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Because, you can slander everyone who discovers vulnerabilities in your software, and you can even lobby to make it illegal to disclose those vulnerabilities, a
by deciplex 12y ago
Because, you can slander everyone who discovers vulnerabilities in your software, and you can even lobby to make it illegal to disclose those vulnerabilities, and throw people in prison over it, and so on... and your software will go right on being vulnerable. You can put every security researcher and white hat in the world in prison on trumped-up charges and throw away the keys, and it will not make your software one bit more secure.
It's like, even if I convince every human being alive that I am not bound by the laws of gravity, if I jump off a cliff I will die all the same. To think otherwise is insane, but for some reason when it comes to software (and hardware) security we give people like Ian Brightwell a pass.
- zaroth 12y agoI'm OK with something like, 'the people who targeted the site had an agenda to find a hole, they found one, and they were happy to find it. I'm happy to hear about it from them via responsible disclosure and to have fixed it promptly. That would be close enough to ideal for me, and it seems like that's pretty much what happened. If they denied the hole, or tried to cover it up, or did anything other than fix it immediately upon learning about it, really, that's the most we can hope for. Did they slander the researchers?
- deciplex 12y ago> Brightwell said fears over the system’s integrity were being fanned by “well-funded, well-managed anti-internet voting lobby groups”. I think this is a bad attitude, but I would agree that it could be (and too often is) a lot worse.