Comment by rikafurude21
18 hours ago
This feels more like an old problem getting reframed as an AI problem.
people were already diffing kernel commits and figuring out which ones were security fixes long before llms. if a patch lands publicly, the race has basically already started.
also not sure shorter embargoes really help. the orgs that can patch in hours are already fine. everyone else still takes days or weeks.
if anything, cheaper exploit generation probably makes coordinated disclosure more important, not less.
> people were already diffing kernel commits and figuring out which ones were security fixes
With skill, and usually not consistently and systematically. With AI, anyone can do this to any software.
> not sure shorter embargoes really help
Why 90 days versus 2 years? The author is arguing the factors that set that balance have shifted, given the frequency of simultaneous discovery. The embargo window isn’t an actual window, just an illusion, if the exploit is going to be found by several people outside the embargo anyway.
> cheaper exploit generation probably makes coordinated disclosure more important
I agree. But it also makes it less viable. If script kiddies can find and exploit zero days, the capacity to co-ordinate breaks down.
There was always a guild ethic that drove white-hate (EDIT: hat) culture. If the guild is broken, the ethic has nothing to stand on.
> With skill, and usually not consistently and systematically.
How do you know? If the people who like to crow about vulnerabilities aren't doing it, it doesn't mean that the people who are actually in a position to exploit them systematically and effectively aren't doing it.
Those embargoes have always been dangerous, because they create a false sense of security. But, as you point out...
> With AI, anyone can do this to any software.
Yep. Even if it hadn't been true before, it's clear that now you just have to assume that everybody relevant will immediately recognize the security impact of any patch that gets published. That includes both bugs fixed and bugs introduced.
... and as the AI gets better, you're going to have to assume that you don't even have to publish a patch. Or source code. Within way less time than it's going to take people to admit it and adjust, any vulnerability in any software available for inspection is going to be instant public knowledge. Or at least public among anybody who matters.
>any vulnerability in any software available for inspection is going to be instant public knowledge. Or at least public among anybody who matters.
Shouldn't this naturally lead to a state where all (new) code is vulnerability-free? If AI vulnerability detection friction becomes low enough it'll become common/forced practice to pre-scan code.
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> How do you know?
We know because we could see the effects of the average rate of vulnerabilities discovery and exploitation, and it's definitely going up very fast. Until recently, vulnerabilities were relatively hard to find, and finding them was done by a very restricted group of people world-wide, which made them quite valuable. Not any more.
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> people were already diffing kernel commits and figuring out which ones were security fixes With skill, and usually not consistently and systematically. With AI, anyone can do this to any software.
I would like to see actual evidence of this, not.. vibes
I mean, this reeks of "Anyone is a Principal developer now" when the truth is there is still work to do.
“White-Hat”
I'm here for white-hate culture. You should, you should know better.
I haven't been keeping tabs for the entirety of Linux development, but has it ever happened before that someone dropped a working exploit from the mailing list before the patch even hit the kernel?
I haven't seen this kind of thing and I get the impression, despite all the hype, that this will be a frequent phenomenon now thanks to LLMs.
> Torvalds said that disclosing the bug itself was enough, without the pursuant circus that followed when a major problem has been discovered. [1]
So it's not surprising Dirtyfrag was disclosed by a fix in the Linux kernel. [2]
[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/torvalds-criticises-the-securi...
[2] https://afflicted.sh/blog/posts/copy-fail-2.html
I'd say it's an old problem be exacerbated by AI.
I find i’m writing variations of the same comment every week so I’m just going to share a previous version I wrote if you’ll permit the laziness:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47921829
Reminder: the Ksplice patent expires October 1, 2028.
I don't think hot patching holds the same relevance it did in 2010.
Much of today's workloads are containerized and run on roughly ephemeral nodes that can be switched out easily- K8s version upgrades force this more or less. We tent to run more and more of-the shelf hardware and worry less about individual node failures now.
In-memory updates also not magic , and can be limited as they requires data structure semantics to not really change and can create its own class of issues/bugs including security ones.
While am sure there are still use cases which dictate this type of update, the need is lot less than 15 years ago that the patent expiry will do much to the ecosystem.
What's the implications to that
Means you wouldn't have to reboot to patch for security updates to the Linux kernel. Assuming someone does something with that.