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Re:Apple silently fixes iOS zero-day, asks bug reporter to k... by saagarjha on Thursday October 14, 2021 @03:24AM (#28861453)
> If you pay out for weak, stuck-in-process bugs, you create incentives that redirect programmer time to those weak bugs and away from more significant bugs; as angry as you can reasonably be about a malicious app being able to snarf your contacts, if you're rational, you're a lot more concerned about memory corruption flaws, which is what you really want people spending their time on.

I don't understand how this isn't already reflected in bug bounty pricing tiers? Like, if I access your contacts, I get $x, but if I can access all your photos, I get $xx. As a user, I couldn't care less for how my data got accessed, whether it's a logic bug or memory corruption…

Re:Apple silently fixes iOS zero-day, asks bug reporter to k... by tptacek on Thursday October 14, 2021 @01:10PM (#28867014)
The point is that memory corruption vulnerabilities are complete device takeovers, not that they have extra aesthetic value.
Re:Apple silently fixes iOS zero-day, asks bug reporter to k... by spopejoy on Saturday October 16, 2021 @02:32PM (#28890205)
Right, and responder is saying in a competition for resources, pay less for non-mem corruption bugs, which should mean they aren't as hard to verify.

Is your point that all bugs soak up time to fix? If so pay the bounty and add it to the backlog. Or is it too much time to verify? That seems to be something you can kick back to the reporter.

Apologetics for a bug bounty program dragging their feet on a payout because "it's not a mem corruption bug" alone is unconvincing.

Re:Apple silently fixes iOS zero-day, asks bug reporter to k... by saagarjha on Thursday October 14, 2021 @04:18PM (#28869457)
Well, that circles back around to my point: if Apple wants people to submit more complete device takeovers, they should pay more for them (and they do, or at least they claim they do).
Re:Apple silently fixes iOS zero-day, asks bug reporter to k... by tptacek on Thursday October 14, 2021 @04:26PM (#28869562)
This bug was not a complete takeover, or anything even close to one.
Re:Apple silently fixes iOS zero-day, asks bug reporter to k... by saagarjha on Thursday October 14, 2021 @05:19PM (#28870285)
Well, yes, that's why Apple won't pay a million dollars for it. But there are tiers lower than that ("Unauthorized access to sensitive data from a user-installed app") which do cover the kind of bug described here.
Re:Apple silently fixes iOS zero-day, asks bug reporter to k... by tptacek on Thursday October 14, 2021 @05:35PM (#28870482)
You've lost me. What does this have to do with the point I made about which bugs we want security developers at Apple spending their time on? You seem to be making my point for me.
Re:Apple silently fixes iOS zero-day, asks bug reporter to k... by saagarjha on Thursday October 14, 2021 @07:28PM (#28871619)
The whole point of the bug bounty program is that anything that qualifies for it is something that Apple considers to be important enough to pay out money for, because they (ostensibly) want people to report these to them. I understand if they are overloaded with "this function leaks the country of the device" bug reports but the ones that they actually include in the bug bounty program are those that have the potential to significantly damage their stated goals around security, so it's kind of the point that they review all of them.

If Apple wants to nudge people towards submitting more serious bugs, they can pay more so people are incentivized to work towards those rather than mucking around in gamed. But, they don't really get to say "we didn't really have time to get around to this Contacts bug, sorry": people expect them to have it fixed. That's the whole reason Apple offers a bounty at all: so that researchers tell them about it early so they can fix it.

Re:Apple silently fixes iOS zero-day, asks bug reporter to k... by tptacek on Thursday October 14, 2021 @07:45PM (#28871825)
I think there might be someone else on this thread you mean to direct this to, because it's not responsive to anything I'm saying.