Comment by peterwwillis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by peterwwillis | Hacker News Reader

Just to further underline why Google is a dick here: this is the issue tracking the vuln https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/112630336

Timeline:

  8/15/2018: Google reports issue to Epic
  8/15/2018: Epic begins investigating
  8/15/2018: Epic confirms bug and begins working on fix
  8/16/2018: Epic is testing the fix
  8/16/2018: Epic begins deploying fix
  8/16/2018: Epic asks for full 90-day period to deploy and test the fix
  
  8/24/2018: Google finally replies: "now the patched version of Fortnite Installer has been available for 7 days we will proceed to unrestrict this issue in line with Google's standard disclosure practices"

They literally waited until the last minute to go, no, sorry, we're not waiting, it's full-disclosure time, :trollface:

Epic noted in the article that the game won't auto-update until the user runs it. So they clearly would have needed to inform users that didn't play regularly to get the update. However, Epic could have notified its own users when they were ready, rather than Google outing them by default.

If Google had replied, like, 7 days earlier, and said "sorry we're not waiting", maybe Epic could have made different decisions, knowing they wouldn't get the time they requested. It's clear that Epic worked their asses off to churn out a patch. They could have announced within that time if this was properly coordinated.

Whether this was just Google being indifferent to a company's reputation, or an active attempt to penalize Epic for not forking over 30% of their revenue, is left up to the reader. But Google acting in the interest of users is not a defense here, because Google just ignored Epic and then fulldisc'd.

No, they didn't wait until the last minute. Read their description, it is the last two lines, they did warn Epic.

Here, I'll quote it for you:

> [NOTE: This bug is subject to a 90-day disclosure deadline. After 90 days elapse or a patch has been made broadly available, the bug report - including any comments and attachments - will become visible to the public.]

Google waited a full week after the patch has been made available then they disclosed it.

"After 90 days elapse or a patch has been made broadly available"

This incentivizes companies not to announce their patches, not to coordinate with Google, and to only update in secret, because as soon as they tell Google they have a patch, the clock runs down in 7 days, rather than 90. This is a dangerous policy.

No, it isn't.

Anyone can break apart the patch and figure out what was changed, meaning they can figure out the security issue and take advantage of it. At this point, both Epic and Google are at fault for not disclosing the details and warning people to update right away.

There is usually a big difference time and yield in creating exploits from random binary updates and doing the same from disclosures. The amount of people who dissect, or even can dissect, updates are far less than everyone who follows disclosures. So I don't think that argument makes much sense in this scenario.

Normally I agree but this is Fortnite, massive profits all the time. Just a few hours worth of exploit can gain some a chunk of cash.

Epic is at fault, maybe, for not e-mailing Google every single day asking that they coordinate the announcement better. Google is at fault for not responding for 7 days and then disclosing, and is at fault for having a policy that makes announcing patches dangerous.

If you think people should be warned right away, Epic should have the right to notify its own users, and Google should have the basic decency to reply to a request to coordinate.

Nope, Google is not obligated to reply at all nor do they have any obligation to hold on these announcements. There are no faults for Google here. Their 90-day policy is just a courtesy call that comes with an exception, the moment a patch is made available, the disclosure will be made public. Google is not being paid nor asked by Epic to find reports, Epic has no rights to anything.

Google found the bug, they have the right to disclose it however they want. There are no legal standards anywhere that requires anyone to do anything with bug reports.

Epic doesn't have any rights here, it sucks but they're not entitled to anything. I hate this because I've experienced this from Google before (at work), I would love to have that right to hold up to 90 days before we can notify people but until there are legal standards, there is no right.

> Google is not obligated to reply at all

They have an ethical obligation. Security disclosures have major ethical concerns. If you're acting unethically, you are a dick.

Sure, Epic doesn't have any rights here. But we don't need a law to know people [and corporations] should not be dicks.

Google could have been more ethical by replying to the vendor after making their initial communication. They chose not to.

> They have an ethical obligation. Security disclosures have major ethical concerns. If you're acting unethically, you are a dick.

You are correct in that Google has an ethical obligation; and they and met it by protecting all Android users. I would say that Google making this announcement lets all Android users know that its not safe to just randomly install apps on your phone. Yes, they allow it, but at the same time the public is genuinely ignorant of any type of security practices.

> Google is not obligated to reply at all nor do they have any obligation to hold on these announcements. There are no faults for Google here.

This is a non-sequitur. You are equivocating between legal obligation and ethical obligation.

Their ethical obligation would also be to err towards full disclosure, not away from it.

Google's original view of the situation was that installers like this make devices measurably less secure (to which Epic's response was pretty meh), and the installer being exploitable to install pretty much anything only proved that point and then some.

...and frankly, it would not matter who wrote the installer if it got used for a mass infection and attack. Google would still get the bad press and a generous helping of blame because of the trashy way so many "tech reporters" behave to get those mouse clicks.

Google independently discovered the issue, Google can therefore independently verify if a patch has fixed it with or without Epic's information.

No, look at "broadly available" part of the sentence you quoted.

It would be reasonable to tell Google that they have a patch, show them the patch, and tell that's going to be released on third thursday of September or whatever, and the disclosure should wait until that - that's compatible with that policy. Showing the patch to Google and coordinating with them doesn't start the clock, the clock starts when you start sending the patch to random users.

It's not acceptable to release a patch to the general public and then delay the disclosure for weeks. Once Epic discloses the vulnerability to the bad guys (by making the patch broadly available), the good guys i.e. the general public needs to know the details ASAP.

The 90 day buffer is the time for analyzing the vulnerability and developing (and testing) a fix for it - but not for deploying the fix; deployment must be much, much faster than that, preferably on a single day.

That doesn't really change the incentive though.

I guarantee Fortnite wishes they had silently released the patch and hope Google didn't know.

I'm guessing they might in the future.

This seems to be why Epic asked for Google to extend the period to 90 days, which didn't seem too unreasonable. Ignoring this request only to reply just before disclosing the vulnerability seems rather careless.

The policy prescribes no more than 90 days between informing about the vulnerability and releasing the patch and/or information, however, it prescribes 0 days between releasing the patch and disclosure.

If Epic needed more time to prepare for deploying the patch, then they should have released the patch later, coordinating with Google - they certainly had time left for that, up to these 90 days. But once Epic started the clock by making the patch widely available, it is unreasonable to wait anything comparable to 90 days. Google should have disclosed the vulnerability on the same day as the patch, since the patch also 'discloses' the vulnerability to those who would use it. Delaying it for a day or two could be mostly safe; 7 days is pushing it, anything more than that is not a good idea - by that time the bad guys know the vulnerability anyway, and the delay is just harming everyone else.

I still see no reason this couldn't have been communicated to Epic, nor why Google felt the need to take it upon themselves to decide. Whatever happens now can no longer be considered to be Epic's fault, as other than existence of the bug itself their response to the report has been close to perfect and Google overruled them on anything else.

Google did communicate this, in the initial post where the bug was filed and disclosed to epic. (I work for Google).

Announcing something doesn't make it ethical.

this is so often the case with comments about Google here on HN; someone vilifies them, then another commenter explains what really went down. The people at Google are not evil or malicious, lol

No, Epic is at fault for having a basic bug that is incredibly easy to exploit.

At what point did people who browse a site called "Hacker News" start believing in Security through Obscurity?

It's not named for the security variety of hacker.

Right about the time "hacker" started to mean "VC funded startup person".

> So they clearly would have needed to inform users that didn't play regularly to get the update.

The game came out on August 9th. Knowing how the release was big news, that the game itself is gigantic in size, and only runs on certain higher end smartphones, I would argue that there are close to no Android users that would not enter the game within those seven days.

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