CVE ID Syntax - Seeking Suggestions for Outreach

["Steven M. Christey" <coley@mitre.org>]

All,

In recent months, MITRE has been working on public communications for
the CVE ID syntax change.  We would like suggestions from the
Editorial Board about how to further expand our outreach and educate
the public.

1) We published more detailed technical guidance for implementers to
    find and address issues related to the syntax change:

        http://cve.mitre.org/cve/identifiers/tech-guidance.html

    This page includes some extensive testing data so that
    implementations can have confidence that they have sufficiently
    addressed the ID syntax.  For example, we have lists of dozens of
    valid identifiers that could indicate parsing issues (such as
    CVE-2014-2147483648 for triggering 32-bit representation problems),
    and hundreds of invalid identifiers, some of which were drawn
    directly from real-world requests to the CVE web site.

2) We have also been gathering contact information for CVE-compatible
    vendors, and we expect to email them shortly.  However, it's likely
    that many of our contacts are from the marketing side of the
    organization, so we might not always reach the right technical
    people.

3) We continue to periodically remind the public of the syntax change
    through the cve-announce mailing list, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

4) We have been making syntax-related code changes to our own web
    sites and internal processes.  For example,
    http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2014-1012 now
    provides a custom page that educates consumers about potential
    truncation problems and the ID protection block, and
    http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2014-a1012
    provides more specific error messages when CVE IDs are malformed.

5) We have mentioned or focused on the syntax in talks that we've
    given, especially in the last year, and will continue to do so.  We
    are also considering offering a webinar.

Despite these efforts, there are indications that we are not reaching
everybody who needs to handle the change, especially the developers of
CVE-compatible or CVE-using products.

There also seems to be little press interest, as the syntax change is
probably regarded as "old news."

We would like suggestions from the Board about how we can reach the
right people.

For example:

* Are there Board members who are willing to announce the change
   and/or post educational material to their customer base?  If so,
   what form would be the most useful - PowerPoint slides, a web page,
   newsletter, webinar, etc.?

* Would it be effective for us to encourage implementers to announce
   when they have achieved "compliance" with the new syntax, and then
   publicize these vendors?  Would this be useful in fostering some
   competiveness to drive organizations to a resolution?

* Are there ways that we can help customers to directly engage with
   their vendors to ensure that the issues are addressed?  We have not
   yet directly emphasized customers in our outreach, but they might be
   the most effective in contacting the right people within the vendors
   and getting resolution.

Any other ideas or suggestions are welcome and encouraged!

If there is sufficient interest or need, we could have another
Editorial Board teleconference that is focused on this topic.


Thank you!

- Steve