Secure Coding mailing list archives
Is developer education a lost cause?
From: "Kenneth R. van Wyk" <Ken () KRvW com>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 23:37:16 +0000
Hi all, Over on the Full-Disclosure mailing list, there was a recent thread that questioned whether trying to educate the end consumer of PC products is a lost cause. Malicious software has managed to dupe unsuspecting users into doing things that security professionals have frowned on for many years, despite untold numbers of news stories warning users about the problems. To many, it would appear that the computing masses are... <diplomatic>knowledge resistant</diplomatic>. :-) Well, if things are really that bad for the end consumer, how does the situation bode for the average software developer? That is, we've all seen untold numbers of news stories about buffer overflows and the like. Why is it that we don't seem to be making much progress in stamping out these things? (I should note that I am not including present company here on SC-L in this question, since we're presumably all here because we're concerned enough about secure application development that we want to discuss and learn with other like-minded folk.) Is developer education a lost cause? I happen to think that it isn't, but that opinion isn't shared by everyone. Indeed, a few of the people that I talked with about participating here on SC-L were relucant because they were fed up with trying to educate the masses. If you agree that it isn't a lost cause, then what more {c|sh}ould be done? That said, how do we measure or even know if things are improving? By the number of vulnerability advisories per month? (I hope not.) Cheers, Ken van Wyk
Current thread:
- Is developer education a lost cause? Kenneth R. van Wyk (Jan 22)
- RE: Is developer education a lost cause? Jason Wilcox (Jan 22)
- Re: Is developer education a lost cause? Joe Teff (Jan 22)
- RE: Is developer education a lost cause? Michael S Hines (Jan 23)
- Re: Is developer education a lost cause? Pascal Meunier (Jan 23)
- Re: Is developer education a lost cause? Chris Wysopal (Jan 23)
- Re: Is developer education a lost cause? George Capehart (Jan 23)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- RE: Is developer education a lost cause? Robert Shields (Jan 23)
- Re: Is developer education a lost cause? Richard Moore (Jan 23)
- RE: Is developer education a lost cause? Giri, Sandeep (Jan 23)
- RE: Is developer education a lost cause? Robert Shields (Jan 23)
(Thread continues...)