Open Source Security

Josh and Kurt talk to Hayley Tsukayama from the EFF about privacy. We all know privacy in the modern age is very complicated and difficult. Normal people don't have many allies when it comes to privacy. The EFF has been blazing the trail for digital rights for more than 30 years! This episode has a ton of amazing details, it's easy to see how the EFF became the jewel of the Internet. Show Notes Ha...

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about NPM requiring 2FA for the top 100 packages. We discuss the new Alpha and Omega projects from the OpenSSF and what it could mean for the future of open source security. Then we end on a note about the new Samba critical vulnerability. Show Notes NPM requires 2FA OpenSSF Alpha and Omega David A. Wheeler episode Linux Foundation LFX Samba Advisory

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about how to get attention for security problems. Recent research around Twitter credentials checked into GitHub showed us how to get a lot of attention when compared to a problem like Log4Shell which took years before anyone really picked up on the problem. It's hard to talk about security sometimes. Show Notes Josh's computer vision code Twitter secrets Qualys pwnkit

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about the Global Security Database (GSD) project. This is a Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) effort to build community around vulnerability identifiers. Show Notes We rate dogs Racoons that heal your sadness Global Security Database Episode 261 – DWF is back! Welcome to community powered CVE GSD mailing list GSD Circle group GSD Database GSD Project Plan

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about the faker and colors NPM events. There is a lot of discussion around open source being broken or somehow failing because of these events. The real answer is open source is an experience. How we interact with our dependencies determines what the experience looks like. Show Notes Developer corrupts colors and faker Will Wright Pee Internet Anonymity

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about Norton creating an Ethereum mining pool. This is almost certainly a bad idea, we explain why. We then discuss the reality of NFTs and the case of stolen apes. NFTs can be very confusing. The whole world of cryptocurrency is very confusing for normal people. None of this is new, there have always been con artists, there will always be con artists. Show Notes Norton Crypt...

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about the question will we ever fix all the vulnerabilities? The question came from Reddit and is very reasonable, but it turns out this is REALLY hard to discuss. The answer is of course "no", but why it is no is very complicated. Far more complicated than either of us thought it would be. Show Notes Will cyber security vulnerabilities ever "stop existing" ?

Josh  and  Kurt  start the show with the reading of a security themed Christmas poem. We then discuss some of the new happenings around Log4j. The basic theme is that even if we were over-investing in Log4j, it probably wouldn't have caught this. There are still a lot of things to unpack with this event, I'm sure we'll be talking about it well into the future. Log before Christmas poem 'Twas the n...

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about the same topic everyone is talking about, Log4j. This episode was recorded on the Wednesday after the first Log4j issue. We point out all the gaps and difficulties for the defenders. The situation has gotten worse since then. Good luck to everyone dealign with this thing Show Notes Log4j GSD entry Minecraft server discussion Log4j GitHub issue 608

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about the epic failure that was episode 300. But this ties nicely into the topic of the day which is new ways to do things. The example is a new way to hold a controller when playing Tetris. There are always new tools and new ideas in security. Sometimes we have to abandon the old way because the new way to too good to ignore. Show Notes Lawfare Apple NSO podcast New way to p...

the lawsuit is based on CFAA, not on copyright. We apologize for this enormous oversight. Josh  and  Kurt talk about Apple suing NSO using a copyright claim as their vehicle. Copyright is often used as a reason to bring lawsuits, even when it doesn't always make sense. Copyright has been used by open source to expand rights, and many companies to restrict rights. It's a very odd law sometimes. At...

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about an article about how expertise has a limited lifetime. We are all experts in something, but some of us will find our expert knowledge to be outdated eventually. We discuss what that means in the context of security and tech and disagree about how to best keep your skills up to date. Show Notes Experts From A World That No Longer Exists Neuroplasticity Scotty and the mou...

Josh  and  Kurt  talk to David A. Wheeler about everything OpenSSF. The Open Source Security Foundation is part of the Linux Foundation, and there are 6 OpenSSF working groups. David does a great job explaining how the OpenSSF works and what the 6 working groups are doing. The working group are (in no particular order): Identifying Security Threats, Security Tooling, Best Practices, Vulnerability...

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about the famous Phrack 49 article "Smashing the Stack for Fun and Profit" turning 25 years old. This paper created a massive amount of change in the industry, possibly more than any other paper ever written. Everything from making exploiting stack overflows easier, to defenders creating technologies such as stack canaries are the direct result of this work. Show Notes Phrack...

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about the new Trojan Source bug. We don't always agree on if this is a vulnerability (it's not), but by the end we come to an agreement that ASCII is out, Unicode is in. We don't live in a world where you can make a realistic suggestion to return to using only ASCII. There are a lot of weird moving parts with this one. Show Notes Trojan Source oss-security message GitHub exam...

Josh and Kurt talk about Josh's electric car and new job. We then talk about the recent UAParser.js malware incident. There have been a lot of calls to do more to secure open source, but nobody seems to have any concrete proposals or suggestions to fund any of these activities. Show Notes UAParser.js CISA announcement

Josh and Kurt talk to Chris Wysopal, AKA Weld Pond, about security education. We talk about the current state of how we are learning about security as students and developers. What the best way to get developers interested in learning more about security? We end the show with fantastic advice from Chris for anyone new to the field of technology or security. Show Notes Chris Wysopal Veracode l0phtc...

Josh and Kurt talk about the release of OpenSSF Security Scorecards version 3. This is a great project that will probably make a huge difference. Most of the things the scorecards are measuring are no brainier activities. We go through the list of metrics being measured. There are only a few that we don't think are fantastic. Show Notes 4 of spades OpenSSF Chris Montgomery audio explanation Scorec...

Josh and Kurt talk about the recent Twitch hack and how in the modern age leaking source code almost certainly doesn't matter. The leaked data however is a big deal. We also discuss a recent Apache httpd update. Some things went right, some things went wrong. Dealing with vulnerabilities is hard. Show Notes Parasocial Relationship Twitch Hack Soviet B-29 Clone Apache CVE Apache Advisory GossiTheDo...

Josh and Kurt talk about recent events around Apple and Microsoft disclosing security vulnerabilities. Microsoft usually does a good job, but Apple has a long history of not having a great bug bounty or vulnerability disclosure policy. None of this is simple, but hopefully you'll have some fun and learn a bit about the whole vulnerability disclosure process. Show Notes Apple 0days Microsoft Exchan...

Josh and Kurt talk about the security of the Matrix movie series. There was a new Matrix trailer that made us want to discuss some of the security themes. We talk about how the movie is very focused on computing in the 90s. How Neo probably ran Linux and they used a real ssh exploit. How a lot of the plot is a bit silly. It's a really fun episode. Show Notes Matrix 4 trailer nmap in the Matrix VFX...

Josh and Kurt talk about an unusual number of really bad security updates. We even recorded this before the Azure OMIGOD vulnerability was disclosed. It's certainly been a wild week with Apple and Chrome 0days, and a Travis CI secret leak. Maybe this is the new normal. Show Notes Matrix 4 trailer Travis CI issue Apple 0day patches Chrome 0day patches CGP Grey Where is the European Union

Josh and Kurt talk about some happenings in the Linux Kernel. There are some new rules around how to submit patches that goes against how GitHub works. They're also turning all compiler warnings into errors. It's really interesting to understand what these steps mean today, and what they could mean in the future. Show Notes The Register Linux story OpenSSL Release Notes

Josh and Kurt talk about GitHub Copilot. What can we learn from a report claiming 40% of code generated by Copilot has security vulnerabilities? Is this the future or just some sort of strange new thing that will be gone as fast as it came? Show Notes GitHub Copilot Copilot research paper

Josh and Kurt talk to Dan Lorenc from Google about supply chain security. What's currently going on in this space and what sort of new thing scan we look forward to? We discuss Google's open source use, Project Sigstore, the SLSA framework and more. Show Notes Dan's Twitter Sigstore SLSA Framework