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Date:      Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:36:52 +1000
From:      Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy@optushome.com.au>
To:        Oliver Eikemeier <eikemeier@fillmore-labs.com>
Cc:        ports-committers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: ports/multimedia/xine Makefile
Message-ID:  <20040330073652.GB74220@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <40686785.7020002@fillmore-labs.com>
References:  <200403282344.i2SNi6Hq047722@repoman.freebsd.org> <20040329163309.GA81526@madman.celabo.org> <40686785.7020002@fillmore-labs.com>

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On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 08:14:29PM +0200, Oliver Eikemeier wrote:
>I guess we have to add a severity tag then, to enable `soft'
>vulnerabilities.  I have an automated script that barks on unmarked
>vulnerabilities, and it can't decide which vulnerability is
>`important'.

Let me offer two (admittedly hypothetical) examples as to why this
can't work:
1) port "foo" has a severe IPv6 vulnerability:  It includes a network
   daemon process which has a bug allowing an attacker to execute
   arbitrary commands as root by sending IPv6 packets.  There's no
   vulnerability for IPv4.  Despite the seriousness of this bug, it
   doesn't affect me because I don't run IPv6 - it's not even compiled
   into my kernel.
2) port "bar" has an apparently trivial vulnerability that only appears
   when a particularly obscure set of configuration options are used.
   I need "bar" with those particular options as part of a business-
   critical application - the vulnerability is critical to me and I
   need to know that I need to avoid the affected versions.

It might be "obvious" that "foo" should be FORBIDDEN and "bar" shouldn't
be but this is precisely the opposite behaviour to what I need.

I can't see any way to automate this.

Peter



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