Reasons why BIND isn't being upgraded

Fri Feb 2 21:31:04 UTC 2001

> Without rehashing the whole "open-disclosure" vs. "non-disclosure" 
> arguments related to security issues in software, or the historically
> extreme inadequacies of CERT in offering timely notification of ANY 
> security-related issues, it's very disappointing to see ISC resort to a
> fee-based, non-public-disclosure-at-the-time-of-discovery, NDA'd and
> "we'll update people via CERT" method of dealing with the community they
> have served for so long.
> 
> I would have hoped by now that lists such as Bugtraq would have adequately 
> exhibited the folly of such methodologies. 

The purpose of the list doesn't appear to circumvent Bugtraq -- you're
comparing two different issues. As I understand it, this list is
specifically for software vendors and root operators to get immediate
notification and patches to fix the bug in advance. You're confusing
a software patch support channel with a security response channel, which
ISC's list isn't intended to me. AFAIK -- I'm not related to ISC.

You also missed the note that non-for-profit and educational institutions
are free to join, and any other group may apply for similar status.

I frankly enjoy getting patches and having a few hours to apply them 
before the remaining world can start diffing the patches. This is true of
any channel. I don't always have time to read Bugtraq's high noise ratio.
I deeply appreciate any software vendor who provides direct notification to
paying support clients. This makes perfect sense.

-- 
Joe Rhett                                         Chief Technology Officer
JRhett at ISite.Net                                      ISite Services, Inc.

PGP keys and contact information:          http://www.noc.isite.net/Staff/