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by meowface 3433 days ago
Full disclosure is not what people had an issue with there. The problem is he only waited 12 days, and didn't really try hard enough to confirm someone at McDonalds was aware.

The standard is something like a minimum of 30 days (usually more) upon confirmation receipt. He never saw someone acknowledge the disclosure, so McDonalds' security staff could justifiably say they were not aware and couldn't have done anything.

Responsible full disclosure, like how Google's Project Zero reports bugs, is the best compromise.

2 comments

He tried contacting them 4 different ways. How many ways is he expected to try? He's not being paid for this, he's doing them a favor. It's not his fault McDonalds doesn't have any method for reporting security vulnerabilities. Is he expected to fly down to their headquarters and talk to them in person? At some point you just have to give up. Admittedly yes, he could have waited longer for a call back in this case.

You can't really compare an individual person with Google. Google employees are being paid to do that, so of course they can spend all day trying to contact companies, it's their job to be professional. And they probably have databases of high level security contacts at most companies. And any company will likely take a contact from Google seriously, but possibly blow off a contact by some random guy.

Google can undercut that. They disclosed MS vulnerability after only 10 days.

http://venturebeat.com/2016/10/31/google-discloses-actively-...

That's still 10 days upon acknowledgment of the vulnerability.