Open Source Security

Josh and Kurt talk about the UK plan to scan their country's IP space. The purpose and outcome of this isn't completely clear at this point, but we are hopeful the data can be used as a positive force. We are only going to see more programs like this as all the governments are told they have to cyber harder.

• NCSC Scanning information
• Motherboard podcast about NCIS

Josh and Kurt talk about the recent OpenSSL nothingburger. OpenSSL got everyone whipped into a frenzy over a critical vulnerability, then changed the severity to high. The correct solution to this whole problem is to stop using a TLS library written in C, we need to be using memory safe languages. Don't migrate from OpenSSL 1 to 3, migrate from OpenSSL 1 to Rustls.

• OpenSSL Blog Post
• OpenSSL pre-announcement
• Mark Cox Tweet 3.0 only affected
• GossiTheDog NDA Tweet
• Claims of a name and logo
• Rustls

Image Credit

Josh and Kurt talk about Lufthansa trying to ban Airtags. This has a similar feel to all the security events where a company tries to hand waive away a security problem then having to walk back all their previous statements. There is almost always a massive imbalance between the large companies and consumers.

• Lufthansa bans airtags
• Airtag stalking problems
• Lufthansa unbans airtags
• Cult of the Dead Cow book
• TV Typewriter
• Andre the Giant on an airplane
• Poison Squad

Josh and Kurt talk about stories detailing tech working with multiple jobs. This raises some questions about fairness, accountability, and the future of work. As an industry we are very bad at measuring what we do, which is a problem shared with many jobs currently working from home.

• Equifax surveilled 1,000 remote workers, fired 24 found juggling two jobs
• Business Insider 2 jobs story
• Ken Thompson lines of code

Josh and Kurt talk about ineffective security from the past we still use today. There has been a great deal of progress in the last few decades bringing us amazing products like the Flipper Zero, cameras that can peer inside locks, and even software defined radio. A great deal of security relies on people not having easy access to these cheap devices. What does this mean for the future of security?

• Cloning a Rare ISA Card to Use a Rare CD Drive
• Vintage Tech YouTubers Discussion Panel | VCFMW 17 (2022)
• Flipper Zero
• Lock camera
• HackRF One
• The history of Hash
• Reddit post-it notes in apartment

Josh and Kurt talk about a newly rediscovered old python vulnerability. It raises a lot of questions about what was OK in 2007 vs what's OK in 2022. The issue is very complicated and has a wild story surrounding it. There is no reason to not fix this in 2022.

• CVE-2007-4559
• Red Hat Bug
• Register story
• Response from upstream
• Upstream patch
• ZippSlip
• Current upstream bug
• CSURF

Josh and Kurt talk about a blog post that explains there isn't really an open source software supply chain. The whole idea of open source being one thing is incorrect, open source is really a lot of little things put together. A lot of companies and organizations get this wrong.

• Iliana's Twitter
• There is no "software supply chain"
• Google supply chain blog
• GitHub ansi_term advisory
• PyPI 2FA Dashboard
• tarfile issue rediscovered in 2022

Josh and Kurt talk about programming language ecosystems tracking and publishing security advisory details. We are at a point in the language ecosystems where they are giving us services that have historically been reserved for operating systems.

• Kelsey Hightower tweet
• OSS-Fuzz

Josh and Kurt talk about the Time Till Open Source Alternative blog post. The numbers probably don't mean what we think they mean anymore. A lot of modern open source is really corporate controlled. Just because something carries an open source license doesn't mean you can contribute to it.

• Time Till Open Source Alternative
• GitHub Desktop issue 78
• The Reddit Safe

Josh and Kurt talk with Josh Aas from the Internet Security Research Group about Let's Encrypt, Prossimo, and Divvi Up. A lot has changed since the last time we spoke with Josh. Let's Encrypt won, and the ISG are working on some really cool new projects.

• Josh Aas
• Internet Security Research Group (ISRG)
• Let's Encrypt
• Episode 87 – Chat with Let's Encrypt co-founder Josh Aas
• New Major Funding from the Ford Foundation
• ISRG annual reports
• Peter Eckersley