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Re: Vulnerabilities in phpCOIN


From: Christian Sciberras <uuf6429 () gmail com>
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2010 16:29:44 +0200

I think Universities should rethink their Software Development courses...

Valdis has got a very strong point. Here's my own. I got Safari to test
websites I develop.
Apple seems to think that during a recommended/critical Safari update, I
should be installing iTunes.
Oh, and surprise, with iTunes you get a couple of Apple Sync'ing services,
not to mention some hidden server.
It isn't *just* Apple, it's Linux, Microsoft and just about any other
company.
Microsoft forces you to get Desktop search (and turn on the indexing
service, which has its own set of exploits and slows the computer down *a
lot*).

Regards,
Chris.



On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 4:12 PM, <Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu> wrote:

On Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:49:58 +0200, "Jan G.B." said:

And where's the point in reporting several projects that use a -say-
library which has a reported problem? (I mean, you've send quite the
same mail with a different software to bugtraq, today.)

A few years ago, a rather nasty vulnerability was found in the zlib
compression library.  We then saw a whole raft of advisories for things
that included the zlib libraries, because often the package shipped with
a private copy of zlib so patching the system zlib did *not* actually
fix the problem for the zlib-using package.

And quite frankly, if it's a very low-level package, the average system
admin may not even *realize* that his very important MobyFoo package that
he remembers uses something called FooBar (or at least he remembers MobyFoo
wanting FooBar when he installed it 3 years ago), and the year after that,
FooBar started using QuuxBaz, which (a) the sysadmin didn't even know was
installed on his box, and (b) has a security hole.

You think I'm kidding?  Even *after* some vigorous pruning, my Fedora
laptop
has 1,782 RPMs installed - back around Red Hat 9 it was more like 600.
Lotta
software bloat going on, and most sysadmins don't have the combo of time
and
clue to fight it.  For instance, it's a losing battle to keep Bluetooth
software off this laptop, even though it doesn't *have* Bluetooth hardware,
because more and more packages link in Bluetooth "in case you have it".

And not one of those package developers understands the concept of a linker
"weak reference". Argh.

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