State of the Kernel Self Protection Project

Posted Sep 2, 2016 2:16 UTC (Fri) by spender (guest, #23067)
In reply to: State of the Kernel Self Protection Project by jake
Parent article: State of the Kernel Self Protection Project

My standards may be too high, but in my mind reporting != repeating verbatim what a particular person said, regardless of the facts. To repeat that "numerous protection features were added" to Linux 4.6 for instance, when that had already been thoroughly debunked here: https://forums.grsecurity.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4476

There is not a whiff of critical thinking present here, it doesn't offer anything that isn't already present in the slides themselves (except, as I mentioned, to bestow a false impartiality to the evaluation of the KSPP as a success).

People come here to be informed and learn something, right? Or is it just to reinforce myths for yes-men?

-Brad

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State of the Kernel Self Protection Project

Posted Sep 2, 2016 5:40 UTC (Fri) by karkhaz (subscriber, #99844) [Link]

> My standards may be too high, but in my mind reporting != repeating verbatim what a particular person said

Opinionated, analytical pieces are just one kind of reporting. Sometimes describing the facts without embellishment really is what is called for---for example, when reporting on conference talks. There do exist much more analytical articles on LWN, but this isn't one of them; I don't think it was intended to be. It would be a disservice both to conference speakers and to us readers if the LWN staff added their own editorial salt and pepper when reporting on conference talks, don't you think? The LWN staff do occasionally get opinionated when writing proper editorial pieces that are not based on talks, but I think embellishing other people's talks could get somewhat dangerous. LWN is the only place where most of us get any coverage of these talks, so I'd rather read a neutral summary and make my own mind up about the speaker; and maybe read a proper opinion-piece about the broader issues afterward.

> To repeat that "numerous protection features were added" to Linux 4.6 for instance
> There is not a whiff of critical thinking present here

The whole article is repeating stuff, without thinking too hard about it, that's kind of the point; that's made quite clear by the liberal sprinklings of "Cook said..." throughout the article. You have totally valid reasons for finding some of the claims to be lacking in merit, but they are Cook's claims and I think that it's very unfair to be flaming the messenger about them.

> Another nice PR piece for the KSPP
> It's merely a paraphrasing of Kees' slides but given a deceiving disinterested third-person spin

I don't think that Jake was trying to imbue Cook's talk with any special air of legitimacy by affecting a disinterested (neutral) tone, and especially not pushing an agenda. Cook is surely pushing KSPP's agenda, which may or may not be a questionable one, and it's reasonable to discuss that. But this article cannot be said to be a PR piece; it reported on the talk in an impartial way, and again I think it's unfair to accuse the author of partiality.