| > With skill, and usually not consistently and systematically. How do you know? If the people who like to crow about vulnerabilities aren't doing it, it doesn't mean that the people who are actually in a position to exploit them systematically and effectively aren't doing it. Those embargoes have always been dangerous, because they create a false sense of security. But, as you point out... > With AI, anyone can do this to any software. Yep. Even if it hadn't been true before, it's clear that now you just have to assume that everybody relevant will immediately recognize the security impact of any patch that gets published. That includes both bugs fixed and bugs introduced. ... and as the AI gets better, you're going to have to assume that you don't even have to publish a patch. Or source code. Within way less time than it's going to take people to admit it and adjust, any vulnerability in any software available for inspection is going to be instant public knowledge. Or at least public among anybody who matters. |
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| ▲ | awesome_dude 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's correlation, not causation. It could equally be argued that the AI slop that's being produced makes for a lot more vulnerabilities being shipped. The bigger target makes for the easier discovery. | | |
| ▲ | tempestn 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | But don't we know that some of the vulnerabilities being discovered predate ai coding? | | |
| ▲ | awesome_dude 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Certainly, and some discoveries have been attributed to AI (I was reading that mozilla firefox were praising mythos recently) But that's not accounting for all of the discoveries, not at all. I've also seen the npm people talking about the surge in AI code overwhelming the ability to properly review what's being distributed, and a large number of vulnerabilities being attributed to that |
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| ▲ | jefftk 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's likely varies enormously between projects. Linux remains extremely low in slop, and the vulnerabilities being fixed are quite old, so it's improving. Many vibe coded projects are very sloppy, and are adding a lot of vulnerabilities. Total number of vulnerabilities likely goes up over time weighting all projects equally, but goes down over time weighting by usage. | | |
| ▲ | awesome_dude 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I mean - you're spot on - which is why I'd be more inclined to ask for actual metrics rather than feels/vibes, and I'd be very clear that the information I was basing my thinking on has enormous pitfalls. This is the basis for "correlation points to possibly fertile grounds for an investigation" |
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| ▲ | ragall 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > That's correlation, not causation. Pragmatically, correlation *is* evidence of causation in favour of the best explanation, until somebody finds a better explanation. > It could equally be argued that the AI slop that's being produced makes for a lot more vulnerabilities being shipped. This is also true, and does not exclude the other, because for the moment the vast majority of production software in the world (and therefore the bulk of enticing targets) was written before AI. If LLM software will become prevalent in commercial setups, then LLM-generated code will eventually become the majority of targets. | | |
| ▲ | awesome_dude 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Pragmatically, correlation is evidence of causation in favour of the best explanation, until somebody finds a better explanation. Uh, no. Correlation is only ever one thing - cause for investigation. Everything based on correlation alone is speculation. You can speculate all you like, I have zero issue with that, but that's best prefaced with "I guess" edit: Science captures this perfectly, and people misunderstand this so fundamentally that there is a massive debate where people who think they are "pro science" argue this so badly with theists that they completely hoist themselves with their own petard. Science uses the term "theory" because all of our understanding is based on "available data" - and science biggest contribution to humanity is that it accepts that the current/leading THEORY can and will be retracted if there is compelling data discovered that demonstrates a falsehood. So - because I know this is coming - yes science is willing to accept some correlation - BUT it's labelled "theory" or "statistically significant" because science is clear that if other data arises then that idea will need to be revisited. | | |
| ▲ | ragall 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Very often you only have limited time for investigation and you have to act now. Action is almost always based on educated guesses. | | |
| ▲ | awesome_dude 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | You have moved from "We know" to "We have an educated guess" which is the right way to couch things. However I wanted to also point out that relying only on educated guesses can lead us into a position where we are "papering over the cracks" or "addressing the symptoms", not the "underlying cause" Yes, sometimes that's all that can be done, but, also, sometimes it can be more damaging than the cause itself (thinking in terms of the cause continuing to fester away, whilst we think it's 'solved') | | |
| ▲ | ragall 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > You have moved from "We know" to "We have an educated guess" No. You kept blabbering about "science" when most uses of knowledge are not about science. The original topic was also definitely not "science": it was about having a reasonable opinion about whether, empirically, the rate of discovery of vulnerabilities is increasing or not. | | |
| ▲ | awesome_dude 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Trying to reframe this as 'not science' after being caught on a logical fallacy doesn't change the record. You started with a definitive claim ('We know') to shut down a question. When challenged on the lack of causation, you pivoted to 'educated guesses.' My point remains: if we misattribute the cause of the rising vulnerability rate (discovery vs. creation), our 'educated guesses' will lead to solutions that address the symptoms while the underlying problem continues to fester. Calling precision 'blabbering' is exactly how we end up with the 'false sense of security' mentioned earlier. Exhibit A: ragall 2 hours ago | root | parent | prev | next [–] > How do you know? We know because we could see the effects of the average rate of vulnerabilities discovery and exploitation, and it's definitely going up very fast. Until recently, vulnerabilities were relatively hard to find, and finding them was done by a very restricted group of people world-wide, which made them quite valuable. Not any more. Exhibit B: ragall 2 hours ago | root | parent | next [–] Very often you only have limited time for investigation and you have to act now. Action is almost always based on educated guesses.
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