On one hand, this is valid. On the other hand, security researchers can be some uber-paranoid weirdos who prefer to be entirely anonymous, and this could have a chilling effect.

Net net it’s probably positive it’s just too easy to spam these otherwise.

[delayed]

I have paid anonymous security researchers in past bug bounty programs, and would do it again. Way better than paying anonymous ransoms later.

I’ve done the same, but they eventually need to provide a bank account, which generally is at their name

Cryptocurrency is generally preferred by anons in my experience.

They use Persona, which is heavily invested-in by Peter Thiel's Founder's Fund. Peter Thiel, of Palantir (funded initially by In-Q-Tel, the CIA's VC arm). No shit security researchers don't want to give ID scans and biometric data to them.

In all past bug bounty programs I started I made it clear we would only prioritize findings as serious if PGP encrypted to the security team PGP key to review offline.

The serious researchers all knew how to do this and complied and usually got paid, and the unencrypted stuff was basically always noise we never paid out on.

Probably not as much of a filter now that AI is in play though.

That kind of stuff won't work anywhere near as well as a bullshit filter anymore: Most of the bullshit is AI generated and AI has no problem following rules like that-- even better than humans.

Instead, you'll need something like "you must enroll your pgp fingerprint in our system by sending a handwritten postcard featuring a tourist attraction in your region".

:P

> Instead, you'll need something like "you must enroll your pgp fingerprint in our system by sending a handwritten postcard featuring a tourist attraction in your region".

I might steal some variation of this!

When you see how shitty many companies are in going after legitimate folks reporting real security vulnerabilities. it frankly shocks me that anyone would ever use their real name.

No. All bounty programs allowed submissions without ID, compliance came into play only if you were given a reward and decided to accept it.

This was moved to the front of the reporting process specifically to combat AI-generated vuln report spam - basically, requiring you to "burn" your real ID if you're submitting slop. Kinda ironic that this is now preventing people from submitting security reports to AI companies.

A common reporting path for bounties and non-bounty vulnerabilities has always been problematic. This leads to weird scenarios where the company cannot accept reports of denial-of-service vulnerabilities because they are out of scope for bounties, for example. Exclusions from bounties are one thing, but not acting on relevant problems is just a bad idea. The typical bounty program terms are also incompatible with multi-vendor disclosure, where no single vendor can take complete ownership over the disclosure process.

The close proximity to the bounty process can also be challenging to corporate reporters because it could give the impression that they are individually soliciting a gift of non-nominal value from a company that is a supplier or customer in other contexts.

Pay anonymous whitehats for their time or you end up with more anonymous blackhats.

Security researchers in desperate situations will choose to feed their families over respecting US law if forced to choose.

Heck, even just perfectly comfortable whitehats will just get fed up with overly onerous reporting requirements and disclose publicly (like here).

I have been that guy, after 90 days.

Sometimes I would rather blast a company publicly than have to sign an NDA for an often insultingly low payout.

[delayed]

Very publicly so no allegedly to it. Not illegal to disclose vulns publicly, though I wait 90 days after vendor notification based on industry convention.

[delayed]

They have tried, and I have laughed at them.

That's not why. OpenAI is run by a virus. On two different dates I submitted a vulnerability disclosure or bug and on both occasions I had my account closed shortly thereafter (I've been trying to reopen the first account for the past 2 months.) So, the virus wants the biometric information so it can close the user's account.

Just tested this by posting this comment on that thread:

https://imgur.com/a/zBDLXwX

The virus marked it as "ignored" after about 2 seconds. (OpenAI has some models that run at 10,000 tokens per second.)

I’m saying this out of genuine care, but I’d consider thinking though your priors, and whether professional mental health support might benefit you.

I’m not disputing your experiences, I believe what happened to your accounts did happen.

But especially for your second example, it’s a clear case of correlation =/= causation; and drawing an inference like that is strange.

What's your alternative explanation for the fact that the virus marked my mention of it in the thread as ignored?

You can also find news reports of the virus firing OpenAI security researchers.