Re: Re: [USN-147-1] PHP XMLRPC vulnerability

[Matt Zimmerman <mdz () canonical com>]

On Fri, Jul 08, 2005 at 11:51:58AM +0200, Jan Schneider wrote:
> Zitat von Matt Zimmerman <mdz () canonical com>:
>
> > On Fri, Jul 08, 2005 at 11:14:21AM +0200, Jan Schneider wrote:
> > > To avoid confusion, I want to make clear that Horde applications are
> > > NOT affected by this vulnerability because we don't use the vulnerable
> > > software. I would appreciate if such statements would be cross checked
> > > with the projects before releasing them to the public.
> >
> > The text above is quite clear in its terms; note in particular the language
> > "contain a copy of the affected XMLRPC code" and "may also be affected".
> > It merely informs the reader that this code has been duplicated in other
> > places, and warns that the presence of a vulnerability was not confirmed in
> > these other packages.
>
> Indeed, and I rather consider this as spreading FUD instead of being 
> helpful to users. Helpful would have been if they instead asked the 
> suspected projects and make an informed statement about which software 
> actually IS affected. But this might be my personal point of view.

I don't think that it is FUD any more than it was to post lists of packages
which contained copies of zlib.  Many of those packages did not act on
untrusted compressed data, but it was perfectly reasonable to point them out
for further investigation.

In my opinion, it would have been less responsible to have delayed the
announcement while waiting for other projects to assess their vulnerability.
The advisory contained the best information available to us at the time, and
qualified it appropriately where it might have otherwise been misleading.

-- 
 - mdz
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