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Here is how we do things, we responsible security researchers. Do things by following steps: 1. Is this a security vulnerability, or simply a bug? If just a bug, send to Github Issue, or send to the user forum, according to the maintainer's instruction (Signal use the forum, instead of issue). If this is a security vulnerability, go to step 2. 2. Is there a secure channel to contact software provider, or the provider can give a secure channel? For Signal, the best way is open a issue to say "hey we found a vuln, any PGP pubkey i can trust". If they did not provided after 14 days, go to step 4b. If they provided, go to step 3. 3. Contact with the provider and tell them what this vulnerability is, and how to fix it. Now, it's provider's responsibility to track down the bug fix flow. If they fixed it, delivered it, and told you their customers are all safe now, go to step 4a. If anything else happened (e.g they refused and think this is not a bug), or 90 days passed, whichever comes first, go to step 4b. 4. Finally: 4a. In this case, vendor fixed everything, patches should have been delivered, so whatever those vendor thinks about, you can just write a blog and says "i found a vulnerability in some software, here is the PoC". If you have a CVE number, congrats, now you can write an article about it. Now things are all done, and you can hunt next bug if you want. 4b. In this case, either vendor does not want to fix this bug, they failed to fix this bug in time, they failed to manage their software in time, or they just don't want to give a thing about you. This is the vendor's failure, not yours. So now you can write a blog and says 'here is a 0 day, try it if you want, have fun'. So this is a general ruleset of how we do things. The word, "Productive", especially when it is used to describe doing a job very quick, is sometimes in contradiction of our primary object. We are fuzzing and digging for vulnerabilities to *make users safer*, instead of *being productive*. To protect users, protect ourselves, and protect everyone from being attacked by evil maids, we (responsible security researchers) all agree following this rule, to ensure everyone can make profit from finding vulnerabilities. If I failed to tell you what is a responsible disclosure, search it on Wikipedia. Most teams are following this rule, including Project Zero from Google, MSRC, Amazon's bug bounty, BugCrowd, and thousands of other platforms/teams. Let's go back to the topic: Why I think those people are gangsters? 1. They directly send the full exploit, not even a simple PoC. This is far beyond the basic consensus. Once they made that, all rules above is no longer suitable, because they are just responsible security researchers. I don't think they deserve any CVE numbers, or any other vulnerability program's credit, except for an warrant from FBI, or China's MPS, since this is simply a criminal behavior. 2. Closing an issue does not mean ending an talk. Signal's team clearly said they should go to the forum, but they are simply not following the rule. Signal also have a bounty e-mail (https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007320791-Ho...), but clearly those gangsters just ignored it, or they will fill their mailbox with PGP signatures. 3. They claims this is a vulnerability, but they are just not treating it as a vulnerability, since they simply did not think releasing PoC is a risk for users - fun fact, security for users is their weapon for all articles they have published, including to the bleeping computers (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/removal-notic...). 4. In a private Chinese group, one of the author's followers commented on this event: "They should just use V2Ray for that", and the author replied with agreement: "Why build your own software instead of using good old ones?". I believe this is enough for me to believe they are not having a good faith to Signal, or users of Signal. Let's leave there and find more vulnerabilities of GFW, instead of Signal. This is just a amusing joke, presented to you by some V2Ray authors, to propaganda their own software. |