Monetizing bugs may end up encouraging the creation of insidious, underhanded bugs explicitly so that bounties can later be claimed by other parties supposedly at arms length.
All monthly Android security bulletins from this year have critical CVEs in the media system.
EDIT: VLC was the third-highest ranked one from a survey on what software to study, with the two already reviewed ones (KeePass and Apache HTTPD) being above it.
It's more multinational now, but still primarily a European project.
Realistically they are not going to fund an American project. I know the Internet makes "country" semi-obsolete (at least when describing software), countries themselves still care a lot about that.
also has lua scripting support https://mpv.io/manual/stable/#lua-scripting
> The purpose of the procedure is to provide the European institutions with open source software projects or libraries that have been properly screened for potential vulnerabilities;
I don't think bug bounty is a substitute for certification. And it benefits the most if is a long-run with accumulating rewards.
making it short term with only one payout will only attract people with automated tools for the initial period. Then code will get "certified" and forgotten. It all seems wrong. Hopefully it is just bad wording on the official PR.
Neither does the EU: by extending the free software security audit programme (FOSSA)[...]. Meaning: there already is an audit, certification and audit being synonymous for this purpose.
> making it short term
This is a trial run, to be extended later: we are trialing the VLC application on a bug bounty program
> with only one payout
There will be as many payouts as security-relevant bugs are found: Rewards may range from $100 up to $3,000.
> will only attract people with automated tools
This is a private trial, where people with automated tools submitting low-impact bugs will presumably not be invited: We invite hackers and bounty hunters (aka researchers) based on a variety of factors - reputation, previous track record (high quality reports)
> Then code will get "certified" and forgotten.
This is VLC, one of the most-used open source programs. How will code merged into the product be forgotten?
> It all seems wrong.
Indeed...
> Hopefully it is just bad wording on the official PR.
I think the problem is more likely caused by a complete lack of reading skills.
Nor does certification preclude the need for a BB program. These are very different schemes with very different outcomes.
I wouldn't be surprised though if EU-centric communities were more likely to know/care about this initiative (and thus voted), putting 2 european projects in the top 3.
The internet is a way to share information very fast and very cheap, but that's it. There are still countless of other dimensions that are more important, and they are often organized by countries.
Economic welfare of all regions and decentralized power over/knowledge about infrastructure such as software is important. It is very much not irrelevant whether a project is developed in Europa, China, USA, India or Russia.
I expect authorities to take into account where the majority of the development is happening. They should do that.
EDIT: Replaced the wrong word 'fairwell' with 'welfare'.
> Economic fairwell of all regions
You're looking for the word 'welfare' here, by the way.
Then, it's not paranoia.