your plan would simply result in vendors denying the existence of bugs. i still think all these ideas are wrong and the model is simple: don't employ people who write and generate insecure code. it's just part of programming. you wouldn't hire a doctor to be a gardener. don't hire an idiot to program your apps.
On 11/30/07, Andy Steingruebl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Nov 29, 2007 2:47 PM, Kenneth Van Wyk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > The article quotes David Rice, who has a book out called > > "Geekconomics: The Real Cost of Insecure Software". In it, he tried > > to quantify how much insecure software costs the public and, more > > controversially, proposes a "vulnerability tax" on software > > developers. He believes such a tax would result in more secure > > software. > > I like contractual approaches to this problem myself. People buying > large quantities of software (large enterprises, governments) should > get contracts with vendors that specify money-back for each patch they > have to apply where the root cause is of a given type. For example, I > get money back every time the vendor has a vulnerability and patch > related to a buffer overflow. > > I wrote a small piece about this: > http://securityretentive.blogspot.com/2007/09/buffer-overflows-are-like-hospital.html > > Turns out that the federal government isn't paying for avoidable > outcomes anymore. Certain things fall into the rough category of > "negligence" and so aren't covered. We ought to just do this for > software via a contracts mechanism. I'm not sure we want to start out > with a big-bang public-policy approach on this issue. We'd want to > know a lot more about how the economics work out on a small scale > before applying it to all software. > > -- > Andy Steingruebl > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > _______________________________________________ > Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org > List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l > List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php > SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) > as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. > _______________________________________________ > -- mike http://lets.coozi.com.au/ _______________________________________________ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. _______________________________________________