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Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 16:45:29 -0500
From: dmc <dmc.osssec@...udsession.com>
To: oss-security@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: liability
Disclaimer: My first post to the list. That said I'd like to highlight
some 'tinfoil hat' angles to the otherwise insightful comments from Solar-
On 10/09/2014 03:12 PM, Solar Designer wrote:
> I ended up writing a lengthy message (this one), but I am unsure if it's
> a good idea to have this topic discussed once again (such discussions
> had already occurred on other mailing lists years ago). In fact, that's
> the main point I am making - while I've just spent/wasted some time on
> writing the below, maybe we should stop right here? So if anyone has
> something new or some important historical references to add, please feel
> free to post, but I'd rather not see us digress into (I think) mostly
> irrelevant analogies in financial markets, with even more irrelevant
> detail on the French trader (referring to Sven's other posting here).
>
> I mention some paywalled articles below. If anyone has URLs to free
> copies of those, please post.
>
> On Thu, Oct 09, 2014 at 11:11:34AM +0200, Sven Kieske wrote:
>> so at least when you're making money of software you should
>> be responsible for this software.
>
> That's tricky. Is an Open Source project that accepts donations, sells
> CDs/DVDs, or/and runs ads on the website "making money"? What if they
> also offer related paid services or even occasionally sell commercial
> licenses to the same software? Would they be liable e.g. for up to all
> payments they ever received (or more?), even if 99.9% of the users never
> paid anything? That may easily put them "out of business", or
> discourage them from starting the project in the first place.
>
> Of course, you can hope to reduce undesired effects of a new law by
> careful wording, listing categories of software it does or/and does not
> apply to, etc. However, getting the legal system involved at all is a
> huge risk... yet you'd like to use it to reduce risk elsewhere? The
> legal system is already akin to an over-engineered software program, and
> you're proposing to make it even more complex (more buggy, and requiring
> more resources to run). What's worse, you don't get to write that
> "program", and you can't replace it on your "computer" with some
> alternative (short of moving to another jurisdiction, and even that
> option might disappear if the law becomes universally accepted). You
> can request a "feature", and if the powers that be listen, they'll
> implement that "feature" in some arbitrary way that you might not like,
> yet all of us would be stuck with it. In my opinion, this is extreme
> danger, possibly way beyond the risk from software vulnerabilities (to
> the extent that risk could be reduced by such measures). Indeed, these
> are different types of risks, so a direct comparison of this sort may
> only make sense in specific contexts (e.g., effect on a country's
> economy or on people's quality of life analyzed in some specific way).
>
> I am not saying I am strictly against this approach, although that is my
> current stance given the (frankly) rather limited impact that software
> vulnerabilities actually have on us so far despite of being widespread.
Here is where a tinfoil hatter like myself has to disagree. No, as a TH
I have no 'proof' of the widespread impact I believe exists. But
neither did any us about the the fears that Snowden gave 'proof' of
years after much rational distrust and reasoned threat assessments by
THs like myself.
I 'believe' (call it a cyber religious belief) that the impact of
software vulnerabilities on us is hardly 'limited' in the sense you
suggest. I 'believe' that organized criminal groups, including the CIA,
the NSA, the Mafia, the Triads, and others have already used these
software vulnerabilities to collect a Kompromat database on everyone in
the world. I 'believe' this because I have a degree in computer
engineering, and I've smoked a lot of cannabis, and I have a deviously
creative mind. For years prior to Snowden, I was certain the sorts of
shenanigans that Snowden revealed were taking place. My only evidence
was my own knowledge of the sorts of things that were technically
possible, and a view of the sorts of things the human race was known to
have done repeatedly in the past. (and some exposure to the culture of
silicon valley)
Even today, there are nuanced aspects of how the Snowden thing is
playing out that lead me to be ever more certain that more nefarious
things are going on (read: Kompromat based control of global and local
politics). Just the way certain stories are more and less covered and
how they are covered. Certain things don't make sense to me outside the
possibility that key elements are still being withheld from the public
discourse for no other reason I can imagine than threats of violence or
economic persecution against those that would elevate them in the public
discussion. Go read a timeline of snowden in 20 years akin to the
shellshock timeline recently discussed here. There are things that make
no _reasonable_ sense. There is some heinously big shit going on here.
I.e. I strongly believe that despite all the rhetoric, the U.S.
government has, and continues to _shield_ the citizenry of the world
from the extent of (tying back into topic) "the (not so limited) impact
of software vulnerabilities".
The idea that organized criminal outfits, in league with, or under the
moniker of the NSA/CIA/FBI might already be controlling US politics with
a Kompromat database of dirty laundry intercepts, is something that you
aren't going to hear about in a presidential debate or on the pages of
the NYT.
Again, I have no proof of this. I just have a mother that grew up in
and around Berlin throughout WW2, and a knowledge of the history of the
East German Stasi. And COINTELPRO, SNOWDEN, COTTONMOUTH, etc, etc, etc.
Anyway, TL;DR, tinfoil hat, whatever. I just felt the need to vent,
because I agreed with the overall insightfulness of the rest of the
comments. But a difference in perception on the limited issue of how
software vulnerabilities have really impacted global human life, can
make a lot of difference to how you look at things.
Take BadUSB for instance. I have no evidence that
NSA/CIA/FBI/Mafia/Triads are crawling around my firmwares. I just know
the sorts of things they could accomplish with a few key bribes and
threats to employees of tech firms, and the tech firms whose tech the
other tech firms use to develop and deploy their tech. And what they
could do with the ability to record from the microphones of every wifi
connected laptop with a built in mic, and mobile phone. Even if they
lacked the storage requirements to collect an en-masse Kompromat
database that includes my own privacy being violated, the fact that they
can leverage privacy violations against today's 14 year old boys and
girls who will become the mayors and senators of the next generation...
scares the living shit out of me. I pretty much assume it was already
done to past generations, and is responsible for much of the shape of
the current world structure. The current world structure which leads to
issues like security vulnerabilities from closed source firmwares being
swept under the rug, and assured as not having a serious impact on our
lives. So that we don't decide to fundamentally reevaluate the big
picture in a way that will actually cause any meaningful change.
> (I think the negative impact of introducing liability for software
> vulnerabilities might well be broader.) What I am saying is that it's a
> really tough tradeoff, and that in my opinion anyone who feels confident
> about it is either wrong in being so confident or has values different
> from mine.
Wise words. In some sense as I get older, I get less confident in my
paranoid conspiracy theories. On the other hand-
Snowden/PRISM/ParallelConstruction/Stasi/etc...
$0.02... Don't kill the messenger...
-dmc
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