I mean that running the exploit discloses it to anyone who's doing full packet captures on the protocol the exploit uses.
Re:The NSA Is Hoarding Vulnerabilities
by AnimalMuppet on Friday August 26, 2016 @12:50PM
(#12367500)
OK, so they're "disclosed" in the sense that "the information (in packet form) is released onto a public network". But that's potential discovery if someone is paying very close attention. And the point of a zero-day is that nobody's paying attention to that specifically, because nobody knows to do so yet. So, yes, somebody could have a packet capture of it, along with a billion other packets.
So you're using "disclosure" here in a very restricted sense. It more normally means something more like "sending an email to the vendor" or "making a press release".
To paraphrase someone smarter on these issues than I am: NSA's adversaries spend more on coffee than Cisco does on product security. When vulns like the ones we've seen are used on public networks, they are disclosed.
The question isn't whether they're disclosed to vendors. It's whether they're NOBUS flaws. Schneier is suggesting NSA views them as NOBUS. They do not.
Re:The NSA Is Hoarding Vulnerabilities
by srtjstjsj on Saturday August 27, 2016 @12:25AM
(#12370966)
you mean the NSA staff spends more on coffee than Cisco does on product security?
otherwise, the claim makes no sense. the NSA's adversaries include huge swaths of non-security-conscious users, and includes Cisco.
Could you explain what you mean by that? Do you mean that NSA discloses everything they use on public IP networks? If so, can you provide some references, because I have never heard of them doing so.
Or do you mean that every time the NSA does so, they get caught and exposed? That seems to be based on the idea that we never hear of them using exploits on public IP networks without getting caught, which, if you think for a second, you realize is a completely silly argument.
Or did you mean something else? If so, what?