[sally_glance]

To me the phrasing seems objective. Making your binaries available to the public is good (though source would be better).

Replace [firmware] with [random popular GitHub repo] and nobody would blink. Replace [firmware] with [customer email address] and it would be a legal case. Differentiating here is important.

[opello]

I think it fails to be objective because of the repetition. It's an open S3 bucket. No need to state that no authentication was required, it's already open. It's not about economy of writing but the repetition emphasizes the point, elevating the perceived significance to the author or that the author wants the reader to take away.

Furthermore, the repeated use of every when discussing the breadth of access seems like it would easily fall into the "absolutes are absolutely wrong" way of thinking. At least without some careful auditing it seems like another narrative flourish to marvel at this treasure trove (candy store) of firmware images that has been left without adequate protection. But it seems like most here agree that such protection is without merit, so why does it warrant this emphasis? I'm only left with the possible thought that the author considered it significant.

[pacifika]

If someone DDOSes an open s3 bucket they’ll get a huge bill. If there is something in front of it, they might not.

[wkat4242]

An 'open S3 bucket' sounds really bad. If it were posted on an HTTPS site without authentication, like the firmware for most devices, it wouldn't sound so bad.

Sure an open bucket is bad, if it's stuff you weren't planning on sharing with the whole world anyway.

[necovek]

Since firmware is supposed to be accessible to users worldwide, making it easier to get it is good.

But how is an open, read-only S3 bucket worse than a read-only HTTPS site hosting exactly the same data?

The only thing I can see is that it is much easier to make it writeable by accident (for HTTPS web site or API, you need quite some implementation effort).

[wkat4242]

No wait I agree with you. I think it is bad framing as "S3 open bucket" when people would totally understand an open website :)

[locknitpicker]

> An 'open S3 bucket' sounds really bad.

Only to gullible, clueless types.

Full blown production SPAs are served straight from public access S3 buckets. The only hard requirement is that the S3 bucket enforces read-only access through HTTPS. That's it.

Let's flip it the other way around and make it a thought experiment: what requirement do you think you're fulfilling by enforcing any sort of access restriction?

When you feel compelled to shit on a design trait, the very least you should do is spend a couple of minutes thinking about what problem it solves and what are the constraints.

[wkat4242]

No I agree with you. I think it is bad framing as "S3 open bucket" when people would totally understand an open website :)

I'm not shitting on anything except the wording in the article.

I guess I didn't word it clearly.

In our company we don't really serve directly from open buckets but through cloudfront. Though this is more because we are afraid of buckets marked open by mistake so they are generally not allowed. But I agree there's nothing bad about it. I just meant it sounds much worse (at least to someone in cybersec like me) and I don't like the effect used as such in the article.

[jacquesm]

No, it clearly has a gloating tone to it. 'A reverse engineer's candy store' is clearly meant as a slur.

When in fact TP-Link is doing the right thing with keeping older versions available. So this risks some higher up there thinking 'fuck it, we can't win, might as well close it all off'.

[evilsocket]

I just meant that it was very convenient to have the firmware images there on S3, nothing else :D Many vendors make the process of even just obtaining a copy of the firmware much harder than that, so for once I was glad it has been much easier. Also being able to bindiff two adjacent versions of the same firmware is great ... all in all I was just expressing my happiness :D