about it yourself, so you can replace the locks on your Ford your own damn self??I'd tell Ford: "You have two weeks to make sure all of your dealerships around the world have a decent stock of replacement locks. Then I'm going public." Which is the exact equivalent of responsible disclosure.
Firefox buffer overflow and full disclosure Posted Sep 16, 2005 22:49 UTC (Fri) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link] But, why is that more "responsible" than immediately going public? (Which,I believe, is what Consumer Reports usually actually does...) And, why two weeks? Who made up that number, and deemed it to be the "responsible" time-frame? What if the vendor really can't possibly get a fix out in less than 6 months? Is it "responsible" to inform the public 5.5 months early? If so, then why exactly wasn't it to do so 2 weeks earlier than that?? (It's clearly NOT "responsible" to cave to the vendor, and sit on the issue for 6 months... But, what I'm curious about is what is it that distinguishes the 2 weeks from the 6 months for you?? In this day and age, can't 2 weeks of being vulnerable to a known security hole be just as dangerous as 6 months? So, why not simply inform the users right from the start, so they can protect themselves until the vendor takes however long it needs to to fix the issue?)
Firefox buffer overflow and full disclosure Posted Sep 17, 2005 0:38 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] I'd be interested to know what Consumer Reports' policy on this is. I'm not sure it has ever faced the situation. I know Consumer Reports doesn't give any advance warning to manufacturers of defects and other weaknesses in their products that CR intends to publicize, but that's a statement about CR not owing the manufacturer anything. Are these ever defects where some consumers would be hurt just by the publication? Like the Ford lock analogy?I read all the time about journalists withholding information for the public good, and I suspect Consumer Reports really would withhold that Ford lock story until Ford had plenty of time to mitigate the problem.
Firefox buffer overflow and full disclosure Posted Sep 17, 2005 15:35 UTC (Sat) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link] > Are these ever defects where some consumers would be hurt just by the> publication?
Once again, I don't buy that the "publication" would be responsible for
Firefox buffer overflow and full disclosure Posted Sep 17, 2005 22:29 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] I don't buy that the "publication" would be responsible for anyone getting "hurt" I assume "responsible" is the key word here. I think it's obvious that many people would have their cars broken into if the flaw became common knowledge early who would not have their cars broken into if Ford had time to prepare before it became common knowledge. It's equally clear that there are many people in the opposite situation -- they would avoid the breakin by having the flaw become common knowledge earlier. So I assume you're just saying that spreading the word isn't responsible for any breakins, even though it is obviously a contributing cause. Like the idea that if you leave a pair of glasses on the floor and someone steps on them, the stepper is not responsible for the damage. There are plenty of people who would argue either side of the responsibility question. I still believe in the Consumer Reports analogy, CR would assume responsibility and not publish immediately. It seems to be the prevalent view in journalism, and especially among social good organizations like Consumer's Union (publisher of CR).
Firefox buffer overflow and full disclosure Posted Sep 18, 2005 15:40 UTC (Sun) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link] > So I assume you're just saying that spreading the word isn't responsible> for any breakins, even though it is obviously a contributing cause. Like > the idea that if you leave a pair of glasses on the floor and someone steps > on them, the stepper is not responsible for the damage.
Well, more in the way that someone who informs you the building is on
> CR would assume responsibility and not publish immediately.
I'm not so sure that's correct... I don't really know for sure, but I
But, regardless of what they would really do, I certainly don't think it
Firefox buffer overflow and full disclosure Posted Oct 10, 2005 1:47 UTC (Mon) by turpie (guest, #5219) [Link] That's a very poor analogy. Such a fire hazard could result in legitimate users accidently creating a life threatening disaster. Hardly similar to a security bug in a web browser.
Most users would be unable to create their own patches to fix a security hole, and unlikely to want to go to the hassle of swapping to another program if their preferred choice of program is likely to be fixed in a couple of days. I believe developers should be notified of the bug and told that they would have no more than 14 days to fix the problem before it is made public. The developers would then have time to fix or workaround the bug, test and release an update before the blackhats were informed. If the developers didn't respond in time then that fact should be a part the security disclosure so the users may be better informed and can then change their software preferences.
Relation between disclosure and risk Posted Sep 17, 2005 3:08 UTC (Sat) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] It is not so simple... The risk is a growing function of how many black hats know about the problem. So, the disclosure increases risk, as black hats as a whole are rather secretive about their exploits. On the other hand, knowing about the risk helps taking countermeasures, so decreases risk. It simply isn't clear which of the two tendencies wins out. I'd wager that most users just rely on the "automatic upgrade" of their software, so public disclosure (somewhat) synchronized with the patch release schedule of the vendors should minimize risk.
Relation between disclosure and risk Posted Sep 17, 2005 15:39 UTC (Sat) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link] Sure, most users are lazy/ignorant, and may not do anything to protectthemselves even when informed... But, does that mean those of us who are NOT lazy and ignorant, and who are willing to take whatever measures necessary to protect ourselves should be kept in the dark, and put at increased risk, simply to protect the lazy and ignorant users?? I'm sorry, but I don't accept that... I think everyone should be given the chance to protect themselves, and if they fail to take it, well that's their own choice...
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