Full Disclosure mailing list archives

Re: Re: Full Disclosure != Exploit Release


From: hellNbak <hellnbak () nmrc org>
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:50:06 -0600 (CST)

Paul,

It is 2:30AM in my part of the world (Tokyo) I have been drinking heavily
and I have a meeting in 4 hours.  So forgive me for not posting the exact
advisories adn exact examples but in my experiance with the various
mailing lists I have moderated, the various jobs I have held and the
various ohter interests Ihave -- I have ran into vendors willing to eithe
rthreaten lawsuit or deny all together before they fix a vuln.

This is truly the case.  Perhaps tomorrow afternoon I will send you my
specific examples.

On 29 Jan 2003, Paul Schmehl wrote:

Date: 29 Jan 2003 10:23:23 -0600
From: Paul Schmehl <pauls () utdallas edu>
To: full-disclosure () lists netsys com
Subject: [Full-disclosure] Re: Full Disclosure != Exploit Release

On Wed, 2003-01-29 at 06:13, David Howe wrote:

That is of course your choice. Vendors in particular were prone to deny
a vunerability existed unless exploit code were published to prove it.

I've read this mantra over and over again in these discussions, and a
question occurs to me.  Can anyone provide a *documented* case where a
vendor refused to produce a patch **having been properly notified of a
vulnerability** until exploit code was released?

Definitions:

"properly notified" means that the vendor received written notification
at a functional address (either email or snail mail) *and* responded
(bot or human) so that the sender knows the message was received.

"documented" means that there is proof both of proper notification *and*
that a patch was not released in a timely manner

"timely" means within two weeks of the notification

"vendor" means any company that produces publicly available software -
open source or commercial

Caveats:

You cannot use a case where exploit code was released at the same time
the vulnerability announcement was made *or* within two weeks of the
announcement (see "timely")

I'm not saying this doesn't occur.  Just that it has the smell of urban
legend and justification for actions taken.



-- 
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"I don't intend to offend, I offend with my intent"

hellNbak () nmrc org
http://www.nmrc.org/~hellnbak

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