On 4 April 2013 21:03, Rob Weir <robw...@apache.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 2:57 PM, Greg Stein <gst...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Your proposal to alter the community structure is premised upon a
> > strawman risk. First, that it would occur. Second, that it wouldn't be
> > noticed. Third, that it would find its way into users' hands.
> >
> >
> So you are asserting that someone who put their name down on the Incubator
> wiki in July 2011 and was named a committer by that act, but never ever
> showed up after that, never joined the dev list, never posted to the dev
> list, never contributed code or anything else other than a name on a wiki,
> is a member of our community and it would be altering the committee
> structure if we removed their authz to our source code, even with the
> proviso that we would immediately restore it on request?
>
> Really?
>
Just a stupid question from someone who have not been here for ages...the
person just described should loose the committer role, or are we granted
commitership for lifetime ??
jan I.
>
> -Rob
>
>
>
> > In the past, the Foundation has *explicitly* said that we would accept
> > a certain level of risk to maintain our communities.
> >
> > I find your strawman at a level even *lower* than the scenario that
> > I'm thinking about(*).
> >
> > If you're worried about stale committers suddenly inserting trojans,
> > then just use 'svn log' to find those outliers. No need to create
> > division within the community. Run a simple histogram. There are many
> > solutions to your purported attack vector, than to divide into groups.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > -g
> >
> > (*) a certain large company's lawyer (ahem) was trying to scare the
> > ASF ("the risk!!") into adopting certain procedures; we shut her down
> >
> > On Thu, Apr 04, 2013 at 02:33:12PM -0400, Rob Weir wrote:
> > > On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 2:10 PM, Greg Stein <gst...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Also, let me say one more thing:
> > > >
> > > > This notion of creating divisions among committers ... it is
> "solving"
> > > > a problem that has never occurred here.
> > > >
> > > > NEVER. OCCURRED.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > So frickin' what? That is entirely irrelevant. My house has never
> > burnt
> > > down either, but I still don't leave open flames around unattended. In
> > > fact you might think this is naive view, but avoidance of such risks
> > might
> > > even be correlated with lack of house fires. Hmmm....
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > In the Foundations's 14+ year history, we have never seen a trojan
> > > > commit. Our servers have been compromised a handful of times. When we
> > > > were back on CVS, we even had to audit source control to verify no
> > > > trojan injection. But we have NEVER had a case of a malware commit.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > Again, that proves nothing. I'm sure the first time apache.org was
> > rooted
> > > that it had never happened before either, right?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > So back to IMO: dividing and partitioning and separate privilege
> > > > levels... there is no reason. It creates a social problem to "solve"
> a
> > > > non-existent issue. Net result: more problems.
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > Greg, we already do this. Does every ASF Member have credential for
> > Infra
> > > root? Does ever ASF Member have access to legal-private mailing list.
> > No.
> > > No. We even do this in the AOO project, with separate authz for
> > > openoffice-security, which by the way also includes an SVN tree.
> > >
> > > Anyone who thinks this is a question of dividing and privilege is
> > > expressing a knee-jerk reaction, without thinking of the risks. We
> > should
> > > avoid regurgitating platitudes. Remember, we're talking about people
> who
> > > have never committed code, who don't even know C, who are not even
> > > subscribed to the dev mailing list, and in some cases have never ever
> > > posted to our mailing lists. They signed up in with the podling in
> July
> > > 2011 and then were never heard of again. You make an extremely weak
> > > argument to pontificate about "privilege" here.
> > >
> > > The risks are real. High profile open source projects attract these
> > kinds
> > > of attacks. There are those who know it, and those who don't know it
> > yet.
> > >
> > > A good read:
> > >
> >
> http://www.securityweek.com/linux-source-code-repository-kernelorg-gets-hacked
> > >
> > > As for those who think that casual review of commit messages will
> review
> > > any attack, that is a dangerously naive few. We should not expect an
> > > attack to be in a filed called trojan.c with comments and clear logic
> > > explaining what the code does. Any hacker with a clue would send a
> patch
> > > backed by a reasonable defect report in Bugzilla that would be
> innocuous
> > to
> > > casual inspection. All you need is a buffer or stack overwrite in a
> > > well-placed area to cause the problem. This might even be done in two
> > > stages, spread out over time, so the impact is not detectable without
> > > looking at the pieces together.
> > >
> > > Now if someone did that in the name of an active committer it would be
> > > *immediately* detected. "WTF!? I didn't check that in!" But when
> done
> > in
> > > the name of an unactive committer it would be less likely to be noticed
> > for
> > > what it is. We might check twice, but that doesn't mean we'd catch all
> > or
> > > even most deliberate attacks. But whatever detection rate we would
> have
> > > there it would be far less than the presentation rate for not having
> > > authorization enabled at all. The prevention rate there is 100%
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > -Rob
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > Cheers,
> > > > -g
> > > >
> > > > On Thu, Apr 04, 2013 at 05:59:31PM +0000, Greg Stein wrote:
> > > > > Speaking as one of those "old-hands", Dennis is absolutely spot-on.
> > > > >
> > > > > Partitions, barriers, sub-groups... I call those "divisive"
> > mechanisms
> > > > > which serve to divide the community. Such divisions are rarely
> > needed.
> > > > >
> > > > > As Andrea points out, in Subversion's 13 year history, we have only
> > > > > *requested* people observe certain fences. We have never had a
> > > > > problem. We have never had to take sanctions. A stray commit here
> and
> > > > > there? Sure, it has happened, with the best intent, so we just
> point
> > > > > out that they need a bit more caution. No harm done.
> > > > >
> > > > > Back to Dennis' point: the solution here is proper review of the
> > > > > commits that occur. (IMO) NOT a way to *exclude* or to *limit* the
> > > > > potential contributions of others.
> > > > >
> > > > > Cheers,
> > > > > -g
> > > > >
> > > > > On Thu, Apr 04, 2013 at 09:23:39AM -0700, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote:
> > > > > > In previous generations of this kind of discussion, the ASF
> > old-hands
> > > > will point out that the social process works quite well, folks don't
> do
> > > > commits unless they feel qualified to do so, and it is often the case
> > that
> > > > committers will request RTC (i.e., submit patches rather than update
> > the
> > > > SVN) in contributing where they are not experienced or don't consider
> > > > themselves expert.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > At the ASF this appears to be one of those, "if it is not broken,
> > > > don't fix it."
> > > > > >
> > > > > > There is still the concern about stolen credentials used to
> perform
> > > > undetected malicious acts. If the oversight that the project
> naturally
> > > > brings to bear on visible changes to the code base is insufficient, I
> > think
> > > > the problem is greater than there being a possible exploit of that
> > > > inattention. Mechanical solutions may be part of the disease, not
> the
> > cure
> > > > [;<).
> > > > > >
> > > > > > - Dennis
> > > > > >
> > > > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > > > From: Andrea Pescetti [mailto:pesce...@apache.org]
> > > > > > Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2013 08:57
> > > > > > To: dev@openoffice.apache.org
> > > > > > Subject: Re: Proposal: Improve security by limiting committer
> > access
> > > > in SVN
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Dave Fisher wrote:
> > > > > > > Let's focus only on adding one new authz list for the code
> tree.
> > > > > > > Call it openoffice-coders and populate it with those who HAVE
> any
> > > > > > > commit activity in the current code tree.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I checked feasibility with Infra. Summary:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > 1) LDAP is not the solution. Rule it out.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > 2) The only possible solution would be an authz rule like
> > suggested by
> > > > > > Dave here; however, Infra quite discourages it, mainly for
> > maintenance
> > > > > > reasons. This leads me to think we would need some good
> > justifications
> > > > > > for implementing this.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > 3) If the justification is security, then there are other
> > privileges to
> > > > > > monitor. Namely, every committer has shell access to
> > people.apache.org
> > > > ,
> > > > > > authenticated access to the Apache SMTP server and CMS privileges
> > for
> > > > > > the openoffice.org website, including publish operations.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > For the record, the Subversion project has complex rules like Rob
> > > > > > pointed out; but it's only a "social enforcement", i.e., all
> > committers
> > > > > > respect those limitations by their own choice; if you look at the
> > > > > > technical level, every committer (all Apache committers) can
> commit
> > > > code
> > > > > > to the Subversion subtree.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Regards,
> > > > > > Andrea.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
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