Date: Wed, 29 May 2013 14:22:04 +0100
From: James Condron <james@...o-internet.org.uk>
To: Julius Kivimäki <julius.kivimaki@...il.com>
Cc: "full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk" <full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk>
Subject: Re: PayPal.com XSS Vulnerability

Ah, but then don't forget that in a contract (which this most certainly is not- but the parallels are there) ambiguity benefits the party which didn't draft the document.

If its reasonable to infer a payment, and reasonable to fail to infer an age range, I think its reasonable to get paid for it.

I guess the email from ebay sorta makes it all moot anyway.

On 29 May 2013, at 13:33, Julius Kivimäki <julius.kivimaki@...il.com> wrote:

> Well, they don't exactly state that they're going to pay you either.
> 
> 
> 2013/5/29 Źmicier Januszkiewicz <gauri@....by>
> 
>> Hmm, interesting.
>> 
>> For some reason I fail to find the mentioned "age requirements" at the
>> official bug bounty page located at
>> https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/security/reporting-security-issues
>> Am I looking in the wrong direction? Can someone please point to where
>> this is written?
>> 
>> With kind regards,
>> Z.
>> 
>> 
>> 2013/5/29 Robert Kugler <robert.kugler10@...il.com>
>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 2013/5/29 Jeffrey Walton <noloader@...il.com>
>>> 
>>>> On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 12:38 PM, Robert Kugler
>>>> <robert.kugler10@...il.com> wrote:
>>>>> Hello all!
>>>>> 
>>>>> I'm Robert Kugler a 17 years old German student who's interested in
>>>> securing
>>>>> computer systems.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I would like to warn you that PayPal.com is vulnerable to a Cross-Site
>>>>> Scripting vulnerability!
>>>>> PayPal Inc. is running a bug bounty program for professional security
>>>>> researchers.
>>>>> 
>>>>> ...
>>>>> Unfortunately PayPal disqualified me from receiving any bounty payment
>>>>> because of being 17 years old...
>>>>> 
>>>>> ...
>>>>> I don’t want to allege PayPal a kind of bug bounty cost saving, but
>>>> it’s not
>>>>> the best idea when you're interested in motivated security
>>>> researchers...
>>>> Fortunately Microsoft and Firefox took a more reasonable positions for
>>>> the bugs you discovered with their products.
>>>> 
>>>> PCWorld and MSN picked up the story:
>>>> 
>>>> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2039940/paypal-denies-teenager-reward-for-finding-website-bug.html
>>>> and
>>>> http://now.msn.com/paypal-denies-reward-to-robert-kugler-teen-who-found-bug-in-code
>>>> .
>>>> It is now news worthy to Wikipedia, where it will live forever under
>>>> Criticisms (unfortunately, it appears PayPal does a lot of
>>>> questionable things so its just one of a long list).
>>>> 
>>>> Jeff
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Today I received an email from PayPal Site Security:
>>> 
>>> "Hi Robert,
>>> 
>>> We appreciate your research efforts and we are sorry that our
>>> age requirements restrict you from participating in our Bug Bounty Program.
>>> With regards to your specific bug submission, we should have also mentioned
>>> that the vulnerability you submitted was previously reported by another
>>> researcher and we are already actively fixing the issue. We hope that you
>>> understand that bugs that have previously been reported to us are not
>>> eligible for payment as we must honor the original researcher that provided
>>> the vulnerability.
>>> 
>>> I would also mention that in general, PayPal has been a consistent
>>> supporter of what is known as “responsible disclosure”.  That is, ensuring
>>> that a company has a reasonable amount of time to fix a bug from
>>> notification to public disclosure.  This allows the company to fix the bug,
>>> so that criminals cannot use that knowledge to exploit it, but still gives
>>> the researchers the ability to draw attention to their skills and
>>> experience.  When researchers go down the “full disclosure” path, it then
>>> puts us in a race with criminals who may successfully use the vulnerability
>>> you found to victimize our customers.  We do not support the full
>>> disclosure methodology, precisely because it puts real people at
>>> unnecessary risk. We hope you keep that in mind when doing future research.
>>> 
>>> We acknowledge that PayPal can do more to recognize younger security
>>> researchers around the world. As a first step, we would like you to be the
>>> first security researcher in the history of our program to receive an
>>> official "Letter of Recognition" from our Chief Information Security
>>> Officer Michael Barrett (attached, will follow up with a signed copy
>>> tomorrow). We truly appreciate your contribution to helping keep PayPal
>>> secure for our customers and we will continue to explore other ways that we
>>> can we provide alternate recognition for younger researchers.
>>> 
>>> We'd welcome the chance to explain this all to you first hand over the
>>> phone, please email us at this address with a number and good time to reach
>>> you and we’d be happy to follow-up.
>>> 
>>> Thank you,
>>> PayPal Site Security"
>>> 
>>> It's still curious that they only mentioned the first researcher who
>>> previously found the bug after all the media attention...Nevertheless I
>>> appreciate their intentions to acknowledge also younger security
>>> researchers, it's a step in the right direction!!
>>> 
>>> Best regards,
>>> 
>>> Robert Kugler
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
>>> Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
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>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
>> Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
>> Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/
>> 
> _______________________________________________
> Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
> Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
> Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/

_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
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