alt Hacker NewsWe are talking about drivers for devices from the last century which nobody even uses anymore. This isn't "shining light" on important pre-existing issues that have been ignored for too long or something, it isn't helping.
The only problem here, if any, is the false sense of confidence given by LLMs to people who have no business touching kernel code.
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If you only need 100 Mbps the 3Com 3c905 series of PCI Ethernet cards are still some of the most reliable hardware you can put into your industrial PC that still has PCI slots. ISDN and ax25 are still really useful if you have low-bandwidth but low-latency needs like sensor data.
Now those are niche use cases, but they do exist. However, what’s wrong with removing insecure code for these niche cases? Either someone will step up to actually maintain it, or newer versions of the kernel will be leaner and have less historical cruft.
You don’t see any issue with insecure drivers for obsolete hardware, exactly the kind of thing that is most prevalent in an industrial control type applications?
Stuxnet should have been a wakeup call to everyone: the boring, obsolete, “safe because nobody browses TikTok on it” hardware is exactly the highest risk.
If the LLMs run by these people are turning up real bugs then their confidence in touching kernel code seems pretty earned, imo.
If they are drivers for devices from the last century which nobody even uses anymore why keep them in the kernel when they, as shown by LLMs, are potential sources of security vulnerabilities? Seems more logical to take the action being taken and remove them.