Hoi,
There are two conflicting approaches to vulnerabilities known to
"government"; vulnerabilities make government vulnerable and therefore they
need to be handled properly in code. The other approach is that a
vulnerability is a vector to attack.
When Mrs Coleman works for the WMF, it follows that when she learns
privately about vulnerabilities, they will be fixed discreetly. I am happy
with that. When she does not learn about vulnerabilities and does not know
about them either, nothing is different for us. When she actively knows
about vulnerabilities and vectors to attack MediaWiki and does not share it
with developers to fix them, she has a clear conflict of interest and
should seek another job.
For me a simple statement that she works for the Wikimedia Foundation and
will do everything in her power to make MediaWiki as good as it gets
suffices. Anything more will get us in paranoia territory, we should not go
there.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 2 November 2016 at 20:53, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
A similar thought crossed my mind regarding MediaWiki
software. I believe
that a number of USG agencies use MediaWiki, and that some of them use it
for classified purposes. This is a bit of a two-edged sword; I imagine that
they'd want to support the continued development of MediaWiki (which is
good for us) but there would be interesting questions about whether they'd
also want to introduce and/or keep open security vulnerabilities. I imagine
that WMF considered Victoria's government affiliations carefully during the
screening process, and I agree it would be nice to hear some clarifications
about how WMF can ensure that any potential conflicts of interest are
carefully managed.
My first instinct here is to welcome what looks like a person who's a good
fit for the job. Victoria would be far from the only person in WMF and the
Wikimedia community with ties to government agencies; I would treat this
hire with a similar level of care regarding conflicts of interest as we
would with any other appointment.
As a general practice, I would prefer declared and public potential
conflicts of interests to undisclosed conflicts of interest, and I would
suggest that someone being public with their affiliations and potential
conflicts should be treated respectfully while keeping an open mind to the
possibility that the conflicts may be manageable. In Victoria's case, I
would encourage assuming good faith while asking appropriate questions; I
feel that it's reasonable for the community to ask some questions to make
sure that WMF did in fact consider these issues during the candidate
selection process. Perhaps Victoria will have an office hour where the
community can have a Q&A with her on these and many other questions that
people are likely to have.
Regards,
Pine
Pine
On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 12:25 PM, James Salsman <jsalsman(a)gmail.com> wrote:
It's great that the CTO position was filled.
The blog announcement's biography omitted these details:
"As Director for Security Initiatives for Intel’s Digital Enterprise
Group [Victoria Coleman] was responsible for defining the company’s
security technology roadmap and translating it to product delivery.
During this time, she was instrumental in bringing Intel’s LaGrande
Technology across the server processor and chipset product line.
Victoria has also had roles as the Director of the Trusted Platform
Laboratory and the Trust and Manageability Laboratory in Intel's
Corporate Technology Group... In 1995 she authored the landmark UK
Ministry of Defence DefStan 00-56 which created the legal framework
for the safety of programmable electronic systems procurement by the
MoD . In 2004, she founded the Cybersecurity Research Center on behalf
of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security."
Source:
http://www.potomacinstitute.org/fellows/2138-the-potomac-
institute-welcomes-senior-fellow-victoria-coleman-2
Is Victoria willing to comment on
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/01/nsa_exploit_of.html
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:
Jimbo_Wales/Archive_208&oldid=725820016#Massive_expansion_
of_National_Security_Letters
please?
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