5 ms·

What is the thing being implied? Like as far as I can tell, Google's position seems to be that "it is best if vuln researchers have the freedom to disclose unfi

What is the thing being implied? Like as far as I can tell, Google's position seems to be that "it is best if vuln researchers have the freedom to disclose unfixed issues, especially after reporting them". People criticize P0 for publishing issues despite companies asking for extensions. But we're criticizing Google here for...what? They didn't ask for an extension, they didn't try to prevent this person from disclosing. Where is the hypocritical thing?

staticassertion 5y ago
They didn't fix it within that timeline. I don't know why everyone is saying "well they didn't stop disclosure in 90 days", but they didn't fix it in the timeline that they have allocated as being reasonable for all vulns they report.
- jsnell 5y ago
  At the limit, what you're saying would mean that vendors should feel obligated to fix issues they don't consider to be vulnerabilities, as long as they're reported as such. That'd clearly be absurd. Is there maybe some additional qualifying factor that's required to trigger this obligation that you've left implicit?
  - staticassertion 5y ago
    > what you're saying would mean that vendors should feel obligated to fix issues they don't consider to be vulnerabilities Why would it? > Is there maybe some additional qualifying factor that's required to trigger this obligation that you've left implicit? That they consider it a vulnerability seems fine.
    - jsnell 5y ago
      If you're leaving the determination to the vendor, they could just avoid the deadline by claiming it is not a vulnerability. That seems like a bad incentive. There are things that literally cannot be fixed, or where the risk of the fix is higher than the risk of leaving the vulnerability open. (Even if it is publicly disclosed!) It seems that we're all better off when these two concerns are not artificially coupled. A company can both admit that something is a vulnerability, and not fix it, if that's the right tradeoff. They're of course paying the PR cost of being seen as having unfixed security bugs, and an even bigger PR cost if the issue ends up being exploited and causes damage. But that's just part of the tradeoff computation.
      - staticassertion 5y ago
        I don't know what point you're trying to make here. Google acknowledges that this is a vulnerability ("nice catch"), Google pushes every other company to fix vulns in 90 days (or have it publicly disclosed, which is based on the assumption that vulns can be fixed in that time), and Google did not fix it in 90 days. If you're asking me to create a perfect framework for disclosure, I'm not interested in doing that, and it's completely unnecessary to make a judgment of this single scenario. > A company can both admit that something is a vulnerability, and not fix it, if that's the right tradeoff. Google's 90 days policy is designed explicitly to give companies ample time to patch. And yes, this is them paying the PR cost - I am judging them negatively in this discussion because I agree with their 90 day policy.
        jsnell 5y ago
        I am saying that there are things that are technically vulnerabilities that are not worth fixing. Either they are too risky or expensive to fix, or too impractical to exploit, or too limited in damage to actually worry about. Given the line you drew was that there must be a fix in 90 days, if the company agrees it is a vulnerability, the logical conclusion is that the companies would end up claiming "not a vulnerability" when they mean WONTFIX. If you think this particular issue should have been fixed within a given timeline, it should be on the merits of the issue itself. Not just by following a "everything must be fixed in 90 days" dogma. All that the repeated invocations of PZ have achieved is drown out any discussion on the report itself. How serious/exploitable is it actually, how would it be mitigated/fixed, what might have blocked that being done, etc. Seems like those would have been far more interesting discussions than a silly game of gotcha. (If you believe there is no such thing as a vulnerability that cannot be fixed, or that's not worth fixing, then I don't know that we'll find common ground.)
        staticassertion 5y ago
        > Given the line you drew was that there must be a fix in 90 days, if the company agrees it is a vulnerability, the logical conclusion is that the companies would end up claiming "not a vulnerability" when they mean WONTFIX. OK, but that doesn't apply here, which is why I don't get why you're bringing up general policy issues in this specific instance. Google did acknowledge the vulnerability, as noted in the disclosure notes in the repo. So like, let me just clearly list out some facts: * Project 0 feels that 90 days is a good timeline for the vast majority of vulns to be patched (this is consistent with their data, and appears accurate) * This issue was acknowledged by Google, though perhaps not explicitly as a vulnerability, all that I can see is that they ack'd it with "Good catch" - I take this as an ack of vulnerability * This issue is now 3x the 90 day window that P0 considers to be sufficient in the vast majority of cases to fix vulnerabilities I don't see why other information is supposed to be relevant. Yes, vendors in some hypothetical situation may feel the incentive to say "WONTFIX" - that has nothing to do with this scenario and has no bearing on the facts. > If you think this particular issue should have been fixed within a given timeline, it should be on the merits of the issue itself. That's not P0s opinion in the vast majority of cases - only in extreme cases, to my knowledge, do they break from their 90 day disclosure policy. > Not just by following a "everything must be fixed in 90 days" dogma. Dogma here is quite helpful. I see no reason to break from it in this instance. > Seems like those would have been far more interesting discussions than a silly game of gotcha. I'm not saying "gotcha", I'm saying that: a) 9 months to fix this feels very high, Google should explain why it took so long to restore confidence b) The fact that they have an internal culture of 90 days being a good time frame for patching purely makes it ironic - it is primarily the fact that I think this should have been patched much more quickly that would bother me as a customer. > (If you believe there is no such thing as a vulnerability that cannot be fixed, or that's not worth fixing, then I don't know that we'll find common ground.) Nope, 100% there are vulns that can't be fixed, vulns that aren't worth fixing, etc. But again, Google didn't say this was a "WONTFIX" though, and they did ack that this is a vuln. If it wasn't possible to fix it they could say so, but that isn't what they said at all, they just said they weren't prioritizing it. If it's the case that this simply isn't patchable, they should say so. If they think this doesn't matter, why not say so? It certainly seems patchable.
sirdarckcat 5y ago
Might be worth noting, 90 days are how long Google thinks it is reasonable to keep vulnerabilities secret without a fix. The longer it is kept secret, the benefits of the public knowing about it outweigh the risks. Not all vulnerabilities can be fixed in 90 days, but they can be disclosed.
dataflow 5y ago
The complaint is that Google's stance with Project Zero is "90 days is plenty sufficient; you're a bad vendor if you can't adhere to it", and then Google itself doesn't adhere to it, which implicates themselves here. I see what they're saying if you lump them together; I just think it makes sense to treat P0 a little independently from Google. But otherwise it's got a point.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  Can you point out the second part, specifically where "you're a bad vendor if..." is either stayed or implied py P0? See instead https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27680941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27680941, which is my understanding of the stance p0 takes.
  - dataflow 5y ago
    > See instead https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27680941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27680941, which is my understanding of the stance p0 takes. That's a common sentiment I just don't buy. People here love to hand-wave about some vague "benefit to the public", and maybe there is some benefit when the vulnerability can be mitigated on the user side, but it literally cannot be the case for the fraction of vulnerabilities that entities other than the vendor can do nothing about. The only "benefit" is it satisfies peoples' curiosity, which is a terrible way to do security. Yet P0 applies that policy indiscriminately. > Can you point out the second part, specifically where "you're a bad vendor if..." is either stayed or implied py P0? As to your question of when this is implied by P0, to me their actions and lack of a compelling rationale for their behavior I explained above is already plenty enough to imply it. But if you won't believe something unless it's in an actual quote from themselves, I guess here's something you can refer to [1]: - "We were concerned that patches were taking a long time to be developed and released to users" - "We used this model of disclosure for over a decade, and the results weren't particularly compelling. Many fixes took over six months to be released, while some of our vulnerability reports went unfixed entirely!" - "We were optimistic that vendors could do better, but we weren't seeing the improvements to internal triage, patch development, testing, and release processes that we knew would provide the most benefit to users." - "If most bugs are fixed in a reasonable timeframe (i.e. less than 90 days), [...]" All the "reasonable time frame (i.e. < 90 days)", "your users aren't getting what they need", "your results aren't compelling", "you can do better", etc. are basically semi-diplomatic ways of saying you're a bad vendor when you're not meeting their "reasonable" 90-day timeline. [1] https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/p/vulnerability-disclosure-faq.html https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/p/vulnerability-discl...

staticassertion 5y ago

They didn't fix it within that timeline. I don't know why everyone is saying "well they didn't stop disclosure in 90 days", but they didn't fix it in the timeline that they have allocated as being reasonable for all vulns they report.

jsnell 5y ago
At the limit, what you're saying would mean that vendors should feel obligated to fix issues they don't consider to be vulnerabilities, as long as they're reported as such. That'd clearly be absurd. Is there maybe some additional qualifying factor that's required to trigger this obligation that you've left implicit?
- staticassertion 5y ago
  > what you're saying would mean that vendors should feel obligated to fix issues they don't consider to be vulnerabilities Why would it? > Is there maybe some additional qualifying factor that's required to trigger this obligation that you've left implicit? That they consider it a vulnerability seems fine.
  - jsnell 5y ago
    If you're leaving the determination to the vendor, they could just avoid the deadline by claiming it is not a vulnerability. That seems like a bad incentive. There are things that literally cannot be fixed, or where the risk of the fix is higher than the risk of leaving the vulnerability open. (Even if it is publicly disclosed!) It seems that we're all better off when these two concerns are not artificially coupled. A company can both admit that something is a vulnerability, and not fix it, if that's the right tradeoff. They're of course paying the PR cost of being seen as having unfixed security bugs, and an even bigger PR cost if the issue ends up being exploited and causes damage. But that's just part of the tradeoff computation.
    - staticassertion 5y ago
      I don't know what point you're trying to make here. Google acknowledges that this is a vulnerability ("nice catch"), Google pushes every other company to fix vulns in 90 days (or have it publicly disclosed, which is based on the assumption that vulns can be fixed in that time), and Google did not fix it in 90 days. If you're asking me to create a perfect framework for disclosure, I'm not interested in doing that, and it's completely unnecessary to make a judgment of this single scenario. > A company can both admit that something is a vulnerability, and not fix it, if that's the right tradeoff. Google's 90 days policy is designed explicitly to give companies ample time to patch. And yes, this is them paying the PR cost - I am judging them negatively in this discussion because I agree with their 90 day policy.
      - jsnell 5y ago
        I am saying that there are things that are technically vulnerabilities that are not worth fixing. Either they are too risky or expensive to fix, or too impractical to exploit, or too limited in damage to actually worry about. Given the line you drew was that there must be a fix in 90 days, if the company agrees it is a vulnerability, the logical conclusion is that the companies would end up claiming "not a vulnerability" when they mean WONTFIX. If you think this particular issue should have been fixed within a given timeline, it should be on the merits of the issue itself. Not just by following a "everything must be fixed in 90 days" dogma. All that the repeated invocations of PZ have achieved is drown out any discussion on the report itself. How serious/exploitable is it actually, how would it be mitigated/fixed, what might have blocked that being done, etc. Seems like those would have been far more interesting discussions than a silly game of gotcha. (If you believe there is no such thing as a vulnerability that cannot be fixed, or that's not worth fixing, then I don't know that we'll find common ground.)
        staticassertion 5y ago
        > Given the line you drew was that there must be a fix in 90 days, if the company agrees it is a vulnerability, the logical conclusion is that the companies would end up claiming "not a vulnerability" when they mean WONTFIX. OK, but that doesn't apply here, which is why I don't get why you're bringing up general policy issues in this specific instance. Google did acknowledge the vulnerability, as noted in the disclosure notes in the repo. So like, let me just clearly list out some facts: * Project 0 feels that 90 days is a good timeline for the vast majority of vulns to be patched (this is consistent with their data, and appears accurate) * This issue was acknowledged by Google, though perhaps not explicitly as a vulnerability, all that I can see is that they ack'd it with "Good catch" - I take this as an ack of vulnerability * This issue is now 3x the 90 day window that P0 considers to be sufficient in the vast majority of cases to fix vulnerabilities I don't see why other information is supposed to be relevant. Yes, vendors in some hypothetical situation may feel the incentive to say "WONTFIX" - that has nothing to do with this scenario and has no bearing on the facts. > If you think this particular issue should have been fixed within a given timeline, it should be on the merits of the issue itself. That's not P0s opinion in the vast majority of cases - only in extreme cases, to my knowledge, do they break from their 90 day disclosure policy. > Not just by following a "everything must be fixed in 90 days" dogma. Dogma here is quite helpful. I see no reason to break from it in this instance. > Seems like those would have been far more interesting discussions than a silly game of gotcha. I'm not saying "gotcha", I'm saying that: a) 9 months to fix this feels very high, Google should explain why it took so long to restore confidence b) The fact that they have an internal culture of 90 days being a good time frame for patching purely makes it ironic - it is primarily the fact that I think this should have been patched much more quickly that would bother me as a customer. > (If you believe there is no such thing as a vulnerability that cannot be fixed, or that's not worth fixing, then I don't know that we'll find common ground.) Nope, 100% there are vulns that can't be fixed, vulns that aren't worth fixing, etc. But again, Google didn't say this was a "WONTFIX" though, and they did ack that this is a vuln. If it wasn't possible to fix it they could say so, but that isn't what they said at all, they just said they weren't prioritizing it. If it's the case that this simply isn't patchable, they should say so. If they think this doesn't matter, why not say so? It certainly seems patchable.

sirdarckcat 5y ago

Might be worth noting, 90 days are how long Google thinks it is reasonable to keep vulnerabilities secret without a fix. The longer it is kept secret, the benefits of the public knowing about it outweigh the risks. Not all vulnerabilities can be fixed in 90 days, but they can be disclosed.

dataflow 5y ago

The complaint is that Google's stance with Project Zero is "90 days is plenty sufficient; you're a bad vendor if you can't adhere to it", and then Google itself doesn't adhere to it, which implicates themselves here. I see what they're saying if you lump them together; I just think it makes sense to treat P0 a little independently from Google. But otherwise it's got a point.

joshuamorton 5y ago
Can you point out the second part, specifically where "you're a bad vendor if..." is either stayed or implied py P0? See instead https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27680941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27680941, which is my understanding of the stance p0 takes.
- dataflow 5y ago
  > See instead https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27680941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27680941, which is my understanding of the stance p0 takes. That's a common sentiment I just don't buy. People here love to hand-wave about some vague "benefit to the public", and maybe there is some benefit when the vulnerability can be mitigated on the user side, but it literally cannot be the case for the fraction of vulnerabilities that entities other than the vendor can do nothing about. The only "benefit" is it satisfies peoples' curiosity, which is a terrible way to do security. Yet P0 applies that policy indiscriminately. > Can you point out the second part, specifically where "you're a bad vendor if..." is either stayed or implied py P0? As to your question of when this is implied by P0, to me their actions and lack of a compelling rationale for their behavior I explained above is already plenty enough to imply it. But if you won't believe something unless it's in an actual quote from themselves, I guess here's something you can refer to [1]: - "We were concerned that patches were taking a long time to be developed and released to users" - "We used this model of disclosure for over a decade, and the results weren't particularly compelling. Many fixes took over six months to be released, while some of our vulnerability reports went unfixed entirely!" - "We were optimistic that vendors could do better, but we weren't seeing the improvements to internal triage, patch development, testing, and release processes that we knew would provide the most benefit to users." - "If most bugs are fixed in a reasonable timeframe (i.e. less than 90 days), [...]" All the "reasonable time frame (i.e. < 90 days)", "your users aren't getting what they need", "your results aren't compelling", "you can do better", etc. are basically semi-diplomatic ways of saying you're a bad vendor when you're not meeting their "reasonable" 90-day timeline. [1] https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/p/vulnerability-disclosure-faq.html https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/p/vulnerability-discl...