Nils Maier wrote:
> That all would imply that LF would be still a good security solution.
> They are not. They are not a security solution at all.
> They happen to prevent a particular scenario by coincidence.

I designed them to prevent that scenario. That's what they are for. So 
how can it be "coincidence"?

> And still, there is no way to know it is a trojan.
> For that decision you either got a security application (anti-virus) you
> verify something else or you're out of luck and can make guesses.

Anti-virus applications always lag behind, even for "popular" (i.e. 
successful) viruses. And I doubt the trojaned code in e.g. the Wordpress 
case ever made it into any anti-virus blacklist.

> You did not invent is. That's plain bullshit.
> Others have used link-fingerprints for different pruposes for year.
> Including myself. And yet, I don't claim I invented it.
> What you probably guessed of first was to use LF for data verification.

Give me a reference to a description of Link Fingerprints, including the 
syntax we are using (#!md5!09F9...) which predates this:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/2005/03/link_fingerprin_1.html
(March 29th, 2005, in the middle of the comments) and I'll believe you. 
The page defining how it should work:
http://www.gerv.net/security/link-fingerprints/
has been up since April 27th of that year.

> And no, you don't get to say what it is for. Unless you claim you're the
> owner of mozilla. Feel free to implement it in *your* apps like you
> want, but don't bother to try to just push it into a community-developed
> OSS.

In which case, why don't you stop telling _us_ how it should work in our 
app? This works both ways.

Alternatively, of course, we could all do the same thing and actually 
have unity of purpose and interoperability.

> And yes, I can say it is for something else. While you might have
> thought about this way of data-verfication first you did not invent and
> define (secure) hash algorithms and what they can be used for.

I didn't claim that I did.

 > That last comment changed my opinion of you. You're just some ignorant
 > "inventor" trying to protect his flawed invention and ideas by all
 > means. Thanks for clarifying this.

That's an unfair characterisation. Whether I came up with this idea is a 
matter of fact, not of opinion. If you can point to where the hash-based 
fragment-identifier extension on links was independently invented before 
I thought of it, I'll happily stop claiming to have invented it. I stand 
to gain nothing financially from this "claim", so I don't know what you 
think my motives are.

The point is not "I invented it, so I get to say what it's for", the 
point is "I invented it for a particular purpose, and that requires it 
to work a particular way; therefore it makes no sense for you to say 'it 
should work an entirely different way, because it's actually for an 
entirely different purpose.'".

Gerv
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