sean@donelan.com (Sean Donelan) writes:
What even stranger about the Iraqi state provider Uruklink.net is the DNS servers are now self-identifying with earlier (with known bugs) versions of BIND. Last week the Uruklink name server 62.145.94.1 was running 8.2.2-P5, but now is running 8.1.2. ...
at http://www.isc.org/products/BIND/bind-security.html we see: Name: "BIND: Remote Execution of Code" [Added 11.12.2002] Versions affected: BIND 4.9.5 to 4.9.10 BIND 8.1, 8.2 to 8.2.6, 8.3.0 to 8.3.3 Severity: SERIOUS Exploitable: Remotely Type: Possibility to execute arbitrary code. Description: When constructing a response containing SIG records a incorrect space allows a write buffer overflow. It is then possible to execute code with the privileges of named. the list goes on. i'm sure several folks will use this as an opportunity to hawk their own alternative non-BIND DNS solution, i wish you well except plz change the Subject: header on your reply since what i really want to talk about is: how to get people to upgrade their software when defects are found. sending out announcements through CERT and the bind-announce m/l isn't working. so here's a proposal. we (speaking for ISC here) could add a config option (default to OFF) to make bind send some kind of registration packet at boot time, containing an e-mail address for a technical contact for that server, and perhaps its hostname as well. the destination would be configurable, and the format would be open, and we would include in the distribution a tool capable of catching these. any campus/WAN admin who wanted to run their own "BIND registration system" could do so. anyone who wanted to simply config their server to send registration data to ISC could do so. for data received at ISC, we'd (a) keep it completely private other than public statistics, (b) clean it of obvious trash (some people will sent registration data for president@whitehouse.gov just for fun; we know that), and (c) use the contact information only in the event that a security defect discovered in that version. remember, the default would be OFF. given such a feature, whose default was OFF, would anyone here who uses BIND stop using it out of protest? if so plz answer publically (on nanog). given such a feature, would anyone here create their own registration system so they had their own database of local BIND instances on their campus/WAN, or would anyone here config their servers to send registration data to ISC? if so plz answer privately (i'll summarize to the list.) -- Paul Vixie