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“They introduce kernel bugs on purpose”

lore.kernel.org

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Re: “They introduce kernel bugs on purpose”

#671

Post by steelframe »

kwdc wrote: post #639
kwdc wrote: post #626

It would be fascinating to see the ethics committee exemption. I sense there was none. Or is this kind of experiment deemed fair game? Red vs blue team kind of thing? Penetration testing. But if it was me in this situation, I'd ban them for ethics violation as well. Acting like a Evil doer means you might get caught... and punished. I found the email about cease and desist particularly bad behavior. If that student w…

I didn't read this bit: "The IRB of University of Minnesota reviewed the procedures of the experiment and determined that this is not human research. We obtained a formal IRB-exempt letter" Um. Ok.

Some people are questioning whether banning the entire university is an appropriate response. It sounds to me like there are systemic institutional issues that they need to address, and perhaps banning them until they can sort those out wouldn't be an entirely unreasonable thing to do.

Re: “They introduce kernel bugs on purpose”

#672

Post by restingrobot »

beshrkayali wrote: post #335

This seems like a pretty scummy way to do "research". I mean I understand that people in academia are becoming increasingly disconnected from the real world, but wow this is low. It's not that they're doing this, I'm sure they're not the first to think of this (for research or malicious reasons), but having the gall to brag about it is a new low.

To me, this seems like a convoluted way to hide malicious actions as research, (not the other way around). This smells of intentional vulnerability introduction under the guise of academic investigation. There are millions of other, less critical, open source solutions this "research" could have tested on. I believe this was an intentional targeted attack, and it should be treated as such.

Re: “They introduce kernel bugs on purpose”

#674

Post by twic »

alpaca128 wrote: post #440
beshrkayali wrote: post #335

This seems like a pretty scummy way to do "research". I mean I understand that people in academia are becoming increasingly disconnected from the real world, but wow this is low. It's not that they're doing this, I'm sure they're not the first to think of this (for research or malicious reasons), but having the gall to brag about it is a new low.

> having the gall to brag about it is a new low Even worse: They bragged about it, then sent a new wave of buggy patches to see if the "test subjects" fall for it once again, and then tried to push the blame on the kernel maintainers for being "intimidating to newbies". This is thinly veiled and potentially dangerous bullying.

I don't see any sense in which this is bullying.

Re: “They introduce kernel bugs on purpose”

#675

Post by threatofrain »

FrameworkFred wrote: post #567

This feels like the kind of thing that "white hat" hackers have been doing forever. UMN may have introduced useful knowledge into the world in the same way some random hacker is potentially "helping" a company by pointing out that they've left a security hole exposed in their system. With that said, kernel developers and companies with servers on the internet are busy doing work that's important to them. This sort of…

A modification of your metaphor would also have a reputed institution in your life enter your apartment on the credibility of that institution. It is not surprising when that institution has its credibility downranked.

Re: “They introduce kernel bugs on purpose”

#676

Post by TheCondor »

rubyn00bie wrote: post #321

This is supremely fucked up and I’d say is borderline criminal. It’s really lucky asshole researchers like this haven’t caused a bug that cost billions of dollars, or killed someone, because eventually shit like this will... and holy shit will “it was just research” do nothing to save them.

I agree, I think a more broad ban might be in order. I don't know that I'd want anyone from this "group" contributing to anything.

Re: “They introduce kernel bugs on purpose”

#678

Post by mshockwave »

lbarrow wrote: post #586
karsinkk wrote: post #521

Here's a clarification from the Researchers over at UMN[1]. They claim that none of the Bogus patches were merged to the Stable code line : >Once any maintainer of the community responds to the email,indicating “looks good”,we immediately point out the introduced bug and request them to not go ahead to apply the patch. At the same time, we point out the correct fixing of the bug and provide our proper patch. In all t…

The response makes the researchers seem clueless, arrogant, or both - are they really surprised that kernel maintainers would get pissed off at someone deliberately wasting their time? From the post: * Does this project waste certain efforts of maintainers? Unfortunately, yes. We would like to sincerely apologize to the maintainers involved in the corresponding patch review process; this work indeed wasted their prec…

> Unfortunately, yes

That is the perfect example of being arrogant

Re: “They introduce kernel bugs on purpose”

#679

Post by andrepd »

beshrkayali wrote: post #335

This seems like a pretty scummy way to do "research". I mean I understand that people in academia are becoming increasingly disconnected from the real world, but wow this is low. It's not that they're doing this, I'm sure they're not the first to think of this (for research or malicious reasons), but having the gall to brag about it is a new low.

Devil's advocate, but why? How is this different from any other white/gray-hat pentest? They tried to submit buggy patches, once approved they immediately let the maintainers know not to merge them. Then they published a paper with their findings and which weak parts in the process they thing are responsible, and which steps they recommend be taken to mitigate this.

Re: “They introduce kernel bugs on purpose”

#680

Post by 1970-01-01 »

So be it. Greg is a very trusted member, and has overwhelming support from the community for swinging the banhammer. We have a living kernel to maintain. Minnesota is free to fork the kernel, build their own, recreate the patch process, and send suggestions from there.
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