Oracle Exec Strikes Out At 'Patch' Mentality 264
An anonymous reader writes "C|Net has an article up discussing comments by Oracle's Chief Security Officer railing against the culture of patching that exists in the software industry." From the article: "Things are so bad in the software business that it has become 'a national security issue,' with regulation of the industry currently on the agenda, she said. 'I did an informal poll recently of chief security officers on the CSO Council, and a lot of them said they really thought the industry should be regulated,' she said, referring to the security think tank."
Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Informative)
Not at all in fact.
Open Source has nothing to do with this and I would suggest that you actually do some research instead of parroting the usual "Open Source will fix all problems" mantra.
Oracle has recently been shown to have up to 5 years turnaround to patch glaring security holes. This has reached the point where security researchers like Litchfield who have had an ongoing relationshop with Oracle for 10+ years do not want to work with any longer. Note, we are not talking sc1pt k1dd10tz sitting in their dad's basement here. The people in question consult banks, governments, large corps and cannot actually recommend them a working security policy because Oracle cannot get its head out of its arse and patch a security problem for multiple years after it has been reported to them.
As a result people who used to work on Oracle problems and reported them in private to Oracle have started posting them openly "0 day" style or giving Oracle a 1 month fixed notice of an impending posting regardless of does it have a patch or not.
Obviously Oracle is pissed.
First of all it breaks all of their marketing bollocks about unbreakability and security to bits.
Second it is threatening their sales to customers in regulated markets where security issues must be addresses within a fixed term after being known.
This is the reason for them to rattle the "regulation" sabers and moan about a "patch culture". Open Source has nothing to do about it.
Re:Of course (Score:3, Funny)
Remember everyone, the lower the patch frequency a product has, the more secure it must be. Pay no attention to the wookie.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
I said nothing at all about open source fixing all problems, or fixing any problems for that matter.
If you've ever worked in an industry that's gone from being unregulated to being regulated, you'll know that one of the first things that happens is that the number of participants decreases as all those that can't afford the overhead of the regulations and of maintaining a compliance department (not the same as quality assurance; experts in the interpretation and application of the regulations) leave the field. One of the next things that happens is that the number of new suppliers entering the market plummets.
There are many disasvantages to being regulated - additional costs and potential damage to reputation if you conflict with the regulator, but the big advantage is a barrier to competitors entering your market.
That does NOT mean that regulation is a bad thing - that depeneds on the specifics. However, if a supplier is arguing for regulation of their market then the chances are that they're doing so to cut down the competition. It's unlikely that they're asking for it because they can't control their own engineers and are hoping a regulator will do better.
If you've observed Oracle at all you'll have noticed that they are worried by competition from open source. It is likely that that's their target in this, though it could be other smaller competitors.
Re:Of course (Score:2)
As for the "patch culture" head-liner. The term patch was is commonly associated with Open Source and it's inherent quality for any piece of software to deviate from the original distribution giving
Re:Of course (Score:2, Insightful)
First of all it breaks all of their marketing bollocks
Second it is threatening their sales to customers in
It sure sounds like an Oracle problem to me. How the hell can they try to drag in a regulatory body, whose essential function would be to raise the barrier to market entry and protect and grow their market share?
Well, we *know* how they can try. No way in hell they will succeed.
Pretty easy (Score:5, Insightful)
The kind of regulation they want is more like "you're an evil irresponsible hacker and going to jail if you disclose bugs in someone else's product." Yes, it's security by obscurity. But that way Oracle can happily spew bullshit about being secure and unbreakable, and never have to fix any bugs.
Basically Oracle doesn't give a shit if Corporation X's database is riddled with bugs and exploits. They just don't want the PHB's at Corporation X to know about it.
If it also results in some entry barrier, all the better, but that's not the main goal.
Well, obviously.... (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the examples in the article asks, "What if civil engineers built bridges the way developers write code?" and answers, "What would happen is that you would get the blue bridge of death appearing on your highway in the morning." The difference here, however, is that civil engineers couldn't get away with making rickety bridges. You would find public outcry if it broke while people were on the bridge. In the software world, however, they scream and the companies just fix it with a patch and it shuts the consumers up. Saves a lot of money and time in testing at companies.
Re:Well, obviously.... (Score:4, Insightful)
When you build software, you just attach a EULA that says "I shall not be held liable" and that's it.
Once software makers, especially the large commercial companies, find themselves in the same boat as other industries and have to pay compensation when bad stuff is released, they will certainly step up quality control to the next level. Because it saves them money.
But it's different things (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Development cost will be a lot more. You are going to have to spend time doing some serious regression testing, besically testing every possible compination of states that can occur. May seem pointless, but it's gotta be done to gaurentee real reliability.
2) Development time will be a lot more. Again, more time on the testing. None of this "Oh look there's a new graphics card out, let's get something to support it in a month." Be ready to have years spent some times.
3) Hardware will be restricted. You are not going to be running this on any random hardware where something might be different and unexpected. You will run it only on hardware it's been extensively tested and certified for. You want new hardware? You take the time and money to retest everything.
4) Other software will be limited. Only apps fully tested with your app can run on the same system. Otherwise, there could be unexpected interactions. The system as a whole has to be tested and certified to work.
5) Slower performance. To ensure reliability, things need to be checked every step of the way. Slows things down.
If you aren't willing to take that, then don't bitch and demand rock solid systems. I mean such things DO exist. Take the phone switches for example. These things don't crash, ever. They just work. Great, but they only do one thing, yoy use only certified hardware, they've had like one major upgrade (5ESS to 7R/E) in the last couple decades, and they cost millions. You can do the same basic type of stuff (on a small scale) with OSS PBX software and a desktop, but don't expect the same level of reliability.
The thing is, if your hypothetical bridge were software (and it's quite simple compared to software) people would expect to be able to put the same design anywhere and have it work, drive tanks over it and not have it collapse, have terrorists explode bombs under it and have it stay up and so on and have all that done on 1/10th of the normal budget.
Until we are willing to settle for some major compramises, we need to be prepared to accept patches as a fact of life. I mean hell, just settling on a defined hardware/software set would do a lot. Notice how infrequent it is to see major faults in console games. It happens but not as often. Why? Well because the hardware platform is known, and you are the only code running. Cuts down on problems immensly. However take the same console code and port it to PC, and you start having unforseen problems with the millions of configurations out there.
Me? I'll deal with some patches in return for having the software I want, on the hardware I want, in the way I want, for a price I can afford.
Re:But it's different things (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, that's just not true. Phone switches _do_ crash - it's just that the telcos have learnt to build networks with a hell of a lot of redundency. If a phone switch goes down then the worst that'll happen is you'll lose the calls that are in-progress on that switch (actually, the switch may be able to recover the calls if it resets quickly enough - just because the signalling goes down for a few seconds doesn't necessari
Re:But it's different things (Score:5, Informative)
It will take more time till a programmer starts coding, you will need less time to find and fix bugs. A clean design leads to cleaner module interfaces, which makes tracing the bug easier. Doing module testing means that a lot of bugs are found early and are automaticly traced to an offending module, which means quick fixing.
Restrictions on hardware and software
For high-reliability, yes. It's hard to write software that can replace blown out fuses. I think it is rediculous that an Internet connected Windows system is "automagicly" degrading to a near useless condition, so Windows should be thrown out.
It should be possible to run a decent selection of software on a server, where the user selects his mixture, taking into account his desired level of reliability. An Operating System should sufficiently isolate processes so that a single bug doesn't crash the machine.
Slower performance.
Needless consistency checks slow things down (and improper checks may even cause instability). With a proper design you know what to check where, so you only check once. In my experience good quality software performs better than bad software.
Take the phone switches for example. These things don't crash, ever. They just work. [...] they've had like one major upgrade (5ESS to 7R/E) in the last couple decades
Sorry, I had to pick myself up from the floor, fell of my chair laughing. I did work for a telco and crashed a few switches myself, the Lucent stuff you mention. Ericson makes more reliable systems (but they have a different design philosophy). And software updates for phone switches appear regularly.
Re:But it's different things (Score:2)
That isn't going to weed out all bugs. What if the programmer is tired and makes a mistake and forgot to check for a precondition in some places? Boom. And that kinds of mistakes happen a lot. If the code doesn't crash, that can be even worse, as it may lead to corruptions in the internal states.
Re:But it's different things (Score:2)
The development process is there to catch these kinds of mistakes. When a programmer has proper specifications of what to program, he has less things to worry about and can spend his attention on making better code. The programmer should have the time to look over his own code and run his test set after a proper night of sleep.
Secondly, we do peer reviews and module tests. If you have a decent revie
Re:But it's different things (Score:4, Insightful)
Second, software is maleable. It grows over time. Unlike the bridge, which is static. After the initial release you add to it. Oftentimes in ways that were unintended by the original designers.
We do not have Brooklyn Bridge 2.0.
So yes, everything you mention would improve quality, but because of its maleable nature, software will always be different than things in the physical world.
Re:But it's different things (Score:2)
Re:But it's different things (Score:3, Interesting)
This quote seems appropriate:
[G]overnment's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. -Ronald Reagan
Re:But it's different things (Score:3, Informative)
Take the phone switches for example. These things don't crash, ever. They just work. Great, but they only do one thing, yoy use only certified hardware, they've had like one major upgrade (5ESS to 7R/E) in the last couple decades, and they cost millions.
As other posters have already noted, telephone switches do crash, or much more frequently, have impairments short of a complete outage. Lucent's markteting boasts of five 9s availability, but thats based on aggregate FCC reporting data, not for any one sw
Nope, sorry (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:Nope, sorry (Score:5, Insightful)
We all know you can build bridges out of spaghetti (surely you did it at engineering college?), so at a company like the one I work for, a college kid would be hired, lick the bosses arse and mention that he could build a much better bridge with the tools and new practices he learned at his university where he was taught the latest, cutting-edge technologies. Boss is impressed and asks for a prototype (not stupid this boss, prototype first, then ship it. He's learned loads on the 'how to manage technical people' course he went on)
So, new kid builds the prototype and, yes, it can carry a model car across. Even scales up to carry the stress test of a model lorry! Boss is impressed - "why can't you old guys do that?' he says, thinking of the praise he'll get at the next board meeting.
So they set about scaling it up to suit their customers, larger bridge, industrial spaghetti, held together with glue and installed in the customer's city, across the river. Customer is really happy with their upgrade, and after testing it with a compact saloon realise they can de-commission the old steel monstrosity. All's happy... until it rains. But, that's ok, its just new-bridge teething troubles, just requires a patch with some waterproof paint and rubber sealant.
Until a lorry decides to cross.. and it snaps, but again, just patch it up by reinforcing with some old-technology steel girders. Doesn't look so pretty and won't be as maintainable, but.. what the hell, the project manager declares it a success so the comapny is happy, and new customers are told that the company's flagship bridge uses only the latest cutting edge technologies.
Unfortunately, in the real world, software is not as visible as a bridge so new customers can only go with the marketing and sales waffle. Once they've bought it, its too late.
Re:But it's different things (Score:3, Insightful)
So, what I trying to say is that computer science needs some fundamental theories, techniques and tools applicable in real life situations before software can be trusted by design. Till then, software engineering is just a craft, where testing, patching and the like is needed to keep the system going.
There are fundamental theories that can prove you that the software you are using does exactly what it should. You can prove your software right.
The only problem is that it's too expensive, takes too much time,
Re:But it's different things (Score:2)
Are you sure you belong here?
Really... $40-60 for a game may not be cheap... But... you can wait a month or two, and see the price become $15-30 for the same game... Does that qualify as cheap yet?
Now onto the real fun...
Doesn't work that way... it means you'll be spending more for the software... It is impossible to tax or charge a business something... they'll pass the charge along as it b
Re:But it's different things (Score:2)
I just wanted to add to the car analogy:
The car analogy is very much like saying "The software will ONLY EVER RUN UNDER THESE CONDITIONS ON THIS HARDWARE." You don't switch out the carburator on a car for any random carburator and expect it to run fine. Vehicle motors have a fixed set of operating parts and conditions and if even ONE of those is incorrect, the engine will break. Simple as that. That's why s
Re:Well, obviously.... (Score:2)
They can't tell which pothole, when fixed, will cause all cars to go faster and skid off the place they d
Re:Well, obviously.... (Score:2)
Do you know the differences between a program and a bridge ?
Re:Well, obviously.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course people could look upon programmers as they look upon engineers: this is something that you need a good education and training for, and that you should not attempt as a naive bystander.
In reality, this is not happening. There have been times when unemployed people with some not-so-practical education were retrained as programmers in a couple of weeks. And we see development environments that push "trial a
Re:Well, obviously.... (Score:2)
Re:Well, obviously.... (Score:2)
Re:Well, obviously.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well, obviously.... (Score:5, Funny)
2. Poke your eye out.
Damn, now I'm liable for your actions.
What?
Bridges and software are not the same (Score:2)
Bridges solve one problem: Supporting X weight across Y distance, taking into account building materials and terrain.
Software is usually far more complex in what it tries to accomplish. Its no
Re:Bridges and software are not the same (Score:3, Informative)
And the very concept of road construction is very much a trial and error with thousands of people actually getting _killed_ every year, often because of known problems that should have been fixed to provide a safer infrastructure.
Of Course, Bridges Are Easy (Score:2, Interesting)
As a software developer, I lie awake at night dreaming of only having to solve a problem as simple a bridge. It has only one use case: vehicles of a known weight with a known wheel surface traveling in predetermined paths at a predetermined rate of speed. Also, if you dig down deep enough on the Earth, there is always something solid to anchor the bridge. Then bridge developers have millions of existing examples which can be studied and reused.
In software, half the stuff people will do with it were unknown
Re:Of Course, Bridges Are Easy (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, but as a mechanical engineering (who works with a lot of civil engineers), I can't let this one pass. You wrote:
and then you wrote:
bridges are a dump comparison (Score:2)
Its like one 1000 transitor circuite or 200 line function, thats it.
yeah... (Score:3, Informative)
Wow... is this what the software industry needs? (Score:5, Insightful)
She claimed that the British are particularly good at hacking as they have "the perfect temperament to be hackers--technically skilled, slightly disrespectful of authority, and just a touch of criminal behavior."
It seems to me that the F/OSS industry has shown that fast, and effective patches can be applied, and that software we pay for has less then reasonable responses to such threats. I use F/OSS and I'm quite happy with the response they have to software problems. I don't expect it to be of NASA quality, just to be good, and it is. For the amount that you have to pay for Oracle et al, you expect fast resonses on problems. The problem is that they don't respond fast enough. There is NO bullet proof software, though I give a hat nod to the guys that wrote the code for the Mars rovers. Certainly, Oracle isn't showing that they deserve the price they demand, at least not in this respect.
I might be off topic, but all the F/OSS that I use, delivers what I pay for AND MORE. The software that I have to pay for is lacking. When you pay thousands of dollars, you expect patches in a timely manner, and before you get hacked. I think this is a big reason that F/OSS will continue to win hearts and minds across the world. Despite the financial differences, F/OSS actually cares, or seems to, and they do fix things as soon as they find out, or so it seems to me. They have a reputation to uphold. Without it, they will just wither and die. It amazes me that investors, stock holders, and customers are willing to wait for the next over-hyped release of MS Windows while they suffer the "stones and arrows" of the current version. It appears that no matter how bad commercial software is, people rely on it. Yes, of course there is more to the equation than this simple comparison, but I think this is important. If you weigh what you get against what you pay, F/OSS is a good value. The argument is old, and worn, but ROI is a big deal, and patches make a difference to ROI.
Is it really what the software industry needs? A set of rules to make things bullet proof.. which of course won't ever happen. That kind of mindset is totally wrong, even though the sentiment is in the right place, you can't regulate quality in this regard. Sure, you can make sure that all gasoline is of a given quality, but I don't trust the government to test and regulate software. The US government already has a dismal record of keeping their own house in order on this account, I don't want them telling me how to do anything or what I can and cannot sell, never mind what I can give away for free under GPL.
Re:Wow... is this what the software industry needs (Score:5, Funny)
Sums me up perfectly old boy (well maybe not the technically skilled part)
Re:Wow... is this what the software industry needs (Score:2)
Ah, that would be the software on the rovers that almost cost the mission quite early on then.
FWIW, I believe the rover software runs under VxWorks. It would, of course, be very interesting to see the software - it's a shame NASA aren't likely to open-source it. If they did I could quite imagine a few build-you-own-mars-rover projects popping up on the web.
Re:Bullet Proof Code (Score:2)
The software is not bulletproof (Score:2)
Good advertisement, but it only shows the hardware has enough redundancy to sustain some heavy damage. TFA, OTOH, is about software.
And speaking of software, it's the big weak point in the youtube link you provided. The flash movies in youtube are really annoying to watch. Video is definitely not an appropriate medium to insert in web pages. However, if there is a link to the video file you can download it and watch off-line. I even wrote a small
Engineers vs mechanics (Score:4, Interesting)
You can start taking the profession seriously by joining your local professional engineering body.
Re:Engineers vs mechanics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Engineers vs mechanics (Score:2)
At many companies they do. Some programmers seem to be quite bad at estimating the time required to write and test code. If you send a bad estimate upstream, they're going to hold you to it.
Women & Managers (Score:2)
Anything else, and you are a nay-sayer or "not a team player."
Simple Solution (Score:2, Funny)
So, if people pirated software, instead of buying it, there would be no need for vendors to provide patches and business would be $59 billion richer.
How To Lie With Statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
Funnily enough, I'm just now reading Darrell Huff's book, "How To Lie With Statistics".
The problems with her poll are manifold.
Firstly, her group is composed of securiy officers who are on the CSO Council; might their views differ from security officers not on the Council? perhaps tending to be more of the belong-to-an-organised body sort? might perhaps therefore be predisposed towards regulation?
Secondly, of the officers on the Council, which ones did she ask? all of them? or did she have a bias to tend to ask those she already knows will agree? perhaps those who found it rather boring and aren't quite so pro-organised bodies just don't turn up at the meetings.
Thirdly, what's her position in the organisation? if *she* askes the question, are people more likely to say "yes" than they would to another person?
Fourthly, are people inclined in this matter to say one thing and do another, anyway? e.g. if you do a survey asking how many people read trash tabloids and how many people read a decent newspaper, you find your survey telling you the decent newspaper should sell in the millions while the trash should sell in the thousands - and as we all know, it's the other way around!
Fifthly, even if the views of members of the CSO Council truely represent all security officers, and even if they were all polled, who is to say the view of high level security officers is not inherently biased in the first place, for example, towards regulation?
So what, at best, can her poll tell you? well, at best, it can tell you that chief security officers who regularly turn up at meetings will say to a particular pollster, for whatever reason, and there could be widely differing reasons, that they think regulation is a good idea.
Well, I have to say, that doesn't tell us very much, and that's even assuming the best case for some of the issues, which is highly unrealistic.
Re:How To Lie With Statistics (Score:3, Funny)
So, what you're saying is: Her survey needs a some patches?
---
Insisting on absolute safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world - Mary Shafer [yarchive.net], NASA
Re:How To Lie With Statistics (Score:2, Funny)
"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that."
Re:How To Lie With Statistics (Score:2)
Sixthly, what does "a lot" mean? "A lot thought the industry should be regulated", eh? Was that a majority? Did a lot more _disagree_?
Every week there's a new security survey, usually of about 50 people, showing how critical it is that I rush out and buy a product from the company that sponsored the survey. It tends to make me somewhat skeptical of surveys and polls. Very few stand up to any sort of scrutiny, though there are the occassional exceptions [pwc.com]
Re:How To Lie With Statistics (Score:2)
OT: Always makes me think of Homer Simpson saying "Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that."
Re:How To Lie With Statistics (Score:2)
Here's something to *really* throw a monkey wrench into his argument: a) the poll was informal, and he doesn't even have any numbers to back it up, and b) he just says "a lot of them." "A lot" can mean 25%. It by no means has anything to do with counting a majority. The real issu
Re:How to misunderstand someone (Score:2)
> hard you try to spin it.
Then why did she say it?
However, note that I didn't read the article, so I can't be trying to argue her argument is undermined by her poll her invalid.
My post merely critiqued her statistic.
You're certainly right that she didn't say her poll was statistically valid. I think it's because she didn't even think about. I certainly had no conscious perception of just *HOW* invalid polling can be until
This, from Oracle? (Score:5, Insightful)
And they think security patches are a poor model?
Maybe that's why they put so little effort into them. Maybe that's because they put so little effort into them. Maybe some people think of it as bridge maintainance, and they want to build the bridge perfect every time? When they can't even get patches right when they have six months between them? Fat chance.
Honestly, out of the people in the software industry, even Microsoft do a better job, security-response-wise, than Oracle. And when you're behind Microsoft in that department, you've really got a problem.
They need to make a serious effort at security response and treat it like a real priority, not show-ponying about regulation when, if they were regulated, they would still be completely unable to respond, but would point to poorly-drafted regulation as "tying them up in red tape".
Re:This, from Oracle? (Score:2, Interesting)
This has, of course, already happened.
Another failed cross reference (Score:4, Interesting)
"What if civil engineers built bridges the way developers write code?" she asked. "What would happen is that you would get the blue bridge of death appearing on your highway in the morning."
Im sorry, but there are crazy people scanning my highway for open ports and i dont see script kiddies pinging my roads. Graffati aside, they are left alone. Code that is written works just fine if people dont try to over flow buffers and install rootkits. The bridge I see out of my window is fine because people dont hit it with sledge hammers.
Just my 2 cents . . . .
Re:Another failed cross reference (Score:2)
The difference is that a computer program can do so many different things. If buying a new toaster could install an invisible front door with no lock right next to your regular door, then I think we would have a lot more real world security problems.
Re:Another failed cross reference (Score:2)
Im sorry, but there are crazy people scanning my highway for open ports and i dont see script kiddies pinging my roads.
No, but highways and bridges have to contend with wind, rain, snow and occasional collisions. You know what happens when a truck slams into a bridge abutment? The truck is destroyed and the bridge quivers a bit.
Security attacks are just part of the software equivalent of weather. Good software shrugs it off.
Code that is written works just fine if people dont try to over flow buff
Re:Another failed cross reference (Score:2)
Real pointy-hair speak here (Score:3, Interesting)
If they really want to follow through with this talk, they'd better be prepared for the design decisions that go along with it, code reuse most of all. One thing that I think is particularly detrimental to code reuse is a proprietary model where the OS and every software vendor re-invents wheels over and over. You're going to need more open specs to change that.
If this is rooting for regulation of the software industry, beware. The big guys have a lot more to gain from this than the small innovators and startups. Who would really want to take advise from stereotyping wags like that anyway?
Just Be Clear (Score:4, Insightful)
Industry regulation is a very bad idea. It will cripple OSS development. It will place an unnecessary burden on taxpayers to fund the red tape. Furthermore, wouldn't regulation somewhat require the regulators to in the end have access to source code?
Do you think major corporations are just going to hand over source code? Can you imagine the leaks?
Lastly, the government has time and time again demonstrated they have little to no understanding of technology. Do we really want them making sweeping decisions regarding software?
Re:Just Be Clear (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, it does. At least in my case, and in the case of the business I work for. The fact is, we have quite a few programmers on staff due to the realization that we KNOW we cannot trust anyone but ourselves to address the concerns of the company directly and diligently. We don't create our own word processors. We have no plans to write our own Photoshop clone. But for many apps that are critical for business flow, we either wrote it ourselves, or have a great deal of leverage over the development of the apps we use.
Industry regulation is a very bad idea. It will cripple OSS development. It will place an unnecessary burden on taxpayers to fund the red tape. Furthermore, wouldn't regulation somewhat require the regulators to in the end have access to source code?
OSS would have an inherent exemption. Regardless of where or how it is used, it's still 'hobby' coding. No pretense is made that it is a for-profit effort. However, if there are any OSS projects that are designed for for-profit, then yeah perhaps some level of consumer protection is in order. EULAs have questionable legal status as it is, but I think it's time we struck them down as invalid and forced 'professionals' to accept the blame for shoddy work. As for burdens on taxpayers? OMG. Are you serious? And as for regulators having access to souce code? Probably not at bad idea! We've all heard of source code escrow. Perhaps it should ALL be that way.
Do you think major corporations are just going to hand over source code? Can you imagine the leaks?
Yeah, they would as a continued cost of doing busines. Many of the products we use in the physical world are easily duplicated and most are. Unsurprisingly, there is more than one maker of clothing. More than one burger joint. More than one maker of plastic food storage containers. More than one maker of automobiles. In these cases, it's not the technology that differentiates the product. It's the QUALITY and the reputation of the business (and yeah, the price too) that factors into consumer choice.
But yeah, I see your point about leaks... it could result in software piracy, copyright violations and all sorts of nasty things that... hrm... hey wait a minute! They are ALREADY a problem! This wouldn't create the problem and I can't imagine it adding too much more fuel to it.
Lastly, the government has time and time again demonstrated they have little to no understanding of technology. Do we really want them making sweeping decisions regarding software?
No, I don't want to see more government oversight. But I would like to see more consumer protection. Do you think the consumer doesn't need it? If not, then why not? If so, then how would you propose that consumers get that protection?
Look. There was a time before the FDA and various medical boards. To live life without them protecting the recipients would be rather unimaginable wouldn't it? We don't want people driving on the streets without all manner of regulation... driver's licenses, safety inspections, liability insurance. We require that many of the products and services we use regularly have regulation to guarantee minimal quality standards and some of them aren't as 'critical' as software. We don't allow EULAs and disclaimers to get in our way either. There's a cancer warning on every label for cigarettes. Doesn't stop people and governments from going after the tobacco industry. Why should software have such an exemption? Because it's PRESENTLY unregulated as medical/dental practice once was? Because it's an unimaginable mess to clean up?
There are ways for goverment to be involved without being complete morons. How about people with PhDs in software development sitting on the board of regulation
Re:Just Be Clear (Score:2)
You also suggest there is more than one burger joint, and that consumers purchase software based on the quality of said software.
So why then was AOL number 1?
In most categories, I could argue that the leading product is often an inferior product. Given that most CIOs can't differentiate between quality software and well-known software, I don't trust the government to step in and st
Re:Just Be Clear (Score:2)
Who is this 'we' you speak of? Personally, I don't purchase software, I emerge or apt-get it. As for the beta state of commercial software, it makes me cry rather than laugh, seeing people close to me waste money, time and nerves on Microsoft crap.
Re:Just Be Clear (Score:2)
However, you do not represent the masses. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the bulk of software purchases come in the corporate world. People at home love to pirate. And most major businesses prefer to go with traditional retail software over a custom-made-Gentoo-build.
Where is the official support for Gentoo? Can you call a 1-800 number? Are the end users knowledgable and familiar with it in the way they are with Windows? How standard is it? How consistent is
For those who do not know Oracle: (Score:5, Interesting)
The GUI's would have sucked in the 1980's.
Every SQL statement was designed by a dfferent person, with a different syntax.
If the guy expects us to assume he is an authority on the subject, he should clean up his own rubbish first.
"British are particularly good at hacking..." (Score:2)
Britannia's pwnz0rs r0x.
British h4xx0r5 r so l33t they
pwn3d t3h b0x.
Typical fear mongering (Score:4, Insightful)
However...
I don't like that she is using age-old classics for fear mongering. "National security" and the bridge analogy to be specific.
Bugs themselves are rarely the problem when we are talking about "national security". For some odd reason it seems that people have forgot the importance of physical separation of the public network and sensitive information / infrastructure. It's stupid to blame the tools if the user is an idiot (and in this case I mean those "chief security officers", who design these braindead infrastructures for corporate networks).
I don't understand how anyone in their right minds could suggest any kind of regulatory system for the software quality. It's practically impossible to control and what if there is some sort of accident caused by some regulated and "certified" product? Is this certification (or what ever) a free pass for the software provider? This would turn to be an ultimate disclaimer for the software companies. Or - the other way around - the ultimate responsibility, which would lead to the point where there are no more software engineers because there is too much personal responsibility involved.
Besides, in my opinion, Daividson insults British people pretty badly and describes them as "slightly disrespectful of authority, and just a touch of criminal behaviour." I think that's not a very professional comment.
Anyway, this is what I'm thinking about of this whole article.
Re:Typical fear mongering (Score:2)
Well, It's nice to hear that the great British sense of humour is still there
Still, I think that when talking about software security, this kind of humour perhaps isn't most appropriate considering the subject. Usually, if someone wants to lighten the speech up, mocking the people of the host country perhaps is not the best thing to do. Instead, mocking the neighbours is OK
Shoddy Straw Man (at best) (Score:2, Insightful)
1. A straw man man argument and a poor one at that. It's not uncommon for civil engineering projects to require "patches" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_dig#Reports_of_s
2. An obviously bad analogy, I'm sure the specifics will be discussed here ad infinium.
Re:Shoddy Straw Man (at best) (Score:2, Insightful)
It was opened, closed within two days, then patched.
Typical manipulation (Score:3, Insightful)
Somewhere in between the hype surrounding the issue, noone stops to ask themselves "wait, this solution doesn't even prevent this problem".
Liability is one thing, regulation before manifacturing: another. Given how much success government institutions have with software patents, how could we trust our software's security to them?
First thing they'll do is "regulate" the existence of a backdoor for the police/CIA/FBI into everything that resembles software technology with access control.
Re:Typical manipulation (Score:3, Interesting)
Are there any good examples of govt regulation? (Score:2)
If we could measure software quality well enough to regulate it, how much need would there be for regulation? Companies would just specify in their purchase orders "must have 685 mill-pf of quality" or "not less than 3 kilo-Sendmails of security" and the market would sort things out in its usual inconsistent but unbeatable way.
I'm nervous about government regulation partly from spending too much time studying the HIPAA regula
Maybe they could take lessons from OpenBSD (Score:2, Informative)
British "Hackers" (Score:3, Insightful)
The ideal system (for the government) is one where we are all criminals.
Coming from a company.... (Score:3, Insightful)
She forgot to say that if Oracle were to adopt truthfulness in adverts and avoid vaporware and prevent charging the cost of a FULL Salon to setup cardboard emplants the industry would be $159 billion richer and we would have all have witnessed the Second Coming with the money...
Sheesh what a rant from a company that is responsible for the Vaporware strategy...
You will always have patches (Score:2)
If only... (Score:2, Insightful)
This is simple... (Score:2, Interesting)
I write the standard. She doesn't get it (Score:5, Informative)
She talks to CSO's who mostly are bean counters. They see money down the drain from patching. I agree with them - patching is inefficient and wasteful. But it's necessary as Oracle builds crap, buggy and insecure software. They are easily five+ years behind Microsoft in churning out safer software. Buffer overflows, high privilege accounts, public access to highly privileged library functions - all this stuff is easily 10-15 years old and should not be in Oracle 10g, but it is.
Oracle has time and time again outright refused to get on board with a secure coding program, often fixing just the little bug which gained root privileges, exposed all your data, or destroyed the database outright. Instead, they should be searching for all those types of bugs and fixing them in one hit. Davidson has more than enough time to address the root cause
She is holding software up to the standards of bridges. Bridges have tolerances and over-design built into them. Most software does not. Often to make artificial deadlines made by beancounters, software is shipped with bugs. Often the bugs are not found for some time and requires researchers to go find them. If it's not researchers, its the commercial 0day crowd. This is where Davidson shows she is an amateur and must be replaced. It's best for HER customers to be secure, and that means shipping secure software. Shipping insecure software does not prevent the 0day houses from creating exploits. Oracle's reputation as a solid data partner is worthless if we lose all our data to an attacker because Oracle suppressed the news from us, rather than fixes the problem.
It is simply unachievable to build bug free software for a reasonable cost. What is required is care, developer training in secure software techniques, and defense in depth. That is our tolerance and over-design. Oracle is sadly lacking. She has had five years to get their developers onto a program of building this into their platforms, and she's failed miserably. I will be interested to hear what standards they use, and if it's mine (OWASP Guide), or if they do their own based upon ours, or use Microsoft's.
I've called for her to step down more than once. When she attacked the good name of David Litchfield and NGS Software, I was outraged - this was like shooting the messenger that their "unbreakable" software was pure crap, which we already knew - but now know through his unstinting efforts that it is truly appalling and not fit for purpose.
If this latest "push" for too little too late does not work out, she should be sacked by the Oracle board for the good of all Oracle shareholders and customers. She's had more than enough time to make a positive change, and should make way for someone who really understands security.
Summer of Special Code. (Score:2)
I'm not sure exactly what regs would accomplish (Score:2)
It seems like there could be an organization setup to certify software as meeting some security standards. Some people might think this would be a problem for open source, but they forget that there is a lot of money behind open source. I'm sure IBM and others would help foot the bill behind getting linux certified.
The real problem with certification or government
The Real Enemies of Software Reliability (Score:2)
Guess what? Oracle is on the list. ahahaha...
Oracle's Chief Security Officer Mary Ann Davidson should be next on the list, IMO, for once more comparing software engineering to bridge and building engineering.
Bridge of blue death (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah but most bridges don't fall apart that easily. Well no, most bridges are best on millenia old technology. The more advanced designs are designed to very fine tolerances.
Take that "new" superhigh bridge in france. It cannot support the weight of an ocean liner. Would collapse if you blew up one of the pillars and a nuclear strike within a mile would cause it to fall apart. Hell even a simple typhoon would do it.
Ah, but none of those things are likely to happen so the bridge wasn't designed for it.
That is the big difference between software and hardware. Even the simple thing of user supplied data is different. In software you need to check and check again every bit of data to make sure the user hasn't supplied the wrong kind of data. Hasn't the user put a 1 gigabyte of data in a bool field?
In the real world this is kinda easier to check. I think you would notice if a truck instead of being loaded with 10 tons was loaded with 10.000 tons. A clue might be the way its axels are buried in the asfalt.
So the bridge designer only has to design for the entire roaddeck being filled with trucks filled with lead and that is it. He can work with real world limits. The french bridge was really tested like this. It withstood the test and is in theory designed to withstand 2x the load. That ain't much of a tolerance but in the real world you can easily discount such a heavy load ever being put on the system. Someone driving up with an ocean liner on his trialer would draw attentention.
Not so with software. I can put anything I want in this input form and the software better be designed for it. I am not constrained by real world limits.
That is what makes software engineering so difficult, you need to account for every possibility. If you checked a piece of data and wrote it too storage then you need to check it again when you read it. This would be like a bridge engineer testing the steel, then having to check it every day to see if hasn't turned into porridge by an act of god.
Oh and one final note. A lot of software insecurity only happens under attack. Bridges don't exactly last long under attack. Blowing one up is amazing easily. Any army engineer can do it.
the root of the security problem ... (Score:2)
Odd, how bad managers do not write a single line of code, but establish policies and practices virtually guaranteed to provide the fertile ground necessary for bad code to spring forth, and to extinguish the capability to make secure code, buried under the management "fertilizer" to produce bad code.
It's pretty easy to see how this motif extends into other aspects of software quality as well.
How much proprietary software makes use of a tool like Bugzilla to manage bug-tracki
the whole idea of patching (Score:2)
Software developers use The Patch as a way to get a product to market before it's ready. Shareholders don't see this, an
using roman numeral math to do alchemy.... (Score:2)
What is really being said with such EULAs is that the software insustry is still using roman numerals to do alchemy, or in other words, they don't know what the fuck they are doing well enough to take greater responsibility. And unfortunately lack of responsibility has become such an acceptable norm that there is a notable reduction in t
So, like, whats the alternative? (Score:2, Interesting)
We know that will never happen. I mean, to get it right the first time requires months or even years of beta testing using a very LARGE user base in order to get all the quirks and holes and issues out of the system.
It is arrogant to assume that ANY group of programmers can get it right the first time while developing software, and its not to discredit the quality of programming they are offering. Management is largely at fault for why software products fail to work right ou
Pot calling kettle black (Score:2)
Why software will never be regulated (Score:2)
Why? Because despite their comments to the contrary, execs and managers don't want regulation. Why? Because regulation and enforced quality control, as in civil engineering, would wrest control of software development from managers, and place it in the hands of professional, certified engineers that would be entrusted and liable for
Re:One problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:One problem (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyway, applications that do not listen on a
Re:One problem (Score:3, Insightful)
The moment you say that security doesn't matter in on place, that becomes t
Re:One problem (Score:2)
Re:The fellowship - ring of corruption (Score:2)
She is the problem (Score:2)
Worse she is the one shooting the messenger. Hackers are the messenger and when they hack your software the message is you screwed up. She wants to stop the hackers/messengers NOT get her own act together and build secure software from the start.
I can well imagine that Oracle wants regulation against all those nasty people who just give them 1 month notice before publishing yet another security hole. SHUT UP so we can continue peddling
Re:If software was built like bridges! (Score:3, Insightful)
Ths, coming from Oracle... who Litchfield has been bashing non-stop, for NOT patching holes for years -
http://search.securityfocus.com/swsearch?sbm=%2F&
Re:Forget about the emotion! (Score:2)
The view is simplistic, but I fail to see where it could be untrue or where exceptions could creep in. Perhaps if it is a flaw in the API or library? Perhaps a poorly docu
Re:hindsight is always 20/20 (Score:3, Insightful)
There are projects out there such as qmail and related projects written specifically to be secure and reliable code. If one mature project can walk that path, they all can. The word "childish" was used to describe my argument and so I respond s