The fact that we know about it means we can take steps to mitigate the damage.
There is blame on both.
If you leave your key in your front door lock and I blast out on twitter your address and tell people about it, I think I have some responsibility.
Personally I think if you report through the proper channels and nothing is changed THEN broadcast, but not as an opener.
Other than buy an Apple product, the users did nothing intentional to undermine security.
Since this is a subjective argument, based more on historical instances of "responsible disclosure" and not law, I'm gonna lean in this case of it being Apple that failed
They built the entire "walled garden" without getting outside help. They want the control, they have billions of dollars, can hire whatever talent...
Failed to spot a password-less root login issue.
People need to know today to be even more cautious about using Apple gear in public places or around plain ol' tech jerks that like to fuck with people for a gag.
Society has no legal or moral obligation to make sure Apple stays in business.
Responsible disclosure is an interesting concept. How does this kind of disclosure make sure that the public knows about a company's track record of vulnerabilities, if everyone is under NDA and the company has no obligation to ever publicize it?
Now, if the reseacher could give a grace period, that's cool, but there MUST be a deadline by which stuff goes public. Hopefully the company fixes it and issues a postmortem first. If not - too bad!
It’s not like being good morally correlates with being good at security.
The main question that should be asked is, how did this get overlooked? How is it that your average website has better password security than the OS of one of the richest tech companies in the world?
To be fair to Apple, Microsoft had similar issues back in the 1990s. Perhaps it takes a string of security blunders for some tech companies to take security seriously.
You would hope the self-described twitter bio "Agile Software Craftsman" might have thought about this a little before tweeting.
Since we're just making up statements, I guarantee that Apple would never voluntarily disclose this issue if it was reported privately. So Full Disclosure is the only way to put Apple's feet to the fire, as it's the only way in which this issue would have had any visibility whatsoever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_disclosure_(computer_secu...
I'd lay responsibility at the lockmaker's door, not the guy who told everybody they were at the mercy of anyone with a toothpick.
That's not a faithful analogy. Apple isn't your neighbour. They are the landlord. The scenario is more like that the landlord uses bogus locks in your complex, and you post it on twitter. You could complain to them privately too, but given your past experiences perhaps, you thought that twitter would be a more effective medium.
There is no realistic way to keep a lid on something like that and so in this case the blame is entirely on Apple.
asejfwe8823 24 minutes ago [dead] [-]
A better analogy would be "if the lending bank left the door to your new house open..." Other than buy an Apple product, the users did nothing intentional to undermine security. Since this is a subjective argument, based more on historical instances of "responsible disclosure" and not law, I'm gonna lean in this case of it being Apple that failed They built the entire "walled garden" without getting outside help. They want the control, they have billions of dollars, can hire whatever talent... Failed to spot a password-less root login issue. People need to know today to be even more cautious about using Apple gear in public places or around plain ol' tech jerks that like to fuck with people for a gag. Society has no legal or moral obligation to make sure Apple stays in business.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/05/apple_joins_the_bug...
The idea of responsible disclosure is to minimize harm for you, the user. Not to minimize bad publicity.
> people are under no obligation to
> report vulns privately
Legal obligation, no, you're right. Moral obligation? Why not?