[development] Certify Drupal for use in Government (US) Projects

[Drupal Developer]

Don't get me wrong. Nobody talking here about stupidity.
All what I meant is all developers in the community would like to have 
at least a clue about what security issues are discovered.
And deal with them on temporary basis on they own sites until final 
solution will be published.
I'm not talking about detail explanation of what and how reported 
security issue can harm Drupal site. But may be some clue in order to 
deal with it.
Or may be we need some special procedure to subscribe to such information.
But I'm sure that many of us would like to know what is going on with 
fresh security discoveries.


Victor Kane wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 12:40 AM, Drupal Developer <lapurd at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Wow, I would like everybody to notice something right here.
>>
>> In the message I reply to, Matt Farina said:
>>
>> "The security team handles things in a tight way. When something is reported
>> it's not opened up to the world. If the issue is valid it's handled behind
>> closed doors until a fix and advisory is sent out." /end of citation/
>>
>> I thought that Drupal is an open community of open source developers working
>> under GPL license.
>> Does it mean that ALL issues have to be openly reported to all community for
>> everybody to review?
>> Don't you all think that handling security issues behind closed doors until
>> a fix and advisory will be sent out is sound  more like corporate way of
>> thinking on a way to develop something proprietary?
>
> It's a GPL license, that's why I am sure the security team is open to
> anyone who is interested in helping out on that very important front.
>
> But GPL doesn't mean that we have to be stupid as a community, and
> advertise exploits before a fix can be made and people given a chance
> to have a security fix to use.
>
> Just as the corporate world, as we are finding out all over the world
> these days, certainly has no "monopoly over intelligence", or over
> doing what's best for all, open source communities can be smart too.
>
> There's nothing proprietary about that. Quite the opposite, in fact:
> defending ourselves against conspiracies to wreak havoc certainly has
> to be the right of open source communities,
>
> Victor Kane
> http://awebfactory.com.ar
>
>> I'm very concern about that and invite everybody to collaborate on this one.
>>
>> Does Matt represent a real situation at this matter in Drupal development
>> community?
>> If not, then I'm sure that many people would like to know exactly what the
>> process is for handling security issues from the moment they have been
>> reported?
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Alex
>>
>>
>> matt at mattfarina.com wrote:
>>> Jon,
>>>
>>> Thanks for your interest in this. I'm interested in this as well.
>>>
>>> Some of their concerns seem to be over some misconceptions that might help
>>> to be cleared up.
>>>
>>> Someone correct me if I'm wrong but drupal 4.0 was 10 major releases ago.
>>> 100 + advisories over 10 major releases isn't as many as the 3 which the
>>> numbering might look like. Before drupal 5 the major releases were point
>>> releases and not full number releases. On top of that, the security
>>> advisories cover contributed modules and have included other libraries used
>>> by drupal modules, such as getID3.
>>>
>>> The security team handles things in a tight way. When something is
>>> reported it's not opened up to the world. If the issue is valid it's handled
>>> behind closed doors until a fix and advisory is sent out. Those advisories
>>> come out on Wednesdays so they can immediately be acted on.
>>>
>>> I would be very curious as to what it would take to certification as well
>>> as their concerns.
>>>
>>> Matt
>>>
>>> Quoting Jon Saints <saintsjd at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>> On a recent project for the US government, half way through the
>>>> development
>>>> process, our work was stopped by a government security review which said
>>>> that Drupal (and open source software in general) is not suitable for use
>>>> in
>>>> government projects that house personal information due to security
>>>> concerns.
>>>>
>>>> Because our project had been approved by higher ups within the
>>>> department,
>>>> we were paid for our work up to that point and asked to stop.  Now, its
>>>> up
>>>> to the tax payers to foot a much larger bill for other developers to
>>>> implement a proprietary and more "secure" (or secretive) solution.
>>>>
>>>> The "transparency" of the Drupal project was one of the government's big
>>>> objections.  In their eyes, disclosing and fixing securit holes in a
>>>> timely
>>>> manner, is not the same thing as security.  They pointed out the 100+
>>>> security disclosures since drupal 4.0 as a reason that the system could
>>>> not
>>>> be used.  We noted that all these disclosures where quickly addressed,
>>>> but
>>>> that did not seem to matter.
>>>>
>>>> I notice other governments around the world are using Drupal with great
>>>> success and savings to citizens:
>>>> http://buytaert.net/new-zealand-government-using-drupal
>>>>
>>>> The standards we would need to meet with drupal are:
>>>> http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SMA/fisma/index.html
>>>>
>>>> My questions are the following:
>>>>  - Have any other developers run into this cerfication problem before?
>>>>  - Is anyone in the drupal community currently working to get Drupal
>>>> certified for use in US Government projects?
>>>>  - Does anyone know exactly what cerfication would require from a
>>>> development standpoint?
>>>>
>>>> If there is interest in investigating this type of certification further,
>>>> let me know. NIST, the department that certifies software, is just down
>>>> the
>>>> road from me.  I could go investigate further.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>> Jon
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