Hi alicexbt
The vulnerability reporting process requires communication and resolution via a
small group of individuals [0] rather than through open collaboration between
any contributors on the repo. There are clearly examples where the process is
critically needed, the most obvious past example being the 2018 inflation bug
[1]. However, it doesn't scale for all bug reports and investigations to go
through this tiny funnel. For an issue that isn't going to result in loss of
onchain funds and doesn't seem to present a systemic issue (e.g. network DoS
attack, inflation bug) I'm of the view that opening a public issue was
appropriate in this case especially as the issue initially assumed it was only
impacting nodes running in debug mode (not a mode a node in production is
likely to be running in).
An interesting question though and I'm certainly happy to be corrected by those
who have been investigating the issue. Some delicate trade-offs involved
including understanding and resolving the issue faster through wider
collaboration versus keeping knowledge of the issue within a smaller group.
Thanks
Michael
[0]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/SECURITY.md
[1]: https://bitcoincore.org/en/2018/09/20/notice/
--
Michael Folkson
Email: michaelfolkson at [protonmail.com](http://protonmail.com/)
GPG: A2CF5D71603C92010659818D2A75D601B23FEE0F
Learn about Bitcoin: https://www.youtube.com/@portofbitcoin
------- Original Message -------
On Tuesday, May 9th, 2023 at 03:47, alicexbt via bitcoin-dev
<bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> Hi Bitcoin Developers,
>
> There is an open issue in bitcoin core repository which was created last
> week: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/27586
>
> I think this should have been reported privately as vulnerability instead of
> creating a GitHub issue even if it worked only in debug mode. Some users in
> the comments have also experienced similar issues without debug build used
> for bitcoind. I have not noticed any decline in the number of listening nodes
> on bitnodes.io in last 24 hours so I am assuming this is not an issue with
> majority of bitcoin core nodes. However, things could have been worse and
> there is nothing wrong in reporting something privately if there is even 1%
> possibility of it being a vulnerability. I had recently reported something to
> LND security team based on a closed issue on GitHub which eventually was not
> considered a vulnerability:
> https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/issues/7449
>
> In the CPU usage issue, maybe the users can run bitcoind with bigger mempool
> or try other things shared in the issue by everyone.
>
> This isn't the first time either when vulnerability was reported publicly:
> https://gist.github.com/chjj/4ff628f3a0d42823a90edf47340f0db9 and this was
> even exploited on mainnet which affected some projects.
>
> This email is just a request to consider the impact of any vulnerability if
> gets exploited could affect lot of things. Even the projects with no
> financial activity involved follow better practices.
>
> /dev/fd0
> floppy disk guy
>
> Sent with [Proton Mail](https://proton.me/) secure email.
_______________________________________________
bitcoin-dev mailing list
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
