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That's not a fair comparison. DigitalOcean just needs to update some stuff to fix this issue. VW would need to recall millions of vehicles (10s billions $). You

by philtar 13y ago

That's not a fair comparison. DigitalOcean just needs to update some stuff to fix this issue. VW would need to recall millions of vehicles (10s billions $). You would do the same thing if you were in their position and had shareholders to worry about.

mikeash 13y ago
No, I certainly would not do the same thing, and to suggest otherwise is an insult. Let's not excuse bad behavior with this misguided idea that we're all equally bad.
- smtddr 13y ago
  So what is VW suppose to do? I'm actually truly curious. This flaw apparently will unlock many expensive cars. These cars' system cannot be replaced as quickly/cheaply as an sshd binary in a linux OS. I'm very curious, what other action could they have taken. They need him to be silent so they can figure out how to fix it before he make it public right? Is letting the public know the detailed exploit more important than the potential problems of the info being public?
  - mikeash 13y ago
    VW needs to come up with an immediate workaround that they can publish to owners or allow dealers to quickly hack in, then come up with a permanent fix after that buys them some time. The immediate workaround may not be possible. In that case, they're just screwed. A company is not entitled to be able to save themselves from the consequences of their past fuckups in all situations. Sometimes, a mistake costs a lot of money or even kills the company. Perhaps this is one. I find it unlikely that it's impossible to disable the keyless entry system on the cars in question. Surely there is some fuse or wire that can be pulled to shut it off. But it ultimately doesn't matter. Finding a workaround quickly is what they need to do, and if they can't do it, that's not his problem.
    - vacri 13y ago
      Your new solution of "fuck the company" actually harms the enduser even more. Some of them get the updated lock... then the company goes out of business, and now none of them can get official parts for their vehicles. It seems a solution for an ideal world, not the actual world.
      - mikeash 13y ago
        You'll note that I proposed other solutions first. To repeat myself: it is highly unlikely that there is not some possible workaround that temporarily disables the system, even if it's something as brute as snipping a wire. Even in the absolute worst case that the vulnerability is somehow built into the very fabric of the car, you can still secure it by removing all valuables from the interior and then clamping a wheel with a boot. Remove the boot once you figure out a fix. Inconvenient to the owner to be sure, but not impossible to deal with. Harm to the end user is not my priority. Harm to society is, and it's clear to me that the long-term chilling effects on academic research far outweigh any temporary harm from VM issuing a recall or even going bankrupt. The alternative is to say that entity B should suffer from a restriction on their free speech simply because entity A, due to their own negligence, finds it excessively costly. There are so many different ways this could be handled other than "threaten to throw the researcher in jail if he doesn't shut up". But they are all more inconvenient and costly to VW. One can understand why, then, VW would go for the "threaten" option, if we think of VW as a sort of non-moral profit-optimizing organism. But I certainly can't understand why anyone would defend it, let alone say that we would do the same thing.
        vacri 13y ago
        clamping a wheel with a boot. vs Harm to the end user is not my priority. Harm to society is Wholesale removal of personal transport (even 'while we work something out') is "harm to society". the long-term chilling effects on academic research Are you not overstating the significance of a paper? Does this paper hold the solution to free energy? The impending food crisis? Sure, it's not ideal, but let's not blow it out of proportion.
  - ihsw 13y ago
    They can open the specifications of the ECUs[1] and get involved with all car dealerships, maintenance franchises, insurance companies and whoever else. The goal being to educate them all on how to maintain, repair, and replace the ECUs that are at the heart of every automobile being deployed. Leaving the responsibility to fix these security flaws in the hands of the automobile manufacturers is dangerous and foolish, they simply don't have the means nor the interest to fix these security flaws. This is one of the most obvious cases where FLOSS shines -- everybody and anybody can fix their broken software because they know what's running on their machines and the machines are open and accessible to those that need it most: end-users. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_control_unit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_control_unit
  - jchavannes 13y ago
    I don't necessarily agree with the OP but here's how I see it. Yes, releasing this information would be harmful to both the company and the customers. But the principle is: "there is no safety net". And in the long run it will incentivize building higher quality products. e.g. When I golf, I refuse to take mulligans because it keeps me in a state of mind of, "this is my only chance". Whenever I break this rule, the rest of the day my golfing is worse.
- philtar 13y ago
  And here's one of the reasons why you're not the CEO of one of the largest corporations in the world. The biggest CEOs in the world are amoral (not immoral) a lot of the time. Also, the researcher wanted to disclose this information without VW having fixed it. DigitalOcean got the opportunity to fix their system. Do you know what VW's next step is?
glesica 13y ago
I would absolutely not do what they have done. But at the same time, I will probably never be the CEO of a large company. I suspect there is at least a weak causal relationship at work here...
ihsw 13y ago
It's the cost of doing business. They're putting insecure software into hundreds of thousands of cars, and every owner of that car has no control over the software that's running on them. Imagine if we applied the same logic to phones and other devices -- I wouldn't be surprised if you personally would be offended at the idea that you have little recourse over your phone being hacked remotely and you can't do a damn thing about it because the mobile handset manufacturer locked it down. Thankfully phones are subsidized, ubiquitous, and cheap, so you can take your phone anywhere and get it fixed/replaced. This is the future folks: locked down devices that you have no control over. Caveat: we're all plugging our phones into these insecure systems too. Wrap your brain around that for a second to see where I'm going with this.

by philtar 13y ago

mikeash 13y ago

No, I certainly would not do the same thing, and to suggest otherwise is an insult. Let's not excuse bad behavior with this misguided idea that we're all equally bad.

smtddr 13y ago
So what is VW suppose to do? I'm actually truly curious. This flaw apparently will unlock many expensive cars. These cars' system cannot be replaced as quickly/cheaply as an sshd binary in a linux OS. I'm very curious, what other action could they have taken. They need him to be silent so they can figure out how to fix it before he make it public right? Is letting the public know the detailed exploit more important than the potential problems of the info being public?
- mikeash 13y ago
  VW needs to come up with an immediate workaround that they can publish to owners or allow dealers to quickly hack in, then come up with a permanent fix after that buys them some time. The immediate workaround may not be possible. In that case, they're just screwed. A company is not entitled to be able to save themselves from the consequences of their past fuckups in all situations. Sometimes, a mistake costs a lot of money or even kills the company. Perhaps this is one. I find it unlikely that it's impossible to disable the keyless entry system on the cars in question. Surely there is some fuse or wire that can be pulled to shut it off. But it ultimately doesn't matter. Finding a workaround quickly is what they need to do, and if they can't do it, that's not his problem.
  - vacri 13y ago
    Your new solution of "fuck the company" actually harms the enduser even more. Some of them get the updated lock... then the company goes out of business, and now none of them can get official parts for their vehicles. It seems a solution for an ideal world, not the actual world.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      You'll note that I proposed other solutions first. To repeat myself: it is highly unlikely that there is not some possible workaround that temporarily disables the system, even if it's something as brute as snipping a wire. Even in the absolute worst case that the vulnerability is somehow built into the very fabric of the car, you can still secure it by removing all valuables from the interior and then clamping a wheel with a boot. Remove the boot once you figure out a fix. Inconvenient to the owner to be sure, but not impossible to deal with. Harm to the end user is not my priority. Harm to society is, and it's clear to me that the long-term chilling effects on academic research far outweigh any temporary harm from VM issuing a recall or even going bankrupt. The alternative is to say that entity B should suffer from a restriction on their free speech simply because entity A, due to their own negligence, finds it excessively costly. There are so many different ways this could be handled other than "threaten to throw the researcher in jail if he doesn't shut up". But they are all more inconvenient and costly to VW. One can understand why, then, VW would go for the "threaten" option, if we think of VW as a sort of non-moral profit-optimizing organism. But I certainly can't understand why anyone would defend it, let alone say that we would do the same thing.
      - vacri 13y ago
        clamping a wheel with a boot. vs Harm to the end user is not my priority. Harm to society is Wholesale removal of personal transport (even 'while we work something out') is "harm to society". the long-term chilling effects on academic research Are you not overstating the significance of a paper? Does this paper hold the solution to free energy? The impending food crisis? Sure, it's not ideal, but let's not blow it out of proportion.
- ihsw 13y ago
  They can open the specifications of the ECUs[1] and get involved with all car dealerships, maintenance franchises, insurance companies and whoever else. The goal being to educate them all on how to maintain, repair, and replace the ECUs that are at the heart of every automobile being deployed. Leaving the responsibility to fix these security flaws in the hands of the automobile manufacturers is dangerous and foolish, they simply don't have the means nor the interest to fix these security flaws. This is one of the most obvious cases where FLOSS shines -- everybody and anybody can fix their broken software because they know what's running on their machines and the machines are open and accessible to those that need it most: end-users. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_control_unit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_control_unit
- jchavannes 13y ago
  I don't necessarily agree with the OP but here's how I see it. Yes, releasing this information would be harmful to both the company and the customers. But the principle is: "there is no safety net". And in the long run it will incentivize building higher quality products. e.g. When I golf, I refuse to take mulligans because it keeps me in a state of mind of, "this is my only chance". Whenever I break this rule, the rest of the day my golfing is worse.
philtar 13y ago
And here's one of the reasons why you're not the CEO of one of the largest corporations in the world. The biggest CEOs in the world are amoral (not immoral) a lot of the time. Also, the researcher wanted to disclose this information without VW having fixed it. DigitalOcean got the opportunity to fix their system. Do you know what VW's next step is?

glesica 13y ago

I would absolutely not do what they have done. But at the same time, I will probably never be the CEO of a large company. I suspect there is at least a weak causal relationship at work here...

ihsw 13y ago

It's the cost of doing business. They're putting insecure software into hundreds of thousands of cars, and every owner of that car has no control over the software that's running on them. Imagine if we applied the same logic to phones and other devices -- I wouldn't be surprised if you personally would be offended at the idea that you have little recourse over your phone being hacked remotely and you can't do a damn thing about it because the mobile handset manufacturer locked it down. Thankfully phones are subsidized, ubiquitous, and cheap, so you can take your phone anywhere and get it fixed/replaced. This is the future folks: locked down devices that you have no control over. Caveat: we're all plugging our phones into these insecure systems too. Wrap your brain around that for a second to see where I'm going with this.