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> And in a piece of vital security infrastructure, trust is everything. Trust is based on an individual's experience over time. It can also be based on statist

> And in a piece of vital security infrastructure, trust is everything. Trust is based on an individual's experience over time. It can also be based on statistical observations over time. Statistically, nearly every single piece of software in use today has had a security hole in it at some point in time and many still have them. Audit or not, openssh is included in this fact. Today's infrastructure software is far too complex to ever be secure past a certain statistical threshold, at least without reinventing the way the Internet works. Your comments are curious given Teleport just came out. One comes to trust something by spending time with it first. You can't apply anti-trust to something just because it's not the same as something you do trust.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
It just came out, so I don't trust it yet. I'm waiting to see what security flaws arise, how the developers respond, etc. And yes, you do start out with anti-trust if you're replacing something I trust, because you then have to be at least that trustworthy to replace it.
GrinningFool 10y ago
>Your comments are curious given Teleport just came out. One comes to trust something by spending time with it first. You can't apply anti-trust to something just because it's not the same as something you do trust. I don't follow this line of reasoning. I was with you for the opening sentence - trust is a thing earned over time - and then you lost me. Statistically it is a near-certainty that OpenSSH does have undiscovered security holes. The trust that the maintainers have built over years makes me comfortable with that, because I know they will be rapidly addressed in a reasoned out manner. I don't see gp as applying anti-trust just because it is different from OpenSSH - I see it as the maintainers of Teleport not yet having earned the trust that the maintainers of OpenSSH have. And statistically as a new product with a new code base, Teleport is likely to have more security issues than an established product actively monitored for security flaws in the same space. So the issue is not a matter of "new and different is bad", so much as "new product and (relatively) unknown community behind it are unproven". Those two factors combined make it inherently less trustworthy in a space where trustworthiness is critical.
- kordless 10y ago
  The parent post is presenting conflicted information about trust. I find that both interesting and disgusting. I'm disgusted (fear + boredom) with it because I fear for the human race moving forward with existing centralized infrastructure. The boredom is a side effect of it involving trust and me not trusting it. I remain interested in talking about trust, however, so I'm conflicted myself. :) This is the basic argument they are making: > I don't trust it as much as I trust openssh...And in a piece of vital security infrastructure, trust is everything. This is an implicit statement that all infrastructure tends toward full trustworthiness by the increasing use of legacy software. It also implies that trusted infrastructure affects everyone (which is true). Together, this is a logical fallacy - infrastructure will never be 100% trustworthy and when it breaks it will not affect everyone the same. You yourself made that observation regarding holes in OpenSSH. It is anti-trust, or "inverse trust" (if one is a stickler for terms) when one attempts to publically imply their individual/internal trust of a thing is based on their societal/external trust of another thing which is being used in a mutually exclusive way. That itself is an anti-competitive practice, whether intentional or not. I think calling this flawed logic out is important when the subject is trust and security. There's a reason for the limit of causality in our universe. The lesson we can take from that limit would be to not apply inverse internal trust to something to prevent it's external use when using it is required to trust it.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    Allow me to clarify my opinion: I fail to see what's wrong with saying that a new piece of software hasn't yet earned the trust that an older piece of software has. However, I never said that it could not earn that trust. That's an assumption on your part. And I don't distrust Teleport because OpenSSH exists, I distrust Teleport because it hasn't proven its reputation yet. If OpenSSH didn't exist, I'd be saying the same things. The difference is, because OpenSSH does exist, I can make a comparison to piece of infrastructure I do trust. And I do agree that we cannot move forward with existing infrastructure, I just don't trust this particular piece of new infrastructure yet.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

It just came out, so I don't trust it yet. I'm waiting to see what security flaws arise, how the developers respond, etc. And yes, you do start out with anti-trust if you're replacing something I trust, because you then have to be at least that trustworthy to replace it.

GrinningFool 10y ago

>Your comments are curious given Teleport just came out. One comes to trust something by spending time with it first. You can't apply anti-trust to something just because it's not the same as something you do trust. I don't follow this line of reasoning. I was with you for the opening sentence - trust is a thing earned over time - and then you lost me. Statistically it is a near-certainty that OpenSSH does have undiscovered security holes. The trust that the maintainers have built over years makes me comfortable with that, because I know they will be rapidly addressed in a reasoned out manner. I don't see gp as applying anti-trust just because it is different from OpenSSH - I see it as the maintainers of Teleport not yet having earned the trust that the maintainers of OpenSSH have. And statistically as a new product with a new code base, Teleport is likely to have more security issues than an established product actively monitored for security flaws in the same space. So the issue is not a matter of "new and different is bad", so much as "new product and (relatively) unknown community behind it are unproven". Those two factors combined make it inherently less trustworthy in a space where trustworthiness is critical.

kordless 10y ago
The parent post is presenting conflicted information about trust. I find that both interesting and disgusting. I'm disgusted (fear + boredom) with it because I fear for the human race moving forward with existing centralized infrastructure. The boredom is a side effect of it involving trust and me not trusting it. I remain interested in talking about trust, however, so I'm conflicted myself. :) This is the basic argument they are making: > I don't trust it as much as I trust openssh...And in a piece of vital security infrastructure, trust is everything. This is an implicit statement that all infrastructure tends toward full trustworthiness by the increasing use of legacy software. It also implies that trusted infrastructure affects everyone (which is true). Together, this is a logical fallacy - infrastructure will never be 100% trustworthy and when it breaks it will not affect everyone the same. You yourself made that observation regarding holes in OpenSSH. It is anti-trust, or "inverse trust" (if one is a stickler for terms) when one attempts to publically imply their individual/internal trust of a thing is based on their societal/external trust of another thing which is being used in a mutually exclusive way. That itself is an anti-competitive practice, whether intentional or not. I think calling this flawed logic out is important when the subject is trust and security. There's a reason for the limit of causality in our universe. The lesson we can take from that limit would be to not apply inverse internal trust to something to prevent it's external use when using it is required to trust it.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  Allow me to clarify my opinion: I fail to see what's wrong with saying that a new piece of software hasn't yet earned the trust that an older piece of software has. However, I never said that it could not earn that trust. That's an assumption on your part. And I don't distrust Teleport because OpenSSH exists, I distrust Teleport because it hasn't proven its reputation yet. If OpenSSH didn't exist, I'd be saying the same things. The difference is, because OpenSSH does exist, I can make a comparison to piece of infrastructure I do trust. And I do agree that we cannot move forward with existing infrastructure, I just don't trust this particular piece of new infrastructure yet.