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0 pointsdcow8y ago0 comments

I completely agree. But the vendor situation looks very different for software.

Imagine being the sole person responsible for migrating Linux from ip/nftables to ebtables. You don't know how your stuff will be used downstream. So you license it with text in all caps reminding people that your software is provided WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. And people still use it to build oil pipelines that bleed toxic goop when sent a really weird keepalive message.

I hope that the first place we see an uptick is security. The list has grown rather long: consumer/citizen identity breaches, hospital ransomware, digital asset theft, remote vehicle control, etc. Most security people I know are of the mindset that systems will be hacked. It's extremely.. pragmatic. You can't really fault the people responsible when many companies simply require good damage control over actual security in order to be successful.

But that's exactly the point. If the consequences were increased, not so many C[I]SOs would be okay with engineers using hot new software every few quarters. And those old boxes running Ruby 1.87 would sure as hell be patched or isolated to oblivion. Companies or projects with good security would flourish. Maybe some would be pressured to operate more like the archetype they're defending against (more red team, more organizational commitment to physical and operational security).

I worked at a security company that had to get rid of a slack bot screen lock game because it hurt some people's feels. So yeah I think some of the priorities in this industry are messed up.

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geocar8y ago

Those people who build oil pipelines should be able to sue whoever sold them the Linux distribution (probably Red Hat or IBM) which was vulnerable to that weird keepalive message.

In that case, a judge (and perhaps a jury) could hear how Red Hat did everything they possibly could to protect from the vulnerability as evidenced by their ISO QA processes and the fact that everyone else was vulnerable to the same "bug" … or from the other side how Microsoft and Apple weren't at-risk, so Red Hat should've caught it.

C[I]SOs would want to be patched, because ISO recommends they would be patched.

> You can't really fault the people responsible when many companies simply require good damage control over actual security in order to be successful.

Which is why I propose legislation, so "good damage control" wouldn't be enough.

You better believe that oil company would want some evidence of testing and proper specifications, and to have them reviewed by a couple independent parties if the government could take them for a percent of gross revenue for the security vulnerabilities alone.

ta765676568y ago

I disagree, unless RedHat certified that the software they're selling is of safety-critical quality. If the oil pipeline company used, let's say, nuts and bolts that didn't meet safety requirements without checking that the parts met the requirements or being assured by the vendor that they did, I would say they're the ones liable and not the vendor.

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