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Comment by snowwolf | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I don't get this. The announcement on twitter contained zero information apart from "there's a remote code exec vulnerability on windows". Which I think you could confidently say at ANY point in time (about ANY system).

But Graham and others (https://twitter.com/taviso/status/861575086632968192) continue to attack Tavis for announcing the fact that there is a known vulnerability. As if this somehow makes users more insecure.

Surely it is better to alert people (and especially organisations) that a major security issue has been found so that they can be prepared to patch their systems as soon as a fix is released?

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He basically announced that he knows a secret worth millions. Criminals and state actors might do everything they can to get this secret, starting with trying to hack him, over bribing him, blackmailing him, serving him secret court orders, or even physically assaulting him with the famous wrench.

Even if you are a seasoned security researcher, saying "I know how to get into any Windows PC by sending someone to a website" paints a huge target on you.

Although the danger is kind of abstract, there is no security gain from tweeting about this, so I'd say he shouldn't have done it.

It's not worth millions if it's already been reported to Microsoft.

Tell that to the millions of people who won't have the patch before next week.

Why would they not have it until next week. Per the advisory, the engine update is part of the normal windows defender updates, which happen up to 3 times daily.

I just checked this morning, and I have the updated version already, and took no action.

Those millions would have had to have disabled windows defender updates in order to not get this update before next week.

It turns out the update is part of the Defender update, not windows update.

That's a much more frequent schedule.

Not sure about millions but many do have update for Windows turned off, due to Microsoft's security-trust-destroying habit of deploying invasive and undesired non-security updates automatically.

Windows 10 especially has a nasty streak with updates, and while security updates are smart, forcing new content updates, advertisements, and spyware into the Tuesday fast track teaches users that the only way to be safe from Microsoft is to not take software from them automatically.

File this one under "play stupid games - win stupid prizes".

Idiots like this are why Windows updates are completely forced in the first place. A couple generations of "experts" knew better and refused to let Windows update. Then billions of dollars were lost cleaning up worms that had already been patched, but people kept canceling the update dialog. See SqlSlammer, CodeRed, etc.

You had your chance to handle your own updates and proved that you cannot be trusted to do so. This is the next logical step.

Yes, if one wants safety, one got to be unsafe regarding the company who provides the infrastructure one paid for. One either has Internal-Adds or Internet-Aids. Or both.

One could of course get tarred and feathered until one looks like a penguin - but hey, who is that desperate. Lets ask that question again, the day such a exploit is rolled out world wide with a patch on his back.

Funny times.

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"You had your chance to handle your own updates and proved that you cannot be trusted to do so. This is the next logical step."

Personally, I would describe the user voluntarily allowing their computer to become infested with first party adware and spyware as winning the stupid prize, but your mileage may vary.

That's nonsense, and nobody would pay millions for this bug. What he did was really of no consequence at all.

I'd maybe disagree that there is "no security gain from tweeting about this". I think there is a security gain from warning people that an urgent security patch is on the way so they should prepare themselves/their organisation to deploy the patch as soon as it lands.

Now you could argue that a personal twitter account is not the best medium for this warning (maybe it should come directly from Google Project Zero or Microsoft), but Tavis does have a large sphere of influence, and I invariably hear about these things through him than via other sources so it is an effective medium.

Edit: Note, the argument here is whether his initial tweet (https://twitter.com/taviso/status/860679110728622080) constitutes disclosure - I don't think it does. The actual disclosure was handled according to Google Project Zero's policies.

At he end of the day you have to ask yourself if it's worth it. Security is a touchy topics and that's probably how you want it. Yes, you can argue that you're right, even objectively so, but there's going to be people who disagree. There only so much karma you can burn through before people, and often the people who are the most serious about it, leaves for some other route. And then you sit there ten years later and wonder why "people don't care".

You want to announce upcoming vulnerabilities, fine, do that. Be up front about it and make an argument for it so people see your motivations. Don't leave people guessing what's going to happen based on the mood of the day.

It's more of "I knew how to get into any Windows PC by sending someone to a website, but it's already been patched"

Much less desirable.

4 days ago when he posted about its existence on twitter, it hadn't been patched.

But the vendor was aware of the issue, and was already getting their ducks in a row. So it was largely useless to any adversary.

It's not a secret worth millions and nobody does any of that stuff for Windows RCE vulnerabilities.

I know comparatively little about this stuff, so please excuse the question if it's dumb...

If being alerted allows organisations to prepare to patch, surely it also allows malicious actors to prepare to exploit?

My lay gut feeling is this seems more a trade-off in publicity between the announcing party and the software provider, both wanting to be seen with the initiative so that they look good.

Malicious actors are far more proactive already about watching for security patches and reverse engineering them to work out how to exploit unpatched systems. Once a patch is released the cat is out the bag, and the only solution is to patch as quickly as possible.

> surely it also allows malicious actors to prepare to exploit?

"There is an RCE in Windows" is not helping anyone.

This is a tangent, but: Isn't it strange that in security, it feels ok to give an uninformed opinion?

I'm not calling you out -- quite the opposite. I like your comment because it admits to being uninformed. But for every comment like yours, there are dozens of tweets and HN comments that conceal their lay status while also having strong opinions.

In the tech world, this seems unique to security. For example, none of us would feel like we should have a say in how Rust rolls forward unless we're experts in Rust, or at least involved in Rust in some way. Yet there are many who feel they should have a say in whether Project Zero ought to do X or Y even without any experience. I wonder why?

I'd guess that security feels pretty personal to a lot of people. They may not be experts in the area, but maybe they run servers,- deal with sensitive data or just don't want their personal machines compromised. A poor approach to vulnerability disclosure for a zero-day could cause them real issues, whereas perhaps a language design decision is less critical.

I'm surprised you feel that way. Who here hasn't commented on an aspect of UI design, or UX, or Apple's roadmap or whether product X should be open source or comply with standard Z or whatever?

In case anyone here hasn't heard it, this supposed trait of engineers of overconfidence on other topics is sometimes referred to as Engineer "Woo"

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Engineers_and_woo

True, but as engineers, most of us have been at least peripherally involved in an aspect of UI design, or UX, or a product's roadmap, or choosing whether something should be open source or comply with a standard. But it seems like comparatively few of us have been involved with security in any way except perhaps doing our best not to write insecure code.

I don't think there's a difference in how willing people are to do it (e.g. I've definitely seen people who haven't touched Rust have strong opinions about it). However with security it's very easy to accidentally say something someone can show is clearly and unequivocally wrong, with decades of research in tow. A lot of other technical opinions on HN are ultimately up for debate.

You see the same thing with physics and mathematics here fairly often: every time quantum computing comes up some people ask some good questions, and then a bunch of people give them confident and embarrassingly wrong answers. Finally others (including me sometimes) shout them down. It's just less noticeable because those subjects are rare here compared to information security; tptacek and others are constantly fighting the good fight.

Because we all have potatos in the fire and are afraid of the guy with the gasoline canister dancing in circles.

Its just something you learn real fast if you Dev. Producing something, like a Ming-Vase is really hard. Shooting a Ming-vase to smithereens is really easy (ask your Son/Daughter for indoor soccer-practice).

So yeah, you are allowed to have a opinion on things you dont know about, but that your live/livestock depends on. Everyone gets to vote on police work without ever doing a degree in CSI.

Have you paid attention to these exploits the they produce? They're often not "easy". Also, if they are, that's the dev's fault, not theirs. Shooting the messenger to avoid responsibility, it never gets old...

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