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> no one would be discussing the above kinds of issues evaluating a POC Um, yeah, they would be communicating that it's a bad idea to put sensitive data into i

by dkarl 1y ago

> no one would be discussing the above kinds of issues evaluating a POC Um, yeah, they would be communicating that it's a bad idea to put sensitive data into it. You have to make that stuff explicit, or somebody will misuse it. I'm looking for the scandal here. Did the contractors misrepresent the prototype systems as being secure in ways they're not? Is the project behind schedule, and proper authorization controls were supposed to be implemented by now? Is the prototype system being improperly used to share sensitive data? Any of those would be concerning, but the article doesn't make any of those claims. All I see is, a prototype version of software doesn't have all the capability that it will need when it's finished.

toss1 1y ago
The scandal here is that multilevel security MUST be a core of the product from the outset The evaluations quoted in my previous comment shows it is VERY obvious the Army expected to see at least the capabilities to prevent "an adversary gaining persistent undetectable access”, expected to see capabilities preventing low-level users from accessing higher-clearance-level materials, and did not expect 25+ high-severity code vulnerabilities, and all of those expectations were failed by the suppliers. True, the article did not cite info about the exact specifications and expected operational readiness level at this date detailed in the contracts. However, we can safely assume the Army officers who wrote the scathing memo do have access to and understand the contractual expectations, and wrote the report in the proper context of the contractual expectations. Instead, you want to do a rhetorical sleight-of-hand to claim since the article necessarily is not a complete report (it's a short news article), the missing bits mean the Army officers are just speaking out of context and there is no scandal. That is wrong
- dkarl 1y ago
  Can we even safely assume that the memo was scathing? That's an interpretation by the reporter. You would think that they would be able to quote some damning fact or accusation from it, or at least some harsh language, if it really was "scathing."
  - toss1 1y ago
    Yes, we can safely assume that, since I was largely ignoring the press piece and directly using only the quotes from the Army Report. Below are some of the direct quotes from the Army Report quoted in the article. >> “fundamental security” problems and vulnerabilities, >> should be treated as a “very high risk >> “We cannot control who sees what, we cannot see what users are doing, and we cannot verify that the software itself is secure,” >> “very high risk” because of the “likelihood of an adversary gaining persistent undetectable access,” wrote Gabrielle Chiulli, the Army chief technology officer authorizing official. >> Any user can potentially access and misuse sensitive” >> One application revealed 25 high-severity code vulnerabilities. Three additional applications under review each contain over 200 vulnerabilities requiring assessment, according to the document. >> “Any user can potentially access and misuse sensitive” classified information, the memo states, with no logging to track their actions. The report on a supposedly secure communications system prototype contains these exact criticisms about 1) fundamental lack of access control for users of classified info at multiple levels, 2) complete lack of logging for any access authorized or unauthorized, and 3) likelihood of an adversary gaining persistent undetectable access. To anyone with a clue, this is exactly the opposite of what a secure military communications system needs. For people on a site who supposedly care about software quality to defend such obvious slop is ... surprising. It looks from this collection of quotes that Palantir and Anduril just tossed over some Slack/Discord clone and thought they'd "wow" the Army with the new (presumably to those backwards customers) tech and slap on some security later, and are now finding out their customer is a bit more sophisticated than they expected. There are very good reasons consumer tech is often unsuited for military use. (OFC, if the press piece is lying about the direct quotes and numbers from the document, we have an entirely different discussion, but no one here has argued that is the case)

by dkarl 1y ago

toss1 1y ago

The scandal here is that multilevel security MUST be a core of the product from the outset The evaluations quoted in my previous comment shows it is VERY obvious the Army expected to see at least the capabilities to prevent "an adversary gaining persistent undetectable access”, expected to see capabilities preventing low-level users from accessing higher-clearance-level materials, and did not expect 25+ high-severity code vulnerabilities, and all of those expectations were failed by the suppliers. True, the article did not cite info about the exact specifications and expected operational readiness level at this date detailed in the contracts. However, we can safely assume the Army officers who wrote the scathing memo do have access to and understand the contractual expectations, and wrote the report in the proper context of the contractual expectations. Instead, you want to do a rhetorical sleight-of-hand to claim since the article necessarily is not a complete report (it's a short news article), the missing bits mean the Army officers are just speaking out of context and there is no scandal. That is wrong

dkarl 1y ago
Can we even safely assume that the memo was scathing? That's an interpretation by the reporter. You would think that they would be able to quote some damning fact or accusation from it, or at least some harsh language, if it really was "scathing."
- toss1 1y ago
  Yes, we can safely assume that, since I was largely ignoring the press piece and directly using only the quotes from the Army Report. Below are some of the direct quotes from the Army Report quoted in the article. >> “fundamental security” problems and vulnerabilities, >> should be treated as a “very high risk >> “We cannot control who sees what, we cannot see what users are doing, and we cannot verify that the software itself is secure,” >> “very high risk” because of the “likelihood of an adversary gaining persistent undetectable access,” wrote Gabrielle Chiulli, the Army chief technology officer authorizing official. >> Any user can potentially access and misuse sensitive” >> One application revealed 25 high-severity code vulnerabilities. Three additional applications under review each contain over 200 vulnerabilities requiring assessment, according to the document. >> “Any user can potentially access and misuse sensitive” classified information, the memo states, with no logging to track their actions. The report on a supposedly secure communications system prototype contains these exact criticisms about 1) fundamental lack of access control for users of classified info at multiple levels, 2) complete lack of logging for any access authorized or unauthorized, and 3) likelihood of an adversary gaining persistent undetectable access. To anyone with a clue, this is exactly the opposite of what a secure military communications system needs. For people on a site who supposedly care about software quality to defend such obvious slop is ... surprising. It looks from this collection of quotes that Palantir and Anduril just tossed over some Slack/Discord clone and thought they'd "wow" the Army with the new (presumably to those backwards customers) tech and slap on some security later, and are now finding out their customer is a bit more sophisticated than they expected. There are very good reasons consumer tech is often unsuited for military use. (OFC, if the press piece is lying about the direct quotes and numbers from the document, we have an entirely different discussion, but no one here has argued that is the case)