3 ms·
Microsoft's stance on zero day exploits is a dumpster fire of their own making
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> Hang on.. proof of concept exploit creation and distribution for zero days is “criminal activity” now? Publicly publishing an exploit is so obviously First Amendment-protected activity that it’s almost tempting to want a test case.
- bigfatkitten 4mo agoI’d love to see Microsoft try it on. The defence witnesses in any such trial are going to show up holding all kinds of receipts that Microsoft would prefer didn’t see the light of day.
- 1970-01-01 4mo agoStraight to jail for you, citizen. Distribution of 0day for lulz has been criminal since 2022. You're free to try and get away with it under any and all amendments. IANAL! https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/06/what-counts-as-good-faith-security-research/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/06/what-counts-as-good-fait...
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> Distribution of 0day for lulz has been criminal since 2022 Skimmed the article. Not seeing it support your claim.
- 1970-01-01 4mo agoResponsible disclosure is a normalized process in the courts. Skipping it opens you to, at very minimum, a plethora of civil lawsuits, including any and all the damages that resulted from skipping it. The odds are very much not great that you'll be OK.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo agoCivil, sure. The dispute is over criminal jurisdiction.
- dghlsakjg 4mo agoIs there actually a civil duty of care here? Responsible disclosure is an industry norm, but I don't really see how an independent researcher has a legal obligation to play by industry norms. If I discover that any product has a defect, I am free to blab about it all I want as long as it is truthful. There may be considerations beyond this if you are disclosing something discovered by breaking terms of service or by fucking with a computer that isn't yours, but discovering that your copy of windows on your machine has a flaw and telling people about it is protected.
- 1970-01-01 4mo agoYes. Simply publishing on GitHub makes it's a TOS violation. You're free to blab all you want. Just host it on your own server and maybe even your own ISP. The code will be protected, but the publishing is not!
- dghlsakjg 4mo ago“Our clickwrap terms of service prohibit users from talking about dangerous defects in our products without telling us and keeping it a secret for a month” is a hell of an argument to even attempt in front of a judge, let alone to be accepted. Again, there isn’t really any case law I can find suggesting that skipping responsible disclosure opens you to any legal liability - which is the argument being made here.
- 1970-01-01 4mo agoThe dispute is whether or not it is perfectly legal free speech. By simply publishing it on GitHub, it was a violation of a TOS and that right there opens it up to lawsuits from MS. You are free to go down this path and prove me wrong.
- avaer 4mo agoIt's also quite the blame gymnastics. The code that enables the bad actors was written, published, and distributed at massive scale by Microsoft. The "crime" they are accusing the researcher of is telling the world about it. It would be an interesting case if the defendant had good representation.
- rurban 4mo agoThe interesting case seen to be that the researcher apparently got laid off recently by this MS team, and thus has a 6 month NDA. Apparently he still tried to get bug bounties from inside knowledge of these criminal backdoors. That's what is being talked about behind. A true popcorn case if this would go to court. Would cause lot of governments to think about their backend choices.
- gremlinunderway 4mo agoRe-read the beginning of the First Amendment, because it's such a common mistake that I'm surprised people still make it: "Congress shall make no laws ... " The first amendment bars the *government* from infringing on your free speech. It has zero standing or bearing on private citizens or corporations. Which is why people crowing about it on social media or universities are completely oblivious to the fact that these organizations have absolutely zero responsibility to enable your free speech.
- avaer 4mo agoMicrosoft's blog is calling this criminal activity. They are threatening to bring in the government to go after this speech. This is a first amendment issue.
- snickerbockers 4mo agoThose are some very bold legal threats considering their founder is an epstein associate.
- 1970-01-01 4mo agoConsidering Bill hasn't been Microsoft CEO for only 2.6 decades, these things are probably directly related.
- keepupnow 4mo agoBill is still pulling the strings.
- 1970-01-01 4mo ago>Hang on.. proof of concept exploit creation and distribution for zero days is “criminal activity” now? This is what happens when you jump the gun and publish without doing any research. The author needs to lookup how the CFAA works. Now, yesterday, and a decade ago, you couldn't just drop some exploit and walk away rambling about your rights. Dumpster fire takes are everywhere online. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#Criminal_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#C...
- angry_octet 4mo agoYou're referring to completely tangential cases. Maybe you should look up who the author is.
- keepupnow 4mo agoHave respect for the researcher, they are incredibly talented and generous.
- 1970-01-01 4mo agoA bad take is a bad take.
- bigfatkitten 4mo agoNotice how the blog post is attributed to “MSRC Team”. The author (or their manager) is too cowardly to put their own name to the piece.
- TacticalCoder 4mo ago> Microsoft's stance on zero day exploits is a dumpster fire of their own making The words "'s stance on zero day exploits" are unnecessary in the above sentence.
- angry_octet 4mo agoIf you can't win the game, don't play by the rules.
- HDBaseT 4mo ago[flagged]
- xtajv 4mo ago[dead]
- h4kunamata 4mo agoSince Microsoft took over GitHub, everything went to shit. GitHub, dead! Windows, dead! Xbox, dead! Now security analysts blacklisted for disclosuring vulnerabilities. Wait until the big players decide to ditch Microsoft altogether, I mean, why help when you are penalized for it?? With Microsoft doing so many things wrong, and users migrating to Linux because even Windows softwares have become evil, and security analysts jumping ship, let me tell ya, Copilot or even Mythos won't save you. AI is as good as the data it was trained on while humans adapt on the fly.
- h4kunamata 4mo agoEDIT: This security analysts promised to release something big on July 14, 2026 Boy oh boy, Microsoft started a war they cannot afford to loose, and yet they already lost.
- justinclift 4mo agoIt's crazy MS are doing this after the US Gov people publicly lambasted them (ie https://www.inc.com/kit-eaton/why-a-former-white-house-cyber-director-called-microsoft-a-national-security-risk.html https://www.inc.com/kit-eaton/why-a-former-white-house-cyber...), with MS then promising to make security a core thing at MS to fix the problem. This isn't "fixing the problem" at all. It's the opposite of fixing the problem.
- bigfatkitten 4mo agoMicrosoft did make security a core thing, back in 2002, and they made enormous progress in improving their product security. https://www.wired.com/2002/01/bill-gates-trustworthy-computing/ https://www.wired.com/2002/01/bill-gates-trustworthy-computi... Nadella subsequently pushed security to the back seat.
- justinclift 4mo agoThe promise I'm talking about was 2024/2025, and we can see how that's gone. ;)