Subject: [Anima-bootstrap] minor point about malware

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2017 09:56:15 -0500

Max, we write:

>   In a "trust on first use" model, where
>   this threat is ignored, the attacker has an opportunity to install a
>   persistent malware component.

I wonder if we have confounded two things in this statement.
The process by which the pledge trusts the network operator (and therefore
provide super-user control and configuratoin credentials to the network) with
the process by which the pledge trusts new firmware updates.

I can see that for many devices that do not have signed software updates,
if an operator has configuation control, then they also have software
update control.  Even in the context of signed updates, if the choice
of update to run includes ability to run an old version with an exploit
that malware is possible.

I'm not sure what I want to do about the above statement, I am just
uncomfortable that we may be confusing some less technical readers into
believing that we solve problems we are not (and probably can not).

--
Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>, Sandelman Software Works
 -= IPv6 IoT consulting =-