[HN Gopher] A walk through Project Zero metrics
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       A walk through Project Zero metrics
        
       Author : arkadiyt
       Score  : 38 points
       Date   : 2022-02-10 17:07 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (googleprojectzero.blogspot.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (googleprojectzero.blogspot.com)
        
       | tptacek wrote:
       | This will sound very weird, but I kind of hate that they include
       | Google among the vendors they report to, provide a deadline and
       | grace period for, and track responses from. It's actually not
       | their responsibility to do anything like that; if Microsoft and
       | Apple are unhappy that P0 is targeting them, they should respond
       | by standing up their own P0 teams and hammering Google, rather
       | than having everyone operate under the fiction that it's OK for
       | Google to be the only major vendor doing this work.
       | 
       | (I'm of course not saying P0 shouldn't target Google, just that
       | Google shouldn't have to be publicly accountable to Google P0).
        
         | lima wrote:
         | Why not? It really strengthens the message.
        
           | tptacek wrote:
           | I don't think it does strengthen the message, unless you
           | think Google does such a good job responding to P0 that
           | they're setting a standard Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe have
           | to adhere to, and I think that's pretty debatable (the really
           | important thing P0 does to set a standard is the 90 day
           | deadline).
        
             | xxpor wrote:
             | It prevents google execs from burying P0 reports to other
             | teams at Google though, which seems like the bigger risk?
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | xxpor wrote:
         | Could you expand more on why?
         | 
         | At least to me, it seems like there's no _downside_ to publicly
         | tracking responses from Google itself. Ideally P0 should
         | operate mostly independently.
         | 
         | Agreed that there should be more P0 like efforts from other
         | companies though. The more the merrier.
        
           | tptacek wrote:
           | I guess I'd start by saying I don't see the advantage to P0
           | operating independently. Threads about P0 often devolve into
           | debates about conflicts of interest, but there's no conflict
           | here; every vendor has in principle the right to conduct
           | lawful vulnerability research against other vendors,
           | including competitors, and there's no ethical standard that
           | dictates what those vendors should choose to target.
           | 
           | Google is, of course, ethically obligated to rigorously test
           | its own products, and if P0 has expertise that the other
           | security orgs at Google lacks, it's ethically obligated to
           | train that expertise on Google products. I'm just saying that
           | Google isn't ethically obligated to include itself in its
           | vendor tracking statistics.
        
             | shadowgovt wrote:
             | I agree there's no obligation, but including it gives other
             | people some assurance that P0 isn't going easy on its
             | patron.
        
         | pvg wrote:
         | What's the downside, though? It helps reinforce the message
         | that this work is a kind of public good rather than mere
         | corporate sniping and protects the reputation of the
         | researchers. It's a bummer it hasn't shamed other big companies
         | into organizing similar efforts but it would be even less
         | likely to do so if it was even easier to dismiss as some sort
         | of nefarious PR effort (not that this doesn't already happen).
        
       | olliej wrote:
       | I dislike many aspects of google, but project zero is not one of
       | them and has greatly improve the overall security of the
       | industry.
       | 
       | Also their blogs describing how security exploits work are always
       | super interesting
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | r00fus wrote:
       | Is it meaningful to include "Linux" as a discrete vendor? How
       | would you compare an OSS project to a company like Microsoft or
       | Google?
        
         | that_guy_iain wrote:
         | The Linux Kernel is a product and the Linux Foundation is it's
         | vendor. I would assume they mean Them. Especially when they had
         | Red Hat and Cannonical in ,,other"
        
       | tester756 wrote:
       | that iOS vs Android table kinda makes no sense as they said
       | 
       | iOS 76, Android Samsung 10, Android Pixel 6
       | 
       | >The first thing to note is that it appears that iOS received
       | remarkably more bug reports from Project Zero than any flavor of
       | Android did during this time period, but rather than an imbalance
       | in research target selection, this is more a reflection of how
       | Apple ships software. Security updates for "apps" such as
       | iMessage, Facetime, and Safari/WebKit are all shipped as part of
       | the OS updates, so we include those in the analysis of the
       | operating system. On the other hand, security updates for
       | standalone apps on Android happen through the Google Play Store,
       | so they are not included here in this analysis.
       | 
       | so kinda what's the point of putting that column there? people
       | will use it as an argument that Android is safer :P
        
         | amscanne wrote:
         | There are advantages and disadvantages to bundling applications
         | with the core OS; having these security bugs become part of the
         | OS release vehicle (along with the heavyweight process that
         | implies) seems like a disadvantage. With respect to the table,
         | I think there's a decent argument either way.
        
       | gsmith7890 wrote:
       | What was the most serious vulnerability or set of vulnerabilities
       | identified by Project Zero?
        
         | UncleMeat wrote:
         | Spectre is probably the most interesting one. As of right now
         | it isn't as critical as other things since it is difficult to
         | actually exploit but its implications are gargantuan, similar
         | to the development of return-oriented-programming a while back.
        
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       (page generated 2022-02-11 23:00 UTC)